The Liberating Promise of Philanthropy: Stories of Grant-Makers in the South
By former SECF President & CEO Martin Lehfeldt and
former Georgia Humanities Council president Jamil Zainaldin
Featured at our 50th Annual Meeting, The Liberating Promise of Philanthropy tells the story of how grantmaking foundations shaped, and were shaped, by the American South. The book begins its story with the thinking of our country’s Founders and the role they envisioned for philanthropy in the new republic, unspools its narrative thread through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and two world wars, and ends with a thorough examination of modern philanthropy in the region, including the emergence of the Southeastern Council of Foundations (today known as Philanthropy Southeast). Particular attention is given to the crippling effect that slavery, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause has had upon the building of a civil society in the South, and how generous and compassionate philanthropists have worked to alleviate that burden.