# Golden Donors

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/golden-donors/
- Published: 2008-07-16T13:53:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Nielsen explores the 36 largest of the 22,000 currently active philanthropic foundations
in the USA, exploring their staff, leaders, policies, and performance. **

From the most famous, like Ford and MacArthur, to the most obscure, such as Mabee
and Moody, the author presents 36 fiefdoms, each of which controls a minimum $250
million.

Their influence is substantial as they encourage medical research, support cultural
and artistic endeavours, and not least, buttress immensely expensive educational
institutions.

Which of the great foundations in recent years have been spectacular successes and
which are failures? And how is this defined and by whom?

Are foundations seedbeds or killing grounds of new social and political ideas? And
what is the federal government, and a variety of administrations, doing to help 
or harm this new economy?

Nielsen provides many surprising and some startling answers for the millions of 
Americans whose lives the “golden donors” directly or indirectly affect.

When _Golden Donors_ first appeared, A. Bartlett Giamatti praised it as an historical
guide, a shrewd critique, and an impassioned warning.

> “This remarkable book on the nation’s largest foundations must be ready by anyone
> concerned with America’s unique not-for-profit sector and the quality of our national
> life.”

Kingman Brewster saw the book as “a revealing mirror held up to the faces of big
philanthropy…a must book for foundation creators and leaders.”

Thornton F. Bradshaw said:

> “Golden Donors describes the large American foundations, what they are how they
> got that way, and wherein lies their strength and their potential. The book is
> wise, witty, and perceptive – indispensable reading.”