Resources

Books

Reference books are always useful. In this list some books have been reviewed whilst others are listed as recommended reading.

Book List
Whilst weighted towards the American experience, this book provides an exhaustive account of what is known about non-profits from a range of academic disciplines. Philanthropy is explained by economists, sociologists, historians, lawyers and social policy experts. It’s not a light...
Book List
Owen’s panoramic study is the starting point for most people who want to learn about the history of English philanthropy. Sprinkled with fascinating facts and quotes, this is literally a treasure trove of a book, as well as a learned...
Book List
The first of the two major histories of English philanthropy to be published in the mid-twentieth century, Jordan bases his work on a comprehensive study of all charitable legacies made within this period from the late 15th to mid 17th...
Book List
A treasure-trove of a book looking at how philanthropy has contributed to, and been shaped by, the various historical periods and different cultures in which it has existed. The scope of the essays is vast, including pre-colonial Africa, twentieth-century Russia...
Book List
Based on interactions with over 100 donors, Frumkin identifies five functions of philanthropy: change, innovation, redistribution, pluralism and enabling donors to find meaning and purpose in their lives. This book also provides a framework for ‘strategic philanthropy’: once donors find...
Book List
This collection of essays features contributions from many of the most interesting current thinkers on philanthropy. It has an unusual angle – the potential of philanthropy to fail in its goals and even to do harm because, as the foreword...
Book List
These ten essays are intended to help re-assess current approaches to philanthropy and offer a fresh perspective on how existing attitudes to charity have been formed. The style is at times too esoteric for the general reader but it is...
Book List
This small book has a big aim: to illuminate what is happening in American philanthropy today, and what it all means. Taking a scholarly approach, drawing on philosophy, the classics and history, it claims to re-interpret philanthropy and provide a...
Book List
The foreword to this edited volume correctly notes that, “Analytically constructed studies of philanthropy are in short supply” and books that do appear tend to be either “self-congratulatory, mostly boring insider accounts” or “shrill denunciations by outsiders” . Yet as...
Book List
A refreshing change to the American and European-dominated literature on philanthropy, this biography relates the story of the nineteenth-century Belarus-born Simcha Baevski, who changed his name,

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