The "New Philanthropy"

In our book, Small Schools: Public School Reform Meets the Ownership Society, Susan Klonsky and I document the role of the giant power philanthropists like Gates, Broad and Walton, showing how the rise of the Ownership Society altered the face and function of American Philanthropy, nowhere more so than in the field of education and school reform.

Now, Georgia Levenson Keohane, guest-blogging at the CEP (Center for Effective Philanthropy) Blog, reveals that the era of the new philanthropy, big, strategic, tactical giving – was also one of historic inequality.

In the U.S. the last quarter century proved a gilded age for some – the rich did get much richer – but was a period of stagnation for the middle class and lost ground for those with the lowest incomes... Even in the best of times, less than one-third of American philanthropic dollars goes to help the poor.