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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 Topic
ACCOUNTABILITY
EFFECTIVENESS
From the beginning, the trustees
of the Corporation of 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'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, I think,
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 have shaped the
performance of the Corporation's
presidents, trustees and staff
over close to a century.
Some transcriptions from these
records: the public speeches,
private conversations in Board
meetings, and writings of past
and present Corporation presidents
on these topics follow.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Accountability
Avoidance
of Conflict of Interest
- Frederick
P. Keppel: 1935
Foundations
and Public Opinion/Policy
Transparency
EFFECTIVENESS
Effectiveness
Fiscal
Prudence
Flexibility
Perpetuity
- Andrew
Carnegie: 1911
- James
R. Angell: 1921
- Vartan
Gregorian: 2003
Living
up to Andrew Carnegie's challenge:
by President
Philanthropy
At Carnegie under Vartan Gregorian
1
Tagline on the Foundation
Center site as of December 21,
2004.
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