# Understanding Philanthropy: Its Meaning and Mission

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/understanding-philanthropy-its-meaning-and-mission/
- Published: 2008-03-26T23:28:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Why does philanthropy exist? Why do people so often turn to it when they want 
to make the world a better place? Written by one of the founding figures in philanthropic
studies and his former student, this accessible and important book makes the case
that philanthropy is essential to democratic society — and that understanding it
properly is the first step towards practising it well.**

Philanthropy has existed in some form in all cultures and civilisations throughout
history, yet most people know remarkably little about it. What it is, why it matters,
and what distinguishes it from other forms of human action.

_Understanding Philanthropy_ sets out to remedy that. Weaving together accessible
theoretical explanations with illuminating examples, it advances key scholarly debates
while offering practitioners a clear way of explaining the rationale for their work.

The book’s central argument is that philanthropy is best understood as voluntary
action for the public good — and as a form of moral action that responds to the 
human condition. Because things go wrong in the world, because need exists that 
markets and governments cannot or will not address, philanthropy steps in. But it
does more than patch gaps: at its best, it embodies the belief that the world can
be made better, and it draws on a rich social history of the moral imagination —
from religious traditions of giving to secular ideals of civic responsibility.

 * [**Buy the book**](https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0253350492?tag=219)

**Robert Payton** was the founding director of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana
University and, by wide consensus, the father of philanthropic studies as an academic
discipline in the United States. His co-author **Michael Moody** brings the analytical
tools of cultural sociology to bear on questions that Payton had spent a lifetime
exploring from the inside. The result is a book that is both scholarly and genuinely
readable — and one that takes philanthropy seriously as a subject worthy of sustained
intellectual attention.

UK readers should note that the book’s perspective is largely American, and one 
British reviewer noted that the authors “take themselves a little too seriously”
and repeat “the mystifyingly widespread view that America invented philanthropy.”
That caveat aside, the conceptual framework it offers — particularly its treatment
of philanthropy as moral action, its exploration of the relationship between giving
and democracy, and its insistence on the public importance of private generosity—
is entirely applicable in the UK context and makes it essential reading for anyone
who wants to think rigorously about what they do and why.

## About Robert L. Payton and Michael P Moody

**Robert L. Payton** (1927–2011) was president of C.W. Post College and Hofstra 
University, a US State Department official, ambassador to Cameroon, head of the 
Exxon Education Foundation, and the first director of the Center on Philanthropy
at Indiana University — the institution he is widely credited with founding as an
academic field. **Michael P. Moody** is a cultural sociologist whose work focuses
on the theory and practice of philanthropy.

## **Reviews**

> “There is no one in the country better qualified than Bob Payton to write on this
> subject. He has more experience in the field and a broader and more sophisticated
> set of perspectives on it than anyone else I can think of.”
> **J.B. Schneewind,
> Johns Hopkins University**

> “Robert Payton’s decades of philanthropic leadership and humanistic reflection
> and Michael Moody’s social science skills and recent research combine to make 
> _Understanding Philanthropy_ a must-read. This wise and well-written book is one
> of the best recent publications on philanthropy.”
> **Michael O’Neill, University
> of San Francisco**

> “A bold, thoroughly informed inquiry that challenges readers to think more deeply
> about the meaning and mission of good works. Written in clear, incisive language,
> _Understanding Philanthropy_ helps us understand the multiplicity of philanthropic
> acts and the fact that we are all affected by them.”
> **Robert Wuthnow, Princeton
> University**

> “A fine volume on the moral meaning and function of philanthropy — makes the case
> that philanthropy is essential to democratic society.”
> _**Choice**_

> “Payton and Moody’s book is an extended argument that philanthropy is an interesting
> and important subject that deserves to be better understood and taken more seriously.
> Apart from the usual gripe from this side of the Atlantic that the authors also
> take themselves a little too seriously, it does largely fulfil its stated aim —
> although UK readers should brace themselves for a relentlessly upbeat approach
> and the mystifyingly widespread view that America invented philanthropy.”
> **Beth
> Breeze, _Philanthropy UK Newsletter_**