The deep roots of fundraising
Scott Cutlip, 1965
Generally speaking, organized philanthropy supported by systematic fund raising is a twentieth-century development in the United States. Philanthropy, in America’s first three centuries, was carried along on a small scale, largely financed by the wealthy few in response to personal begging appeals. In those years a small amount of excess wealth in the young nation went, for the most part, to the churches, to the pitifully poor, and to found schools and colleges. There were few organized drives, in the modern sense, before 1900. World War I and the decade that followed provided the seedbed for the growth of today’s fund raising and today’s people’s philanthropy.
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