About TPE

The Philanthropic Enterprise is the public face of The Project for New Philanthropy Studies at Donors Trust, a 501(c)3 public charity whose mission is to help alleviate, through education, research, and private initiative, society's most pervasive and radical needs and to encourage philanthropy and individual giving and responsibility, as opposed to governmental involvement, as an answer to society's needs.

The Philanthropic Enterprise seeks to improve philanthropy in America, by examining more closely the complex ecosystem of voluntary associations, charities, and gift-making organizations and better understanding their appropriate relations to both commercial and governmental institutions. To this end, we engage scholars and practitioners working to better understand the role of voluntary action and philanthropy in enhancing the production of human excellence, prosperity, and social cooperation.

We believe that philanthropy and volunteerism—voluntary gift-making and social action not tied to any commercial interest, nor advancing any political agenda—are natural and essential forms of human interaction.

The Philanthropic Enterprise is committed to promoting an appropriate climate for philanthropy, one which strikes a balance between funders’ perceived purposes and the necessity of fostering creative, individualized, and independent responses to specific ends and circumstances.

No philanthropist operates in a vacuum. Donors and foundation managers must rely on the information tools available to them as they make decisions affecting hundreds, sometimes thousands, of lives. To decide whether philanthropy or capital markets offer the most appropriate opportunity for resource allocation, donors and foundation managers need not only raw information, but also clear rationales for action and accurate mechanisms for assessing the effectiveness of those actions. Providing a coherent infrastructure for philanthropy is, we believe, the best means of fostering and extending social cooperation and the attainment of the broadest variety of human ends.

The Philanthropic Enterprise is dedicated to offering the best thinking about philanthropy to anyone accessing our website.

Click here to learn more about our research interests.

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