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Philanthropy
at Carnegie Corporation:
Vision
and Practice
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Living
Up to Andrew Carnegie's Challenge:
Close to a Century of Introspection,
Dialogue and Innovation
By Carnegie President
From the beginning, the trustees of
the Carnegie Corporation of New York
took very seriously the challenge and
opportunity with which Andrew Carnegie
had presented them. Their response to
Carnegie's "Deed
of Gift," which was included
in the notes of the first Board meeting
was:
"The
Trustees realize that the execution
of the trust will involve many difficulties
of judgment and labors of administration,
and they assume their obligation in
the hope, and with the intent, to
perform their duties faithfully, in
a manner adequate to the great purpose
of the trust, and in the disinterested
public spirit which has moved the
founder of the trust, to this great
benefaction."
That, over the past ninety three years,
the Corporation's presidents, trustees
and have performed their duties effectively,
accountably and in a manner more than
"adequate to the great purpose of the
trust" is evident in the results of
its grants and grantees, perhaps most
famously:
- "An
American Dilemna: The Negro Problem
and American Democracy" - the Corporation-funded
Gunnar Mydal study of race relations
cited in the Supreme Court's 1954
Brown Vs. Board of Education decision.
- The
Corporation-funded studies which
led to the formation of both the
Brookings
Institution and Children's
Television Workshop (now Sesame
Workshop).
- The
Corporation's financing of the Carnegie
Commission on Higher Education,
whose work led to the formation
of the Federal Pell Grants program.
- TIAA
(now TIAA-CREF) and the Educational
Testing Service, both of which were
established (or partially established)
with Corporation funding.
- The
Corporation's establishment of the
Foundation
Center "helping
grantseekers succeed, helping grantmakers
make a difference."1
In recent years, continuing in the
Corporation's tradition of choosing
to address complex, difficult and
timely issues affecting our national
life, we have undertaken several
major initiatives, including Schools
for a New Society (SNS), a long-term,
$60 million initiative aimed at
redesigning American high schools,
initially in seven cities across
the U.S., by involving educators,
parents, community leaders and business
in creating schools that will prepare
all students to participate in a
knowledge-based economy. This is
a five-year commitment on the part
of the Corporation, with the participation
of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,
that focuses on reforming whole
school systems in these cities-not
just individual schools-so that
a high-quality education and equitable
resources are available to all students.
Another initiative, Teachers
for a New Era (TNE), is encouraging
bold reforms in current teacher
education models; it will provide
matching grants up to $5 million
for a period of five years to selected
institutions and focuses on three
design principles: Research evidence
must ultimately demonstrate whether
children have experienced learning
gains as a result of the work of
teachers who are graduates of the
teacher-preparation program; full
engagement of arts and sciences
faculty is required in the education
of prospective teachers as well
as ongoing collaboration between
university arts and sciences faculty
with school of education faculty;
and a view of education as an academically
taught clinical practice is required,
one which includes close cooperation
between colleges of education and
participating schools; master teachers
as clinical faculty in colleges
of education; and two-year residencies
for beginning teachers.
The Corporation has also been in
the forefront of support for campaign
finance reform, encouraging voter
and civic education and in strengthening
democratic institutions, including
the electoral process; for example,
noting the malfunctioning voting
mechanisms that nearly crippled
the 2000 Bush-Gore election, the
presidents of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and Caltech
approached the Corporation to fund
a collaborative project of their
institutions aimed at developing
an easy-to-use, reliable, affordable
and secure voting machine.
Anticipating the 2000 election helped
spur the Corporation in another
direction, as well: the foundation's
Russia Initiative was an 18-month-long
endeavor with the goal of informing
the candidates and the public about
the short- and long-term impact
that rapid, often massive changes
taking place in Russia might have
on both the U.S. and the wider global
community. The initiative brought
together more than 100 Russian and
American scholars in task forces
to discuss and analyze issues relating
to Russia's security, economy, democratization,
social cohesion and state building.
The result was a number of reports
and a documentary video called Russia:
Facing the Future, which, along
with a companion volume of the same
name, called for a mature reengagement
between the U.S. and Russia in the
post-Cold-War world.
Higher Education in the Former
Soviet Union is another international
undertaking, this one aimed at strengthening
higher education in Russia and other
former Soviet states, with a specific
emphasis on the social sciences
and the humanities. At the heart
of this grantmaking activity are
Centers for Advanced Study and Education
(CASEs), which serve as umbrellas
for stimulating research and publications
through fellowships, conferences,
travel grants, library support,
access to the Internet and connections
to Western academic communities.
To date, nine CASEs have been established
by the Corporation, which is working
in cooperation with the MacArthur
Foundation, the Open Society Institute
(OSI) and the Russian Ministry of
Education. CASEs are an important
and innovative example of utilizing
what Joseph Nye, dean of the John
F. Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University has called
"soft power"-the ability to effect
change through attraction rather
than coercion. By supporting the
intellectual life of Russian scholars
and academics, and by forging close
ties between them and counterparts
at universities in the United States,
we are building strong, multi-dimensional
interrelationships that can only
contribute to the continuing development
of both nations, as well as to international
stability.
Internationally, the Corporation
has been working in Africa almost
since the foundation's inception.
Currently, our focus is on selected
countries in sub-Saharan Africa
and our grantmaking emphasizes strengthening
a number of African universities,
and on enhancing women's educational
opportunities at institutions of
higher education in Africa, as well
as on developing the capacity of
selected African public library
systems, all efforts aimed at contributing
toward national development.
A recent direction for the Corporation
has been the establishment, in 1999,
of the Carnegie Scholars program,
which resumed the Corporation's
historic support for individual
scholarship for the first time in
thirty years. (Under the previous
program, one notable scholar funded
by the Corporation was Robert Caro,
who used Corporation support to
help write his Pulitzer-Prize-winning
book, The Power Broker: Robert
Moses and the Fall of New York,
published by Vintage Books in 1975).
We resumed the program in harmony
with the spirit and concerns of
Andrew Carnegie, who believed so
deeply in the power of the individual
to change the world, and in knowledge
and scholarship as the tools that
humankind uses to bring about that
change. To date, we have awarded
67 fellowships.
The operating records of Carnegie
Corporation of New York - which
are available to the public in the
Carnegie Archives at Columbia University
- bear witness to the active introspection,
ongoing dialogue and continual innovations
in thinking about philanthropic
purpose, effectiveness and accountability
that led to the Corporation's decision
to invest its "social capital" both
in the studies and organizations
listed above and numerous other
worthies, and generally shaped the
performance of the Corporation's
presidents, trustees and staff over
close to a century.
Some transcriptions from these records:
public speeches, private conversations
in Board meetings, and writings
of past and present Corporation
presidents on these topics follow.
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Andrew
Carnegie
1st President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1911-1919
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Elihu
Root
2nd President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1919-1920
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James
R. Angell
3rd President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1920-1921
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Charles
Dollard
8th President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1948-1955
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John
Gardner
9th President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1955-1967
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Alan
Pifer
10th President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1965-1982 (Acting,
1965-1967)
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Vartan
Gregorian
12th President
of Carnegie
Corporation
of New York:
1997-Present
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Living
up to Andrew Carnegie's challenge:
by topic
Philanthropy
At Carnegie under Vartan Gregorian
1
Tagline on the Foundation
Center site as of December 21,
2004.
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