In his inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1961, President John F. Kennedy called on his fellow Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”
Kennedy’s words embraced America’s better angels: the philanthropic spirit we celebrate Nov. 15, National Philanthropy Day.
From the beginning, the American experiment has depended on philanthropy. The Declaration of Independence concludes with: “And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
Of the 56 signers of the Declaration, five were captured, declared traitors, tortured and killed. Nine died in battle or from wounds.
They were equally generous in sacrificing their property as well. One, Virginia’s Thomas Nelson Jr., asked George Washington to bombard his house during the battle of Yorktown. (It had been seized by the British and was being used as Gen. Charles Cornwallis’s headquarters.) Nelson’s house was destroyed, and he died bankrupt. Several other Declaration of Independence signers also lost their possessions and ended their lives in poverty.
For more than a hundred years after the Revolutionary War, philanthropy was essential to the growth and flourishing of the new country. As David Beito, professor emeritus at the University of Alabama, documented in “From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State,” until Woodrow Wilson and the expansion of Progressivism, a widely diffuse group of secular, philanthropically grounded private organizations provided the American people with everything from fire protection to health insurance and financial support for the elderly and the infirm.
America’s voluntary efforts were more flexible and effective than Europe’s centralized welfare, a necessity as the United States expanded rapidly. The government couldn’t keep up.
By any standard, philanthropy plays an outsized role in American life. Last year, American individuals, corporations and foundations donated more than $557 billion to charity, according to the Giving USA Foundation’s annual report on philanthropy.
Many Americans give not only their money but their time. When disaster strikes, as with recent hurricanes, they step up in droves, manning food lines, performing heroic rooftop rescues, and rebuilding bridges and roads. The Cajun Navy is not a mirage.
Participating in voluntary organizations provides benefits not only to those on the receiving end of such philanthropy but also on the giving end. In fact, volunteers often benefit as much or more than those they are serving.
Society benefits as well. When we work side by side on tangible problems, it often becomes clear that the partisan ideology that divides us in political debates is less relevant to our actual lives than the TV talking heads and social media screamers imply.
Frederic J. Fransen is president of Huntington (W.Va.) Junior College and CEO of Certell Inc./InsideSources.com.
