philanthropy

noun

1. (uncountable)Benevolent altruism with the intention of increasing the well-being of humankind.

   “Secondly, Another excellent Diſpoſition in Chriſt, is his Love, not only his Phylanthropy, or good Will he bears to all men, and the Deſire he hath of their Salvation, Ezek[iel] 33. 11.”

   “The philanthropy needed, which shall be ever ready to toil, and possessed of an untiring patience equal to perpetual contest with difficulty, is a philanthropy which looks beyond the outward, and is moved by something more durable than mere sensibility or sympathy for physical distress. It is a philanthropy which, underneath rags and filth, shrouded by the darkness of ignorance, oppressed and stifled by the warfare of passion, can catch glimpses of the immortal spirit.”

   “Doing philanthropy involves acts as diverse as consoling or cavorting with a child who has cancer, taking tickets at an art exhibit, writing a check for a relief agency, investing in the endowment of a private liberal arts college, and raising the funds that make the endowment possible.”

2. (uncountable)Charitable giving, charity.

   “As public funding is reduced, we depend increasingly on private philanthropy.”

   “I have tried, as I hinted, to enlist the co-operation of other capitalists, but experience has taught me that any appeal is futile that does not impinge directly upon cupidity. If there is the least hint of philanthropy in the project, every man of money fights shy of it.”

3. (countable)A philanthropic act.

   “His tombstone lists his various philanthropies.”

   “By all accounts Mrs. Morden was a faithful civic worker, unpretentious in her philanthropies which were carried on even after her retirement from Sunday School work. Her brother has a happy memory of the church's presenting her with a gift in appreciation of her long years of service.”

   “Her [María Micaela's] philanthropies included large sums to the Colegio de Propaganda Fide in Pachuca, of which she was the guardian and for which she purchased the relics of Santa Colomba.”

4. (countable)A charitable foundation.

   “the Rockefeller philanthropies”

   “[…] Walter Vrooman, a well-to-do Kansas liberal, and Charles A. Beard, undertook a philanthropy designed to build solidly on a British base. The scheme they worked out for a labor college at Oxford, Ruskin Hall, met with fairly cordial British response and in time played a role of some importance in the labor movement.”

   “The French Jewish philanthropies were the first to introduce European agricultural technology into the Yishuv on a sizeable scale. French and Algerian methods of horti- and viticulture promoted a network of Jewish plantations based on luxury as well as field crops. Despite their technical successes, the philanthropies intentionally restricted their Palestinian activities; this limitation stemmed from the philanthropies’ goal of individual, not national, regeneration.”

   “Some of the initiatives that have been developed with support of the NRFC [National Rural Funders Collaborative] include providing new sources of capital for promoting sustainable agriculture and forestry, new financial products for low-income residents of rural areas, cooperative models for rural economic development, and new small-scale local philanthropies in Appalachia, Georgia, Mississippi, Minnesota, Montana, Louisiana, and numerous Native American reserves.”