American Foundations Research Articles

Seeds of Modern Education: American Influence in Turkey

American private foundations invested huge financial resources in institutions and individuals in the Republic of Turkey in the process of westernization of the country. This study seeks to present a detailed historical perspective of the activities of American philanthropic foundations and their influence on the development and the process of modernization of Turkey. Due to the war-torn state and poor socio-economic situation, the modernization process in Turkey implied comprehensive help from the Western countries, which Ataturk took as a model. Based on charity and humanitarian work, first American organizations arrived in Turkey at the beginning of 19th century. Popularly known as ‘‘missionary organizations’’ or simply ‘‘missionaries’’, they devoted their work to religious conversion of dominantly Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, charity activities and education. From the period of the first arrivals until 1920s, missionary organizations established number of hospitals and schools that proved beneficial to people and students across Turkey. At the beginning of 20th century, some of the American richest industrialists and businessmen in that period like Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and Russell Sage have decided to establish private grant-providing foundations for the melioration of life standards of humankind all around the world – investing dominantly in education, infrastructure and public health. In terms of time scale, growth of the foundation imbricates with the establishment of modern Turkey in 1923. Led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the new government of Turkey was dedicated to the process of modernization of the country – a project that seriously needed support from the external powers. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the role of American private foundations in the process of development of education, health sector, and overall Turkey’s modernization. These findings suggest that American private organizations such as Rockefeller and Ford foundations had a strong hold in the development of institutions and education and training of individuals from Turkey in various fields.

American Philanthropy in the Age of Political Polarization: Conservative Megadonors and Foundations and Their Role in Spreading Climate Skepticism

Wealthy citizens have influenced public debates and the political process in the United States in many ways, for example through donations or campaign finance. Philanthropy is viewed increasingly as another vehicle of more indirect elite influence. Although institutionally designed to stay above the partisan fray, philanthropy has increasingly been politicized over the last decades against the backdrop of growing partisan polarization. The conservative side in particular has consolidated influence through conservative foundations, think tanks, and new tools of giving such as donor-advised funds. Climate change is one issue in which conservatives have pushed skeptical views and disinformation over the last decades. Conservative actors backed by philanthropic activity have shaped public discourse according to climate-skeptic views and have worked to block political action on climate change while also forming global networks and practices across the Atlantic. While trying to retain the image of academic research and political neutrality, right-wing European think tanks are spreading climate change disinformation, often with connections to their American counterparts and with the support of American conservative donors and foundations. Overall, this paper argues that parts of the philanthropic sector in the United States have abandoned early notions of public charity in order to pursue considerable societal and political goals under the guise of philanthropic activity that provides tax benefits and the image of political neutrality. This paper builds on research that shows how much the interests of the wealthy are reflected in political decision-making in the United States (Bartels 2008; Page, Bartels, and Seawright 2013; Gilens and Page 2014), dark money debates in U.S. politics (Mayer 2017; Oklobdzija 2019), and discussions around the role of philanthropic foundations in a democratic society (Reich 2013, 2018).

American Foundations’ University Development in the Third World and Chances for African Universities

American Foundations’ University Development in the Third World and Chances for African Universities

Парижское издательство «Пресс Либр» («La Press Libre») и газета «Русская мысль»

For the first time, the activities of the post-war publishing house “La Press Libre”, created under the newspaper “La Pensee Russe” (1947–2008), are reconstructed. The historiographic features of the topic are analyzed. A brief overview of the history of the Parisian newspaper “La Pensee Russe” is given. The influence of the newspaper on the development of Russian culture is shown. The thematic and typological analysis of the publishing products of “La Press Libre” is given. The periodization of the history of the publishing house is substantiated. Particular attention is paid to the period in the history of the publishing house, when V. E. Alloy. His brief biography is given. It is proved that the activities of Press Libra and its publications were expressions of the subculture of Soviet dissidentism and the closely related third “wave” of emigration. The main topics in the publishing house were unjustified repressions in the USSR, the work of banned writers and poets, philosophical writings, numerous memoirs about life in the homeland and in exile. In general, the theme of Press Libra was reduced to the publication of everything prohibited in the USSR. Books by I. V. Odoevtseva, Z. I. Shakhovskaya, V. F. Khodasevich, A. M. Remizov, E. L. Schwartz, G. P. Vishnevskaya, E. G. Bonner and others. The activities of the publishing house and the newspaper were indirectly sponsored by various American sponsors and foundations. The features of the distribution of “La Pensee Russe” and “La Press Libre” books in the Russian Diaspora and the USSR are shown.

Intellettuali in fuga dall'Italia fascista/Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy

Intellettuali in fuga dall'Italia fascista/Intellectuals Displaced from Fascist Italy

American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War by D.G. Hart

Reviewed by: American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War by D.G. Hart Raymond Haberski Jr. American Catholic: The Politics of Faith During the Cold War. By D.G. Hart. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. 280 pp. $29.95. The title of D.G. Hart's book presents the first and most central dilemma that faced Catholics in postwar America. What is the proper arrangement: Catholic Americans or American Catholics? Each choice has implications for the relationship between church and state, as well as the practical considerations for how Catholics fidelity to their "Church" (with a capital "C") influenced their allegiance to their nation—a point some Americans harped on constantly. Hart's book is the best I have read in laying out the contours of this relationship and the debate that surrounds it. In particular, he [End Page 71] provides the most succinct overview of Americanism, or the once heretical concept that Catholics in America faced a moral dilemma by accepting that their status as Americans influenced their faith. The stakes rested on how the Catholic Church viewed the right ordering of society and if the United States fundamentally challenged that view by enshrining the freedom to practice religion. In other words, because U.S. law regarded other religions just as legitimate as Catholicism, by what principle did Rome enforce its view that there was only one true faith? Hart provides a detailed and lively discussion of how conservative Catholics transformed this heresy into a new ideology by arguing that American intellectual foundations worked with rather than against a Catholic understanding of social order. Hart focuses on "politically conservative Roman Catholics, primarily in the world of opinion journalism and magazines, [who] made Americanism safe for the church" (7). Such a group includes writers who worked for William F. Buckley, Jr. at National Review and the friends and collaborators with Richard John Neuhaus at First Things. Hart chose not to include liberal or politically left Catholics in his analysis because those figures have challenged both the hierarchical power of the Catholic Church and the role of the United States as a redeemer nation—they were unimpressed with Americanism. The version of Americanism developed by conservative Catholics has had far-reaching influence on domestic affairs, including, of course, the abortion debate, and in foreign affairs, especially in terms of the Forever Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But before Hart engages the work of these neo-Americanists, he writes extensively about the influence of John F. Kennedy's presidential election and the work of John Courtney Murray, perhaps the most influential Catholic theologian of the Cold War era. Kennedy's election represented a turning point in the machinations of Americanism. Hart contends that "Kennedy's insistence on Protestant pieties such as church-state separation and American exceptionalism launched a new phase in the American Roman Catholic experience … But with a Roman Catholic as president endorsing the United States' redemptive mission in the world, Kennedy was crafting and promoting an Americanism that even popes had not considered" (64). JFK advanced a more generic American civil religion that showed how to invest American power with sacred meaning. If Kennedy made peace with Americanism, Murray demonstrated how to build a movement upon it. Much has been written on the pivotal role the Jesuit played in both American Catholic thought and as perhaps the key thinker behind drafting the Vatican's Declaration of Religious Freedom, a document that closed the Second Vatican Council. [End Page 72] "Murray's involvement in the sessions," Hart writes, "also allowed the church in the United States … to achieve a measure of pride in the way American Roman Catholicism helped redirect the church and its understanding of the modern world. That high estimate of the United States, which Murray himself cultivated, not only meant an end to Americanism. It also opened the way for Roman Catholics in the United States to regard their nation as Kennedy had said, as a city on a hill, a country as decisive in world affairs as Rome had once been" (87). Murray's achievement was to bequeath to conservative Catholics a "neo-Americanism" that positioned Catholics in the United States as...

Humanitarian activities of American NGOs and charitable foundations in developing countries

The article discusses the mechanisms and directions of charitable activities of US non-profit organizations and foundations in developing countries, which determine the humanitarian direction in the framework of International Development Assistance. Currently, humanitarian problems are exacerbated due to the growing risks to human life in the context of globalization, which, while providing a wide range of self-realization opportunities available to every person, at the same time expanded the boundaries of using human potential as a “consumable” material, increased risks and devalued the status of human life. Today, humanitarian crises cover entire regions - Tropical Africa, the Near East, a number of Central American countries, where, due to the limited capabilities of the respective states, NGOs and charitable foundations operate within the framework of social, technical, educational and medical programs. Independent studies show that often the services of the non-profit sector have no analogues in the commercial sphere - they often provide assistance to the population of developing countries in hard-to-reach locations, in places engulfed by military conflicts, develop and use new approaches and communication and information technologies in their work.

Understanding the Lived Experience of North American Dental Patients With a Single-Tooth Implant in the Upper Front Region of the Mouth: Protocol for a Qualitative Study.

BackgroundAssessment of the subjective experiences of individuals with maxillary anterior (ie, the upper front region of the mouth) single-tooth implants is limited mainly to quantitative measurements of satisfaction with appearance. Interestingly, there is unexplained variability in the relationship between satisfaction and appearance.ObjectiveThis qualitative study protocol aims to explore and better understand the satisfaction with appearance and function in a Canadian population with maxillary anterior single-tooth implants treated at a postgraduate university clinic. Thus, we aim to obtain diversity among participants relating to the identification of esthetically pleasing and displeasing cases from a clinician perspective.MethodsA qualitative research design using interpretative phenomenology analysis (IPA) will provide an adaptable inductive research approach. The participants will be recruited, and consent documents, photographs, digital intraoral scans, and self-administered questionnaire responses will be obtained from them. The transcribed verbatim data from audio-recorded, in-depth, semistructured, one-to-one interviews of the participants will be managed, coded, and analyzed thematically with computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software. The IPA will consider the COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative (COREQ) guidelines when applicable.ResultsFor the qualitative interview, we plan to include at least eight patients to conduct up to 1.5 hours of open-ended interviews with each participant aided by an interview guide. Ethical approval was granted by the University of British Columbia Behavioral Research Ethics Board (H19-00107) in May 2019. Two American dental foundations funded this study.ConclusionsThe analysis in this study will elucidate the aspects (including their value) that influence participant satisfaction at different dental implant treatment stages. This will be the first qualitative study on this group of the population to explore and obtain a better understanding of their satisfaction with appearance and function, as well as any other patient-reported outcome measures that could be identified.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)DERR1-10.2196/25767

Network of American foundations and think tanks

The article considers the features of analytical work and research of think tanks and funds of the United States of America. Analytical centers are described and it is found that thought factories in the United States are mostly independent organizations that work closely with both the political and business elites. In most cases, they are only close to the government, which allows to maintain objectivity and the ability to competently and critically analyze government activities.

COVID-19: Learning from Past Funding Initiatives and their Dismissal in Southeast Asia

This article examines philanthropic funding of past efforts to control emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia and China. The recount, based on personal insights as a foundation professional and a review of both published and unpublished material, shows that American foundations and other like-minded donors identified the risks associated with zoonotic infections early on – including from the same coronavirus family that is causing the current COVID-19 pandemic – and were later followed by bilateral and multilateral donors investing greater resources. At the cusp of the 2000s, foundations played a leadership and catalyst role in advancing a transdisciplinary agenda to better understand and respond to new emerging threats and in building the necessary individual and institutional capacities for regional and local disease surveillance. For more than a decade, this concentration of resources and approaches was recognised as having contributed to better preparedness. Gradually, however, funding initiatives declined in value and intensity due to several internal and external factors. This article argues that COVID-19 arrives in the midst of an unfinished donor agenda and that it is important to reflect on why philanthropic foundations, and the development aid community more generally, found themselves unprepared for the pandemic in order to draw lessons for addressing today’s crisis – and future outbreaks of emerging infectious diseases.

Neither star nor starving! Economics and marketing of the artist-endowed foundation

Independent foundations deliver grants for the welfare of communities. The founder can be an artist and the artist, as philanthropist, is a very recent topic and issue in social sciences, whose approaches usually mean the artist either as a starving or a star. Their foundations can be both operating and grant-making and relationship marketing can shape community engagement, both as regards fundraising in order to increase endowments and as regards grant-making thanks to multiple sponsors and financing mechanisms. Effective communication is crucial for relationship marketing and essential for helping foundations to understand their audiences. In addition to the website, communication of these foundations can include digital communication strategies and social media, that allow real-time communication among many actors. The aim of this paper concerns American artist-endowed foundations, managing with arts or community issues with different performances and communication. The methodology includes the analysis of mission statements, websites and 990 Forms, and a cluster analysis of 2016’s accounting data. Thanks to the cluster analysis, economic performances, fundraising and fund-giving are highlighted and a concentration ratio indicates the degree of involvement either in specific arts (visual, performing, etc.) and creativity or in community welfare and other issues.

The possibilities and limitations regarding the use of impact evaluation in corporate social responsibility programs in Latin America

PurposeImprovement in the evaluation methodologies used in the public policy and development fields has increased the amount of evidence-based information available to decision makers. This helps firms evaluate the impacts of their social investments. However, it is not clear whether the business sector is interested in using these methods. This paper aims to describe the level of interest in, knowledge of and preferences relating to the impact evaluation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs by managers in Latin American companies and foundations.Design/methodology/approachA survey of 115 companies and foundations in 15 countries in Latin America was conducted in 2019.FindingsThe results indicated that most respondents believed that quantitative impact evaluation could address concerns about CSR program outcomes. However, monitoring and evaluation were primarily seen to be for tracking program objectives rather than for making strategic decisions about innovations to enhance the achievement of outcomes. Decision-making tended to respond to community demands. The main challenges to increasing the use of impact evaluation were the lack of skills and knowledge of management staff and the methodological complexity of evaluation designs. We conclude that there needs to be increased awareness about: the appropriate understanding of social outcomes; the benefits of evaluation; when impact evaluation is useful; how to prepare an evaluation budget; and the effective use of rigorous evidence to inform program design.Originality/valueAcceptance by the business sector of quantitative measurement of the social impact of CSR programs will lead to improved outcomes from social investment programs.

The Contribution of American Nurses to the Evolution of the International Council of Nurses

As the nursing profession celebrates the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife, it is time to take stock of the contribution that American nurses and the United States have made to the evolution of the International Council of Nurses (ICN). American nurses were involved even before the conception of the organization and have played a significant role in its leadership and development. Nurses who have been active in the American Nurses Association (ANA) have often been heavily involved in various aspects of ICN governance and evolution. Additionally, several American philanthropic foundations and corporate donors have supported a wide range of ICN activity that has helped advance the nursing profession around the world. As we celebrate Nightingale’s legacy, we should also think about all the nurses who have brought us to this point from the past, and those collaborating today and tomorrow. Examining the contribution of American nursing highlights the fact that this collaborative effort of the world’s nurses is needed if we are to optimize access to services, quality of care and sustainability of the nursing profession.

Views on Carnegie’s Philosophy on Philanthropy

In the late 1920s, great American industrial giant, Andrew Carnegie found, Modern American charitable trusts. In Carnegie’s “The Gospel of Wealth,”-its’ basic principle lays the ideological foundation for modern American foundations. His thoughts on wealth are bold. It challenges, creativity, which inspires scientific administration and application of wealth surplus to benefit society. Society, thus, gains long-term stability and; beneficiaries reap long-lasting social interests. From the late 1930s to the beginning of the 20th century, Americans regarded philanthropy as one of the most effective ways for public figures to build societal image. Some readings and books related to Carnegie’s philosophy on Philanthropy. Challenge whether traditional understandings on wealthy individuals’ philanthropy were either passively motivated or ill-intentioned. Using Andrew Carnegie’s philosophy on philanthropy as a case study, this article studies the most important economic and political figure Andrew Carnegie in the period of American industrialization. This article analyzes his thoughts and practices, its influences on the country’s philanthropic culture, as well as continuing developments on socialist democratic society.

Revisiting Cable's Bras-Coupé, New Orleans, and African Creolized Reorientations of American Foundations

Revisiting Cable's Bras-Coupé, New Orleans, and African Creolized Reorientations of American Foundations

Book Review-American Philanthropic Foundations: Regional Difference and Change

American Philanthropic Foundations: Regional Difference and Change David C. Hammack and Steven Rathgeb Smith (Eds.) Indiana University Press (2018) Reviewed by: Michele Fugiel Gartner

Determinants of organizational vigilance: Leadership, foresight, and adaptation in three sectors

AbstractWhy are vigilant organizations better at developing foresight than their rivals and acting faster on the insights and alerts? Four attributes were hypothesized to explain the difference between vigilant and vulnerable organizations: (a) a leadership commitment to sensing and acting early on signals of change, (b) strategic investments in foresight abilities, (c) a flexible approach to incorporating uncertainty in their strategy processes, and (d) clear accountability and coordination for sharing information and acting on weak signals. This conceptual model was tested with survey responses from 345 organizational leaders representing three sectors of the economy: international companies, US credit unions, and American foundations. The survey assessed key components of the above constructs and our regression models explained close to half of the variance in organizational vigilance scores relative to competitors. The most important of the four factors above was investment in foresight (for each sector), followed by leadership commitment. The relative importance of strategy and accountability factors varied by sector as well as organizational size.

‘Africa Needs Many Lawyers Trained for the Need of their Peoples’

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the setting up of university law schools in many African nations led to often bitter battles over the purpose of legal education. The stakes in these struggles were high. Deliberately neglected under colonial rule, legal education was an important focus for the leaders of new states, including Kwame Nkrumah, first President of Ghana. It was also a significant focus for expatriate British scholars and American foundations, seeking to shape the development of new universities in Africa. Disputes centred on whether training would have a wholly academic basis, and be taught exclusively in the University of Ghana, or be provided in addition through a dedicated law school with a more practical ethos. This debate became entangled in a wider confrontation over academic freedom between Nkrumah’s increasing authoritarian government and the university, with its significant body of expatriate lecturers, and indeed in wider political and class struggles in Ghana as a whole. Tensions came to a head in the period between 1962 and 1964 when the American Dean of Law was deported along with other staff on the foot of allegations of their seditious intent. In this paper we document these complex struggles, identifying the broader political stakes within them, picking out the main, rival philosophies of legal education which animated them, and relating all of these to the broader historical conjuncture of decolonisation. Drawing on a review of archival materials from the time, published histories and memoirs, as well as interviews, we aim to show that debates over legal education had a significance going beyond the confines of the Law Faculty. They engaged questions of African nationalism, development and social progress, the ambivalent legacy of British rule and the growing influence of the United States in these territories.

British and American Foundations of Parliamentary Science, 1774–1801. By Peter J.Aschenbrenner. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. 2018. xv, 180 pp. £105.00. ISBN 9781472472656.

Parliamentary HistoryVolume 37, Issue 3 p. 447-448 Review British and American Foundations of Parliamentary Science, 1774–1801. By Peter J. Aschenbrenner. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. 2018. xv, 180 pp. £105.00. ISBN 9781472472656. Paul Seaward, Paul Seaward History of ParliamentSearch for more papers by this author Paul Seaward, Paul Seaward History of ParliamentSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 October 2018 https://doi.org/10.1111/1750-0206.12379Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume37, Issue3October 2018Pages 447-448 RelatedInformation

An Old Story in a New World

During the Cold War, American private foundations subsidized American modernist composers, supporting their work through commissions, underwriting recordings and concerts, and promoting their ideas in radio programs and periodicals circulated at home and abroad. From its establishment in 1952, the Fromm Music Foundation (FMF) acted as an important player in this field. Using archival material and interviews with people who worked with the founder Paul Fromm, I show how Fromm’s involvement in his foundation, and his reliance on professional advice, constituted a unique patronage model that enabled select composers to participate actively in the promotion of their music. Fromm’s relationship with Elliott Carter provides an especially complex example of a mutually beneficial and successful partnership. Fromm’s goal was to integrate contemporary music into American musical life by supporting the production and dissemination of new compositions. Fromm sought to play the role of patron, fostering close relationships with composers who received funds and acted as his artistic advisers. Fromm’s partnership, and consequent friendship with, Carter illustrates the many ways the FMF served composers. In 1955 Fromm commissioned what became Carter’s Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord, and two chamber orchestras (1961). Fromm’s subsequent help, administered through his Foundation and personal connections, enabled Carter to secure high-quality premieres of this piece and other difficult-to-perform repertoire, helped facilitate repeat performances and recordings of these compositions, and allowed Carter, together with his wife Helen, to establish a system to fund musicians who performed his music—and also reap tax benefits. Among the recipients who benefited from Fromm’s largesse were Charles Rosen, Paul Jacobs, and Jacob Lateiner. Fromm’s actions spawned a familiar fable. Carter’s career and the way he talked about it reinforced many persistent falsehoods about an artist’s relationship, or lack thereof, to potential listeners and audiences—a source of financial support for artists since the advent of public concert life. Fromm’s financial support and Carter’s ability to supplement it helped buttress the late-Romantic myth of creative autonomy. The details of this partnership—the words exchanged, the other figures involved, and its variegated benefits—harbor broad implications for the study of Cold War-era patronage networks and for our view of Carter’s career.