• Description

Black philanthropy is a burgeoning field that has been the subject of study for a variety of publications in the academic, journalistic, and "mainstream" philanthropic arenas in recent years. Much of what has been written has only been produced within the last fifteen years, and a large number of those works have dealt exclusively with one specific quality of black philanthropy, such as the historic context, the intersection with the faith community, or certain perspectives on giving. These are individual issues that reveal important dimensions of African American giving. Indeed, with this report The Twenty-First Century Foundation adds to that body of knowledge and expands on the qualitative inquiry by exploring multiple facets of what motivates and characterizes the subjects' benevolence within the greater context of black philanthropy: What issues do black foundations, associations, and individuals tend to support? What influences their philanthropic behavior? What do they primarily seek to change through their philanthropy?