Endowment Books

Almost ten years after John Frohnmayer was canned as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, this book means as much or more than it ever did. This is not so much an autobiography than it is a manifesto of how rabid we should be about protecting out first amendment rights. It shows the politicization of art, and of free speach, and of how more and more we are having those rights eroded away in the name of our own safety. Frohnmayer details the struggles that he went through to try to keep the NEA alive when it could very well have fallen apart... he details the mistakes he made, and the fight that he fought. It was refreshing to hear the accounts of someone who believes something strongly, and yet admits candidly when he made mistakes, and how we can learn from them. He describes how he went into that job as a first amendment moderate, and came out a first amendment radical. And after reading it (beginning as a first amendment radical), I came out a first amendment extremist. This is a must read for anyone who cares a tiny bit for his or her rights in this country.

For civic activists, students of nonprofitdom, and practitioners, David Hammack's reader is an essential reading. He uniquely combines deep historical insight with a sensitivity to the concerns and interests of contemporary managers, citizens, and advocates.

Mary Elizabeth Garrett: Society and Philanthropy in the Gilded Age is the biography of a truly remarkable female philanthropist and activist, whose life and work spanned the Civil War, the difficult Reconstruction, the heady Gilded Age, and the Progressive Era of the early twentieth century. An intelligent and strong-willed woman barred by social custom from following in the footsteps of her railroad mogul father, she worked tirelessly to promote women's rights, applying her wealth and status to advance her egalitarian vision. She contributed endowments to the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine on two unprecedented conditions: that women by admitted on the same terms as men, and that the school be graduate level. A champion of advanced education for girls, and a supporter of women's suffrage, Mary Elizabeth Garrett was a genuine force for change and worthy of serving as an inspiration to girls women a century later. Highly recommended.

I cannot tell a lie!! I am very Biased in this review because the author is my Father. I Have not read this book but Knowing the author the way I did(Unfortunatly he passed away 10yrs ago),I bet it is wonderful

This large book, now in its eighth edition is a compiled list of grant awarding institutions that have a proven interest in making grants for libraries and information services. It includes some 1,600 granting organizations selected because libraries and information services are specifically stated as a type of organization they support, or because they have given out actual grants of $10,000 or more.

The granting organizations are broken down by state, and within states by name. Information supplied about each organization includes how much money they have, how much they give out, their stated purpose, fields of interest, types of support and any limitations (some organizations limit their giving to local areas, such as Boston).

There are quite a number of books written on how to apply for a grant, what should be included in your application, and so on. But after you get the application written, what do you do with it. To whom do you send it. This book is put together by The Foundation Center, a non-profit organization that was set up to assist other non-profits in their grant writing process. Their overall database includes over 78,000 grantmaking foundations.

This book has only those organizations making grants to libraries and information services extracted from that database. This obviously saves your time, and of course your money. At the $125 price, smaller organizations may be unwilling or even unable to spend that much for such a book. The price however, seems fair. This book is not going to sell in the quantities you would expect of a Harry Potter novel, and The Foundation Center has to recoup their costs.

What you are buying for the $125 is time (it would take you a very long time to find these organizations) and completeness (you would never find all of these organizations). The cost should be recovered in the first grant received from a source you never contacted before.

This book has information that you basically cannot do without if you are seeking grants.

Focused on the performance of poetry, with sections covering the major areas and readings from great poets by well known actors and writers (including Anthony Hopkins, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, David Schwimmer).

Philanthropy in America: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia, 3 Volumes by Dwight Burlingame (ABC-CLIO) Woven into the fabric of U.S. history, philanthropy has been an integral part of American life. Philanthropy in America-the first comprehensive treatment of the topic-examines America's remarkable history of charitable action from the early 1600s to the present day. The work was developed under the guidance of Dr. Dwight Burlingame, the nation's foremost expert on philanthropy, and represents a milestone in the study of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations in America.
This all-encompassing resource:
Is the first and only encyclopedia on the topic as a whole
Includes over 200 A-Z entries on individuals, organizations, events, theories, and legislation, with reference to works for further study
Features contributions from nearly 200 leading scholars from a wide variety of disciplines
Offers over 75 essential primary source documents, such as the Poor Laws of 1601 and the Filer Commission Report of 1975
Presents a philanthropic timeline, from the 1601 enactment of the Statute of Charitable Uses to the 1999 establishment of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Provides a deeper understanding and perspective of the role of philanthropy in the United States
This groundbreaking, illustrated work fills the long-felt need for a comprehensive encyclopedia on philanthropy in America. In accessible fashion, it introduces the reader to information and
ideas central to the study of philanthropy, making it a paramount resource for students, scholars, and anyone seeking a broad understanding of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in the United States.
Dwight F. Burlingame is professor of philanthropic studies and director of academic programs at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN. He is the author and editor of several works in the field of corporate citizenship, philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, and libraries.

Excerpt: Philanthropic and nonprofit studies have enjoyed a major growth spurt over the past twenty-five years in the United States, with recent increased attention around the globe. However, some still see the field as a marginal academic enterprise. With substantial contributions by many scholars in various disciplines and professional fields, philanthropic and nonprofit studies programs have given students and teachers alike a fresh perspective on critical issues in our society. Philanthropic studies instructors relate their material to broader cultural, historical, political, and economic themes. This integrative perspective is a defining element that encourages analytic skill and develops an intellectual, global view that emphasizes the complexity and thematic relationships of a civil society. The authors of the articles in this encyclopedia have made this objective central to their work in contributing to a liberal education.
In the mid-1990s, I had several conversations with my colleagues at Indiana University about the need foran encyclopedia of philanthropy. Those conversations usually ended with the conclusion that it would be an impossible task to get one's arms and mind around such a broad field. It wasn't until my friend and colleague in philanthropic studies at Indiana, David Smith, provided the sage advice that I should undertake this task as an opportunity to make a "significant" contribution to the field, that I decided to pursue the project. With support and encouragement from colleagues at the Center on Philanthropy and a former editor from ABC-CLIO, a contract was signed and work commenced.
Deciding what to include in this three-volume set was not an easy task, as philanthropic studies is a very broad field. To select the entries, I worked with an advisory committee composed of scholars, nonprofit practitioners, and educators. Final determination for what was included, however, was my responsibility. Volumes 1 and 2 include articles on notable people, events, and associations as well as on numerous other important topics in philanthropy. Volume 3 brings together original documents in the field.
More than 175 authors participated in the project. For the most part, the essays were written by well-known specialists in their chosen topical area. In a few cases, bright graduate students from the philanthropic studies or nonprofit management programs at Indiana University, Indianapolis, wrote entries.
Needless to say, thousands of significant individuals have contributed and are currently contributing to the history of giving, volunteering, and social action in the United States. Therefore, my inclusion of a historical figure is very selective and has been made on the basis of a representative type of those who have shaped the history of philanthropy, that is, the history of voluntary action (giving of time, treasure, and talent) intended for the public good. I was greatly assisted in this selection matter by a previous project, Notable American Philanthropists: Biographies of Giving and Volunteering (2002), which was directed by Robert T. Grimm Jr. and made possible by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Users may find more extensive philanthropic biographies of many of the people covered in this encyclopedia by consulting that work.
Organizations selected for inclusion are those most directly related to the philanthropic infrastructure of the field and its development over time. Needless to say, there is no attempt to include all philanthropic organizations or nonprofits. For profiles of current charitable nonprofits, readers are referred to GuideStar, available online at http://www.guidestar.org.
Contributors have attempted to introduce the reader to particular ideas and areas of study in philanthropy and have often included significant bibliographic references to allow the reader to further explore the topic under consideration.
In Volume 3, I endeavored to select the fundamental documents and excerpts that provided the foundation for the development of philanthropy and a non-profit sector in America. Again, it is important to note that this needed to be a selective representation, and the final decision of what to include was dictated by availability of material and subjective judgment. In addition to historical documents, I sought some representative works from literature that provided visions of what the state of philanthropy was or should have been within historical time frames. Even though the documents speak for themselves, I have included brief notes to provide a contextual guide for the reader.
Many historians have characterized the eleemosynary history of the United States as one of American exceptionalism and the individual quest for wealth. As my colleague Lawrence Friedman and his coauthors argued in their recent history of American philanthropy (Philanthropy, Charity and Civility in American History, 2003), the development of philanthropy in the United States is better understood as a missionary quest by givers (of time and/or money) to impose their view of what is good on society writ large. Taking this perspective, American history reads like an ongoing tension play between morals and money, or between obligations to others and those to self. One can make a reasonable case that the history of philanthropy in the United States seems to be informed by Adam Smith's ethical doctrines, a combination of Christian and Stoic virtues. For the student who wishes to pursue this idea, re-viewing Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) is a good starting point.

This is the first comprehensive work to detail, industry by industry and region by region, the enormous environmental problems existing in Cuba today, a phenomenon virtually unknown outside of the island.

With the collapse of Communism throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the World has looked aghast at the extent of the environmental crisis in those countries. Communist regimes has been successful in presenting an image of their societies as free from any serious environmental problems, which they argues were only the natural consequences of the rapaciousness of Capitalism. The World knows better now. Environmental problems in the West have paled in comparison to the ecological disasters we are now witness to in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

What the world does not know is that many of the same problems are present in Castro's Cuba today.

This work is written by Jose R. Oro, ecologist and one of Cuba's foremost senior scientists, who was General Director of the Department of Natural Resources of the Ministry of Basic Industry in the Cuban Government when he defected in 1991.
--- from book's back cover

Again, Eleanor Brilliant gives us a no-nonsense look at American charitable enterprise and the people who run it. As events and actions of leaders give frequent rise to questions about the caliber and integrity of Americans' non-profit way of serving others, she provides a well-researched analysis of information that people who give their time and money ought to know. Since most don't, the leaders of the agencies to whom they give ought to read this excellent work to become familiar with information important to their constituents.

This book is a wonderful primer for any foundation considering making program-related investments.