For-Profit Philanthropy

Elite philanthropy has produced countless essential features of modern life. Today, for-profit philanthropic innovations like donor-advised funds threaten its future. In For-Profit Philanthropy, Dana Brakman Reiser and Steven A. Dean reveal that philanthropy law has operated as strategic compromise, binding ordinary Americans and elites together in a common purpose. The authors start with an overview of the size and role of the philanthropic sector in the United States and then discuss changes in the regulatory environment that has facilitated new forms of philanthropic organizations. Private ordering, targeted regulation, or a new strategic bargain could strike a modern balance, preserving the benefits of the Grand Bargain’s partnership between the modest and the mighty, and this book offers a detailed roadmap to show how it can be accomplished.