Chapter 1604 Big Plan 1
The two people studied this activity for a long time, mainly shocking. Because as students, there are many restrictions on carrying out fundraising activities, they must find a suitable project to implement the plan.
The United States is popular in charity, and its extensive participation shows that charity has a very popular foundation and social consensus in the United States. Many people believe that this is related to the history of the founding of the United States.
In 1620, May Flower brought 102 Puritans to North America and established the first colony here.
They faced the cold winter and lack of supplies. They traveled thousands of miles across the ocean but found that there was no tiles covering their heads. The hearts and bodies of the people in the New World should be cool.
It is said that at that time, "only six or seven people who were still healthy" were left. However, these people "willed and without any complaints, dedicating their true love to their fellow citizens, allowing people to survive in the end." Therefore, there were many charitable practices in their early colonial history.
There are also corresponding organizations. After the War of Independence, the United States finally came. However, although the war brought independence, it also brought various war traumas, and everything was in trouble. People also paid more attention to charity.
Tocqueville pointed out that Americans during this period "displayed universal compassion". Charity organizations that helped orphans and widows emerged from good prostitutes, and charity paid more attention to family relations and those who needed help the most.
By this time, charity concepts and organizations are still difficult to describe their modernity.
From the last thirty years of the 19th century to the early 20th century, a climax of charity began. In 1889, Carnegie, the famous rich man at that time, published the "Going of Wealth", saying the golden and brilliant saying "The Dead is Shameful", which became the motto of many rich people at that time and even later generations.
Rockefeller then pointed out with great thought that "the era when the rich are willing to use their wealth to give back to society has arrived."
In 1901, Carnegie spent $5 million to establish relief and pension funds for steelmakers and donated money to build 68 libraries in New York City.
In 1911 and 1913, the Carnegie Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation were established one after another. By the time Carnegie died in 1919, he had become the most generous philanthropist in the United States, donating a total of $350 million.
He has donated 1,412 libraries in the United States and more than 2,500 in English-speaking countries. Rockefeller "continues" and continues to donate, and before his death he became the largest philanthropist at that time.
It must be said that charitable concepts and the modernization process of charitable organizations are closely related to the modernization process of the economy and society.
This round of charity climax and charity modernization trend came from 1873. Mark Twain published an article called "The Gilded Age", describing the era behind the glitzy and luxurious bubble, the rot of copper and social rift.
By the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the economy and society underwent tremendous changes. In 1894, the United States' industrial output value reached US$9.5 billion, twice the total industrial output value of Britain in the same year and more than triple that of France.
At the same time, American society has transformed violently and has quickly transitioned from an agricultural society to an industrial society. The country has basically completed industrialization and urbanization, and immigrants have come one after another.
At that time, New York had a population of more than 10 million, making it the world's first megacity. However, the huge accumulation of material wealth also triggered increasingly serious social conflicts, social problems emerged one after another, and social conflicts intensified.
In the industrial era, the gap between the rich and the poor has intensified, and the top 1% of families have more than half of the country's wealth. At this time, the United States experienced the highest rate of industrial accidents.
The main problems of the poor are difficulty in seeing a doctor, education, housing, etc. In 1914 and 1915, the number of new tuberculosis patients recorded in New York City was 35,000 and 22,000 each year, of which 8,918 were killed.
Their treatment costs $687,342 million in health funds for both public and private treatment. Children do not have access to education and often drop out of school at the age of 14 to support their families. It is also difficult for the poor in New York to find suitable houses, and they are often swept out by their landlords due to low income and lack of security.
The turbulent reality made the American elite reflect, hoping to ease social conflicts through institutional repair. Before becoming philanthropists, Carnegie and Rockefeller were both famous "iron-fisted" and "cold-blooded" capitalists, and the media called them "despicable" and "greedy".
Their "transformation" has to be said to be based on both pressure from society and reflection on the times.
In the mid-19th century, the establishment of the Smithsonian Society and others showed that its philanthropy concept had moved from simply helping the poor and helping the poor to solving social problems. In 1867, the United States had the first charitable foundation founded by Americans - Peabody Education Fund.
Charitable foundations have begun to support the exploration of the root causes of social problems such as poverty, rather than investing in such funds that these problems themselves are only superficially and temporarily alleviated.
Modern American charitable organizations began to emerge in this era. Starting from the 1980s, American charity once again emerged.
During this period, Reagan Economics achieved great success in the United States. Since January 1983, the economy has continued to grow for 92 months, with an average growth rate of 3.6%.
Although there was a brief economic crisis, the economy continued to grow for more than 120 months since April 1991, the unemployment rate steadily declined, and the inflation rate dropped below 2%.
The booming economy has made society more willing and powerful in carrying out charitable activities. With the prosperity of liberalism and the help of new technologies, "new rich" are also constantly being born.
As a result, the number of charitable foundations showed an explosive growth trend. From 1980 to 1990, 4,117 new family charitable foundations were added, exceeding the previous 3,110 comprehensive companies. By the 1990s, the increase was even more amazing, with 13,345 new companies from 1990 to 2000.
Overall, the philanthropy in the United States has a very deep social foundation and a developed market mechanism, so it has achieved great influence and outstanding results.
From the perspective of the United States, the transformation of its philanthropic philosophy plays an important role in the prosperity of charity, and it also has fundamental significance for what we call the "third distribution".
The rise of charity activities often occurs during the economic transformation period, with some people "get rich first", while others fail to keep up. While the overall wealth of society increases, there is a trend of unfair wealth distribution and polarization, which triggers internal conflicts and divisions.
Therefore, charity activities, as a supplementary function of distribution, have actually deviated from the early meanings of "urgent rescue" and "poverty rescue" and turned to "savior". For the giants in the "Gilding Age", it is tantamount to a re-examination and re-cognition of the meaning of life and their own social values.
In fact, the same is true for society. It is a change in distribution concepts and a change in values.
′
7017k
Chapter completed!