Why the Wealthy Give by Francie Ostrower;

Author:Francie Ostrower; [Ostrower;, Francie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781400821853
Publisher: Princeton UP
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CONCLUSION

Nonprofit institutions are an important part of the milieu in which elites live. They provide an organizational basis to social and cultural life among elites analogous to the basis for economic life provided by business organizations. A considerable portion of elite philanthropy grows out of donors’ involvement with particular kinds of nonprofit organizations, a fact that is especially clear in the case of cultural and educational institutions. In this respect, elite philanthropy may well resemble giving among other social groups, but with different consequences. A great deal of philanthropic giving by individuals in the United States goes to churches.36 Perhaps the support given by the wealthy to cultural and educational institutions is analogous to other people’s support for their religious congregation, which to congregation members may represent not only a religious center but also a social or community center, and an institution that serves as one of the focal points of their identity as a member of a community.37

Gift exchange has been interpreted as a symbolic representation of the relationships among the individuals who exchange gifts.38 Philanthropic gifts are also expressive of relationships, but they express the individual’s relationship to, and identification with, particular social groups. This identification is expressed through support of the group’s organizations. I believe, however, that the relationship between individual donors, social groups, and particular organizations is becoming more complex as nonprofit institutions become increasingly detached from particular, integrated, local upper classes who may have founded them. Nevertheless, it appears that the same elite institutions continue to attract major support, even as their status shifts to a more autonomous organizational basis.

As this chapter has also shown, there are differences in the basis of education and culture’s prestige to donors and in the reasons that people contribute. Thus, while major gifts to educational institutions reflect donors’ assessment of their prestige within an academic hierarchy, cultural institutions were more tightly bound to the prestige hierarchies within the elite itself. While educational giving was so often bound to supporting a specific organization, cultural philanthropy grew out of a more general involvement in the area as a whole. In this respect, it may be recalled that although educational institutions were more frequently recipients of donors’ largest gifts, the two fields received large total contributions from a comparably high percentage of donors. This indicates that the money that donors give to culture is spread out among a larger number of institutions than the money they give to education. A common thread, however, is that whether giving to culture or giving to education, elite donors exhibit a preference for supporting those organizations that are among the elite in their fields. They select those institutions that, to their mind, represent the best in their respective areas.

Perhaps the popularity of educational institutions as recipients of largest gifts is indicative of a more intense and more personal involvement that donors develop with such organizations. At one point, after all, they actually lived (when students) as members of the institution. Cultural institutions respond to donors’ aesthetic interests and are one vehicle for participating in the social life and identity of their class.

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