"Philanthropy's Janus-Faced Potential: The Dialectic
of Care and Negligence Donors Face."
Paul G. Schervish. Published in Taking Philanthropy Seriously: Beyond Noble
Intentions to Responsible Giving. Edited by William Damon and Susan Verducci.
Indiana University Press, 2006.
Wealth-holders are capable of both extraordinary care and extraordinary carelessness
in carrying out their philanthropy. This Janus-faced potential of philanthropy
is explored as the dialectic of care and impairment, negligence, or dominion.
This chapter explores this dialectic, drawing on intensive interviews with wealth-holders
about their lives and philanthropy.
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"Patterns of Charitable Contributions and Transfers to
Relatives and Friends based on 1998 SCF."
John J. Havens, Working Paper, October 16, 2001.
"The Survey of Consumer Finances" obtains information concerning financial
support (excluding alimony and child support) for relatives and/or friends not
living in the household. The information consists of (1) the total of all such
support in the year preceding the survey year and (2) the relationship of the
recipients to the respondent. In 1997 approximately 12 million households made
transfers to relatives and friends (mostly children, parents, and siblings)
amounting to $64 billion in total. Such transfers range from as little as $20
to $1,000,000 or more, with an average of $5,359 for households making a transfer.
During the same time approximately 35 million households made charitable contributions
of $500 or more amounting to $111 billion in total. These contributions ranged
from $500 to $10.9 million, with an average of $3,157 for households making
contributions of $500 or more.
“Philanthropy's Indispensable Ally”
Paul G. Schervish, John Havens, and Albert Keith Whitaker. Philanthropy.
Volume XIX, No. 3, pp. 8-9. May/June 2005.
Most observers now recognize that lifetime giving understandably increases as
people move up the economic ladder. CWP research also suggests that it's not
just the objective size of people's pocketbooks that matters but also their
subjective sense of financial security. Financial security means trusting that,
even in the face of major economic downturns, one's means will support one's
desired standard of living for the indefinite future. For people who feel such
security, philanthropic decisions really are different.
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"Passing It On: The Generational Transmission of Wealth and Financial
Care."
Paul G. Schervish. In Care and Community in Modern Society: Passing on the Tradition
of Service to Future Generations, edited by Paul G. Schervish, Virginia A. Hodgkinson,
and Margaret Gates. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995. 109-133. During the course
of our interviews with 130 millionaires, respondents frequently addressed their
intention to pass on to their children a sense of financial care along with
a financial inheritance. This essay describes four aspects of the generational
transmittal of financial care that parents cited in the course of their interviews.
By way of conclusion, I summarize the factors that appear to influence the transfer
of financial morality by wealthy parents and indicate general implications for
the generational transmittal of care.
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"Philanthropy."
Paul G. Schervish. Vol. 1 of Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion, edited by
Robert Wuthnow. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1998: 600-603.
First, I define philanthropy as a social relation and distinguish it from commercial
and political relations. Second, I discuss the virtue of care and the sentiment
of identification as fundamental principles of philanthropy. Third, I argue
that philanthropy is better understood as a dialectical unity of love of self
and love of neighbor rather than as a dualistic opposition between selflessness
and selfishness.
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"Philanthropy as a Moral Identity of Caritas."
Paul G. Schervish. In Taking Giving Seriously, edited by Paul G. Schervish,
Obie Benz, Peggy Dulaney, Thomas B. Murphy, and Stanley Salett. Indianapolis:
Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, 1993. 85-104. This paper proposes
a definition of philanthropy as a social relation of care and explores what
it means for philanthropy to become integral to moral identity. To say that
one has a philanthropic identity means that one's moral biography is shaped
in large measure by devotion to the quantity and quality of one's charity.
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