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Timeline of Institutional Philanthropy

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Gain insights into the origins of present-day philanthropy. Specifically, understand the purpose and values behind many of the practices and policies that comprise its precursors, sticky beliefs that are part of contemporary philanthropic narratives, power dynamics, and laws.
Women and men wearing simple white clothes harvest grain in a field. In the background are more people working in organized agricultural fields, and further off, traditional raised housing structures with thatched rooves.

The Snapshot

Horizontal timeline image showing all events assembled in relation to each other.

A timeline of Western institutional philanthropy. Image Credit

Looking a Little Closer

A Mesopotamian village drawing is set on the river with boats, irrigating canals, white washed compounds, people and oxen working the fields.

Grain Surpluses: 3,000 B.C.E., Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq)

The first agrarian society produces unprecedented social inequality as grain surpluses are held by an elite class. The philanthropy that develops has a different pattern than previously: giving across people who hold very different social positions and radically different levels of wealth. The elite offer benevolence and protection to the poor, perhaps in exchange for their servitude and acceptance of the social order. Philanthropy is a means to prevent social unrest and build social cohesion.

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Colosseum ruins against a cloudy sky.

Religious Funds for Community Care: 300 B.C.E., Roman Empire

Christinanity becomes the official religion of the Roman Empire, and the church functions as a legal entity with enforcement powers, directing resources to philanthropic causes such as medical care, shelter, and the ransoming of captives. Bishops set up community funds and establish endowments that can be used to help the poor, forming the legal basis of modern-day foundations. People make monthly contributions in proportion to their wealth, as a religious obligation.

Fallen soldier with shield, carved from stone

Cultural & Civic Advancement by the Nobility: 300 B.C.E, Ancient Greece

Without an enforcing legal entity, such as the church in Rome, philanthropic actions rely purely on the moral obligation of wealthy nobles. Their efforts rally around building shared community infrastructure and fostering a common culture and sense of civic virtue. The Greeks choose to support libraries, universities, and colosseums as a means of charitable giving. Educational and cultural institutions, and the employment they create, are preferred to causes such as poverty alleviation.

Image credit

A boy holding a spoon approaches a man beside a large pot while other boys seated at a long wooden table look on.

Elizabethan Poor Laws: from religious philanthropy to taxation: 16th & 17th Century, England

After the Church of England breaks away from the authority of the Catholic Church, all monasteries are dissolved, and with them a network of philanthropic support to the poor. This leads to great social instability and the beginning of British charitable laws. In 1601, the Poor Relief Act is declared and England becomes the first European country to launch poor relief as a national policy, executed by local government, and supported by tax revenue. The Act defines three categories of dependents, some deemed more worthy of support than others: the vagrant, the involuntary unemployed, and the helpless. Involuntary child labour placements are one tool of ‘poverty relief.’

A priest holds one baby and passes another into the arms of a woman dressed in long-sleeved, floor length black dress with a white apron and white habit, at the front of a line of women dressed similarly.

Revolutionized Charity: 1789-1914, Post-Revolution France

France is concerned about what will tie the French people together post-feudalism. When it comes to addressing persistent inequality, the answer is charitable relationships. The nineteenth century sees the founding of the St. Vincent de Paul, and a spectrum of private to semi-public, gendered, faith-based associations. The state supports autonomous community action by honouring charitable work with awards rather than significant public funds. Noble and bourgeois families minister to the poor in their own neighbourhoods, and nuns embed themselves in underserved areas. Meanwhile, modern rationalism drives innovations in nutrition and vaccination, funded by patriotic members of the upper class.

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A hand bill with the heading "The New Poor Law with a description of the new workhouses: Look at the picture - see. Below the heading are drawings of gaunt men and women being working, and being whipped and tortured.

England’s New Poor Laws: 1834, England

1601 Poor Laws are amended based on arguments that continue to resonate almost two centuries later. Prominent thinkers like Thomas Malthus, Jeremy Bentham, and David Ricardo argue the existing relief is distorting the free market by making poverty too tolerable, and encouraging employers to keep wages artificially low, knowing workers will receive subsidies. The New Poor Law will grant relief only inside the poor house, a prison-like facility. At this time assistance is intentionally stigmatized and made “an object of wholesome horror” to encourage people to work instead. Sentencing those assessed as ‘lazy’ to the poor houses and underpaid labour reinforces the narrative of the ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor.

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Title page of "Democracy in America," by the French author and traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, translated by Henry Reeve, with an original preface and notes by John C. Spencer. Printed by George Dearborn & Co., Adlard and Saunders, New York.

Democracy in America published: 1835, United States

Alexis de Tocqueville extols the virtues of the United States’ mutual aid brand of philanthropy in which self interest and the common good are reconciled through a pioneering, nation-building spirit. He marvels at how Americans make things happen: barn-raising, library systems, etc. However, this mutual aid approach and concept of unity through American citizenship is reserved for settlers, and Tocqueville observes that the nation is built on African enslavement and Native American dispossession. The American way is of particular interest to the French whose philosophers are grappling with this question of what creates social cohesion in a republic.

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A page from a copy of the Cleveland Foundation Community Trust

The World’s First Community Foundation: 1914, United States of America


The Cleveland Foundation is established by banker Frederick Harris Goff as a more elegant and local solution to the problem of managing legacy funds. Previously, charitable trusts created from the estates of donors upon death were held at banks and a committee of local bankers and citizens would decide how to disburse the income from the trusts. The Community Foundation takes on this role, supporting local charitable causes and offering to manage funds in a way that remains responsive to the changing needs of the day. For the first half century of their existence, there are no donor-advised funds so it is entirely up to the new foundations to make choices about fund allocation.

A black & white posed photograph with three men seated behind a table with documents atop it, and four men behind them. all are wearing suits.

Canada’s First Community Foundation: 1921, Canada

Following a similar path to the USA, the Winnipeg Foundation is founded by a trader and banker, and established as Canada’s first community foundation in 1921. The founder, William Forbes Alloway, is motivated by the belief that the West must “fill up with people” and is known to have earned his fortune in part through exploitative trading in Métis scrip and horses, and government contracts awarded through cronyism. From a desire to see Winnipeg become a prominent metropolis, and give back to the community, he donates his own personal funds, a starting gift of $100,000.

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Cover page of "Report #1 of the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector: Towards a regulatory environment that enables and strengthens the charitable and nonprofit sector". It features geometric shapes in green and blue and some small photos of people in community in its top right corner.

Canada Attempts to Modernise Charitable Law: 2020, Canada

The Special Senate Committee on the Charitable Sector releases its report on modernising Canada’s charitable sector, which is currently governed by laws that still closely resemble Victorian Poor Laws, including their conceptions of deservingness and what constitutes charitable activity. Significant recommendations aim to make it easier for organizations to appeal the denial, or revocation, of charitable status, and present evidence, so that charitable laws will be reformed through more precedent-setting cases.

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Key Points
  • bullet
    Unprecedented inequality leads to philanthropy
    In Mesopotamia it was the grain surpluses that led to a new pattern of giving: from rich to poor.
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    Before taxation there was tithing
    The church first organized the redistribution of wealth to care for the poor and sick and free captives. The church set up endowments to do so.
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    From Church to State
    Upon dissolving the Catholic Church in England, it became the first European country to make charity state policy. The Poor Relief Act enshrined narratives about the deserving and undeserving poor.
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    Citizen contribution as the grounds for new nationhood Post-Revolution
    France encourages citizens to undertake charitable work through prestigious awards rather than significant government funding in the belief that it will create a sense of fraternity and social cohesion, which Alexis de Tocqueville observed among settlers in the United States.
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    Community Foundations offer bankers' solutions to managing endowments
    Both the first community foundation in the world and first one in Canada are started by bankers to improve the local community and manage funds in a way that remains responsive to the changing needs of the day.
  • bullet
    Canada's Charitable Law was based on England's Victorian Poor Laws
    The Poor Laws were concerned with discouraging laziness and distortions to the labour market that might be caused by making it too tolerable to be poor. Receiving assistance was designed to be shameful and require people to give up freedom and agency.

Reflection Prompts

Experiences & Observations

Can you trace the influence of philanthropic history on your own ideas about philanthropy?

Reactions & Impressions

Do any particular historical ideas and practices of philanthropy inspire you? Make you uncomfortable, or leave you cold?

Questions & Hunches to test

Which ideas of philanthropy might need to be revisited as a foundation you are close to pursues its contemporary values?

Glossary

Agrarian

Any community whose economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland.

Resources

1

Saugat Adhikari, Top 11 "Inventions and Discoveries of Mesopotamia, November 20, 2019, Illustration, November 20, 2019, www.ancienthistorylists.com.

2

Valentina Branada, Timeline of Institutional Philanthropy, InWithForward, 2022.

3

Unknown, Ancient Mesopotamia, Illustration, Sutori, accessed September 29, 2021, https://www.sutori.com/en/story/ancient-mesopotamia--BZrzP9Ht7e8vTVMrFNZMUM56.

4

Egisto Sani, Laomedon (Temple of Aphaia), Photograph, accessed June 14, 2024, https://www.worldhistory.org/Greek_Sculpture/.

5

Gabriel von Hackl, Glaspalast München 1897, St. Vincent von Paul, 1897, Photograph of Artwork, Wikimedia, 1897, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glaspalast_M%C3%BCnchen_1897_030.jpg.

6

The National Archives, Anti-Poor Law Poster, 1834, National Archives UK, 1834, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/1834-poor-law/#:~:text=The%20new%20Poor%20Law%20ensured,shared%20this%20point%20of%20view.

7

Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville, Title Page of “Democracy in America,” by the French Author and Traveler Alexis de Tocqueville, Translated by Henry Reeve, with an Original Preface and Notes by John C. Spencer. Printed by George Dearborn & Co., Adlard and Saunders, New York., 1838, Photo of Book, 1838, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Democracy_in_America_by_Alexis_de_Tocqueville_title_page.jpg.

8

Archives of ManitobaArchives of Manitoba, First Advisory Board and Staff of the Winnipeg Foundation, 1921, 1921, Photograph, Manitoba Historical Society, 1921, https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/organization/winnipegfoundation.shtml.

9

Report #1 of the Advisory Committee on the Charitable Sector, January 2021, Digital Graphic, Canada Revenue Agency, January 2021, https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/programs/about-canada-revenue-agency-cra/corporate-reports-information/advisory-committee-charitable-sector/report-advisory-committee-charitable-sector-february-2021.html.

10

“Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” Merriam-webster.com, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poor%20relief.

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