Philanthropy Quotes

There is one kind of charity common enough among us… It is that patchwork philanthropy which clothes the ragged, feeds the poor, and heals the sick. I am far from decrying the noble spirit which seeks to help a poor or suffering fellow being… [However] what advances a nation or a community is not so much to prop up its weakest and most helpless members, but to lift up the best and the most gifted, so as to make them of the greatest service to the country.

~ Jamsetji Tata

What you give today you get tomorrow.

~ Matshona Dhliwayo

A humanitarian seldom makes a good lover. For a lover’s world revolves around their lover, while a humanitarian’s world revolves around the world.

~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Chasing angels or fleeing demons, go to the mountains.

~ Jeffrey Rasley

The ideological blackmail that has been in place since the original Live Aid concerts in 1985 has insisted that ‘caring individuals’ could end famine directly, without the need for any kind of political solution or systemic reorganization. It is necessary to act straight away, we were told; politics has to be suspended in the name of ethical immediacy. Bono’s Product Red brand wanted to dispense even with the philanthropic intermediary. ‘Philanthropy is like hippy music, holding hands’, Bono proclaimed. ‘Red is more like punk rock, hip hop, this should feel like hard commerce’. The point was not to offer an alternative to capitalism - on the contrary, Product Red’s ‘punk rock’ or ‘hip hop’ character consisted in its ‘realistic’ acceptance that capitalism is the only game in town. No, the aim was only to ensure that some of the proceeds of particular transactions went to good causes. The fantasy being that western consumerism, far from being intrinsically implicated in systemic global inequalities, could itself solve them. All we have to do is buy the right products.

~ Mark Fisher

It is really not so repulsive to see the poor asking for money as to see the rich asking for more money. And advertisement is the rich asking for more money.

~ G.k. Chesterton

Philanthropists should find innovations that release the energies of people. Individuals don't want to be taken care of --they need to be given a chance to fulfill their own potential. (142)

~ Jacqueline Novogratz

There's a new kind of Giving-I remember when Philanthropy was inconspicuous and anonymous.Now it has turned in to Look at me, I just saved the world kind of show.

~ Charmaine J. Forde

Fundraising is an extreme sport!

~ Marc A. Pitman

Through their donations and work for voluntary organizations, the charitable rich exert enormous influence in society. As philanthropists, they acquire status within and outside of their class. Although private wealth is the basis of the hegemony of this group, philanthropy is essential to the maintenance and perpetuation of the upper class in the United States. In this sense, nonprofit activities are the nexus of a modern power elite.

~ Teresa Odendahl

The best opportunity for our uplifting is the opportunity to give.

~ Auliq Ice

Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector.

~ David Rockefeller

My grandfather, along with Carnegie, was a pioneer in philanthropy, which my father then practiced on a very large scale.

~ David Rockefeller