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