0:02 it's 1643 the American colonies are
0:06 still brand new their future uncertain
0:08 what would become the oldest college in
0:11 the United States Harvard University is
0:15 now just 7 years old and its Founders
0:19 have a radical idea they want to educate
0:21 masses of young Puritans to become
0:24 leaders and evangelists in this strange
0:27 new world but there's a problem they're
0:30 running out of money putting the future
0:33 of the college and their goals at risk
0:35 so what do they do they take a gamble
0:38 launching what is considered to be the
0:40 first official fundraiser in what would
0:43 later become the United States they
0:45 write a fundraising appeal printed on
0:47 paper and send it across the ocean to
0:50 England hoping that wealthy benefactors
0:53 will invest in their Vision the appeal
0:56 is called New England's first fruits and
0:59 to their surprise it works now instead
1:02 of relying on the crown or the church to
1:05 fund new Endeavors the norm at that time
1:07 private individuals stepped into the
1:09 role of community donors changing the
1:11 perceptions around what philanthropy
1:14 could or should look like for
1:17 colonists but this story isn't just
1:20 about Harvard this moment in time and
1:22 the launch of the first fundraiser
1:25 reveals something much bigger about
1:28 human nature money and power it Sparks
1:30 questions we're still asking about
1:33 philanthropy money and fundraising today
1:37 like why did people give who or what
1:40 causes were considered worthy of support
1:42 and how much of that thinking still
1:45 influences the way we fundraise and work
1:49 for positive social change today because
1:52 while fundraising has evolved from viral
1:55 crowdfunding campaigns to billion dooll
1:58 philanthropy some of the underlying and
2:00 historical beliefs that shaped early
2:04 fundraising efforts are still with us
2:05 some of them are helping us change the
2:09 world and some are holding us back let's
2:11 take a look together at the history of
2:13 philanthropy and fundraising and a few
2:15 historical beliefs that still affect how
2:18 we raise money today in our first
2:20 episode of our changemaker Cafe
2:24 fundraising 101 series you can download
2:27 our series action guide for resources
2:30 and tips on fundraising whether you're
2:32 aiming to start a nonprofit or socially
2:34 conscious business serve as a volunteer
2:37 or board member raise funds or awareness
2:40 and more all a changemaker
2:42 cafe.com thank you to click and pledge
2:46 for sponsoring this series ready let's get
2:54 curious warning watching change Mak your
2:55 Cafe may lead to side effects such as
2:56 caring a lot and insatable desire to
2:56 help others growing your skills to
2:57 change the world or becoming a leader in
2:59 your community for best results you an
2:59 open mind and share with all your
3:01 friends philanthropy has been around for
3:05 a long time across Global cultures and
3:08 religions the word itself originates
3:10 from the Greek phrase meaning love of
3:13 humankind in ancient Greece and Rome
3:16 public benefactors built infrastructure
3:19 schools and temples in southern Africa
3:22 the philosophy of Ubuntu highlights our
3:24 interconnectedness and calls upon
3:27 community members to take care of each
3:30 other in Islam zakat one of the five
3:32 pillars of faith requires giving a
3:34 portion of wealth to those in need and
3:37 in Christianity tithing and charitable
3:40 donations do the same in Judaism the
3:42 concept of sadaka which translates to
3:45 righteousness emphasizes that charitable
3:48 acts are a moral
3:50 responsibility but philanthropy as we
3:53 know it in the modern United States
3:56 didn't really start taking shape until
3:59 about the Industrial Revolution while
4:02 technology was advancing at a rapid pace
4:06 so was something more troubling economic
4:08 inequality due to Rapid population
4:11 growth plus an increasing concentration
4:14 of wealth in fewer and fewer circles
4:16 American society was leaving poor and
4:19 vulnerable citizens Behind These
4:21 citizens needed certain services like
4:23 food or job training and they couldn't
4:25 always afford to pay for these things
4:27 despite their need which meant that
4:30 without a market incentive to fill these
4:33 needs private businesses just didn't and
4:36 a desire to keep the scope of government
4:38 small and limited in the early days of
4:41 the Industrial Revolution meant that
4:42 government wasn't structured to fill the
4:44 needs of the nation's poor and
4:48 vulnerable either so if private
4:50 businesses weren't stepping in and
4:54 neither was the government who was enter
4:57 a third sector not business not
5:01 government but something else enti L
5:04 this third sector has gone by many names
5:08 Civil Society the voluntary sector today
5:10 you probably know it as the nonprofit
5:13 sector so I talked to fundraising expert
5:15 Dr Al Fleming to learn more about this
5:17 our nonprofit organizations are
5:19 positioned as such that they're able to
5:21 fill the Gap that private business or
5:24 private Enterprise does not fill uh and
5:26 mainly so because a private Enterprise
5:27 or private business you know they're
5:29 certainly for profit they're looking to
5:32 erate profit and and on occasion there
5:34 is some benefit to the overall Community
5:37 right but from a nonprofit organization
5:38 they're solely dedicated on whatever
5:41 their particular area of interest is in
5:43 ensuring that where Private Business
5:46 cannot provide support they will step in
5:48 and provide support So examples of this
5:50 would be higher education uh Health
5:52 opportunities other ways to help
5:54 eradicate poverty these are some of the
5:57 things that happen as a as relational uh
5:59 to the market theory and it was based on
6:01 the premise that democratic nations like
6:04 the United States would only Thrive if
6:08 they embodied the idea of civil society
6:11 the notion that all citizens are linked
6:14 by common interests and Collective
6:17 activity so people started to gather to
6:19 form their own organizations separate
6:22 from business or government to assist
6:25 the country's most vulnerable the poor
6:28 and the disabled and animals too
6:29 speaking of don't forget to subscribe
6:31 cribe so you don't miss our animal
6:33 rescue series to learn more about that
6:36 when French diplomat Alexis daville came
6:39 to observe the United States in
6:43 1831 the idea that everyday people would
6:46 voluntarily come together to address a
6:49 need was so unusual that he wrote a
6:51 whole chapter about it in his book
6:54 Democracy in America as soon as several
6:57 of the inhabitants of the United States
6:59 have conceived a sentiment or an idea
7:01 that they want to produce in the world
7:04 they seek each other out and when they
7:06 have found each other they unite from
7:09 then on they are no longer isolated men
7:12 but a power one sees from afar whose
7:14 actions serve as an example a power that
7:17 speaks and to which one listens
7:19 collectively these new organizations
7:22 would formalize fundraising to cover the
7:25 costs of the goods and the services that
7:27 they aim to offer the poor bringing it
7:30 closer to what we see fundraising looks
7:33 like today these emerging ideas of
7:35 community responsibility and helping
7:38 each other were a major cultural step
7:41 forward but that doesn't mean all ideas
7:44 around philanthropy in the early United
7:46 States were positive keep in mind we're
7:48 also talking about a period of American
7:51 history that was pretty terrible for a
7:53 lot of people who were subjected to
7:55 slavery and later segregation child
7:57 labor exploitation and a lack of power
8:00 to vote among other things
8:03 in fact remnants from two harmful ideas
8:05 in particular are still showing up in
8:07 philanthropy today let's put on our
8:10 curious changemaker hats and take a look
8:12 early philanthropists and volunteers
8:15 seemed to generally agree that the poor
8:18 and vulnerable needed community support
8:20 but they didn't always agree on one
8:23 thing who deserved
8:27 support in his 1889 essay The Gospel of
8:29 wealth Andrew Carnegie argued that the
8:31 wealthy had a responsibility to
8:33 distribute their wealth to benefit
8:36 Society but there was a catch this
8:39 charity should only be given to those
8:42 that they deemed the deserving poor it
8:44 were better for mankind that the
8:46 millions of the rich were thrown into
8:50 the sea then so spent as to encourage
8:53 the slothful the drunken the Unworthy
8:55 but many modern-day fundraisers have
8:58 identified some major problems with this
9:01 philosophy the first being who gets to
9:04 decide who is deserving Carnegie's idea
9:07 assumes that wealthy donors not the
9:09 people in need are the best judges of
9:11 who should get help but if only wealthy
9:14 donors get to make that call where does
9:16 that leave the rest of us it puts all
9:18 the power in the hands of a few instead
9:20 of the communities that actually
9:23 understand their own needs and today's
9:24 fundraisers have pointed out this
9:27 approach is not only unfair it can
9:30 actually hold back real social change
9:32 by taking away the agency of those
9:35 closest to the change those impacted and
9:38 secondly the idea of the deserving poor
9:40 perpetuates unfair stereotypes
9:42 Carnegie's message suggests that a
9:44 person is poor strictly as a result of
9:47 their own personal failings but after
9:49 Decades of sociological research we know
9:52 today that many factors including where
9:54 a person grew up and their family's
9:56 historical access to resources also play
9:59 a role this idea is rampant today
10:01 if you've heard someone say something
10:04 like the homeless are just lazy and
10:06 won't get a real job then you've heard
10:08 Carnegie's influence on Modern
10:10 philanthropy in
10:14 action today many fundraisers advocate
10:16 for a different approach it starts with
10:19 asking ourselves and our communities to
10:22 question our assumptions about people's
10:24 situations because in reality we never
10:27 really know what someone's life is like
10:30 secondly it asks us to include the very
10:34 people we serve in the discussion carvy
10:37 could have instead considered who knows
10:39 what it's like to be poor better than
10:42 the poor third this alternative approach
10:45 asks us to think about not only who is
10:49 in need today but how can we go Upstream
10:51 to look at what is contributing to
10:53 people being in need in the first place
10:55 after all if we could figure out how to
10:57 end poverty or any of the other issues
11:00 we're tackling as a society today we
11:01 wouldn't have to worry about people
11:06 being poor hungry or homeless at all
11:08 which brings us to the second historical
11:11 idea that still influences our
11:14 fundraising today in Carnegie's era also
11:16 known as the Gilded Age large
11:19 philanthropists donated vast sums of
11:22 money to a variety of projects but at
11:24 the same time they resisted social
11:27 reforms that could have decreased and
11:29 prevented poverty and inequality quity
11:32 on a large scale reforms like improving
11:34 working conditions ending political
11:36 corruption and granting the right to
11:39 vote to everyone but why if we could
11:41 decrease poverty on a large scale
11:44 wouldn't that help more people than even
11:47 their donations would well historians
11:49 argue that it comes down to the
11:52 difference between two things charity
11:55 and systemic change charity meaning
11:58 giving money to meet immediate needs
12:00 allowed guilded age industrialists to
12:02 maintain a reputation of being generous
12:05 while keeping the systems that made them
12:08 wealthy intact on the other hand
12:11 systemic change reforms like Fair wages
12:13 safe working conditions and political
12:16 accountability risked challenging their
12:19 power or cutting into profits but not
12:21 every philanthropist in that era
12:25 followed that model Julius Rosenwald a
12:27 businessman and philanthropist of the
12:30 times believed that true philanthropy
12:32 shouldn't just treat the symptoms of
12:36 inequality it should help fix the root
12:39 causes Rosen wal's philosophy centered
12:40 around the idea of empowering
12:43 communities to thrive on their own
12:45 rather than subscribe to Carnegie's
12:48 ideas around the deserving poor he would
12:50 partner directly with those receiving
12:53 support to hear their own ideas around
12:56 what they needed in one prominent
12:59 example he partnered with Booker T
13:02 Washington to improve education for
13:04 African-Americans in the segregated
13:06 South by collaborating to fund the
13:09 construction of over 5,000 schools
13:12 between 1912 and
13:15 1937 these schools provided quality
13:17 education to African-American children
13:19 at a time when such opportunities were severely
13:21 severely
13:24 limited this is the perfect time for our
13:26 first change maker challenge of the
13:28 series where we take a moment to reflect
13:32 and and brainstorm ideas I want to hear
13:34 from you what are some ways you think we
13:36 can address the root causes of issues
13:39 through fundraising what's one thing
13:41 that surprises you about the history of
13:42 fundraising that we've talked about so
13:45 far share your thoughts in the comments
13:46 let's get a conversation going
13:49 fundraisers today face unique challenges
13:51 but understanding the historical origins
13:53 of some of our modern beliefs and
13:56 processes can help us reframe these
13:58 narratives so that we can raise money in
14:00 a way that creates the most positive
14:03 change for the most people at the end of
14:07 the day that's why we fundraise isn't it
14:09 as for how we fundraise if you're
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15:34 fundraising 101 series we'll take a
15:36 deeper look at the different ways that
15:39 nonprofits fundraise including some
15:42 methods you might not have expected
15:44 don't forget to subscribe to this
15:46 channel so you don't miss a lesson in
15:49 our new series and see you for the next
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