In addition to concerns about diminished giving, estimates of the level of voluntary service indicate some cause for concern there as well. Voluntary service is another factor that is difficult to measure, because so much of it is given in informal, unrecorded ways. Estimates of voluntary service are often skewed by the lack of clear guidelines and definitions. Americans often count their voluntary work in behalf of political candidates alongside their voluntary work at church or at the local museum. Some people volunteer to satisfy private, rather than public, objectives--searching for companionship, for example--and exclude that from their report of voluntary service. Others include service to their professional association even though the benefits are limited to members. Nonetheless, estimates are available and they indicate, among other things, that the tradition of voluntary service may not be being passed on to the younger generation as one might hope.

At least, such are the signs. My own experience with trend reports about the young, however, is that they are out-of-date almost before they are published: the young are mercurial and largely unpredictable and are likely to continue that way, much to the frustration and annoyance of social scientists.

A third area of concern is the growth in "support groups" and "self-help groups."4  Millions of Americans give time and money to personal improvement or to the alleviation of personal problems. Americans come together in groups to deal with the blight of alcohol abuse, to stop smoking, to lose weight, to find a better mate (or a better sex life with the same mate). Americans exercise together, study art together, travel to places like Gdansk together. The purpose of all this activity is personal and private: it is my weight loss I care about, not yours or some stranger's. Philanthropic activity, on the other hand, is presumably collective and public.

The preliminary statistical evidence indicates that self-help/support groups engage the energies and resources of a much larger number of people than anyone realized. For those of us concerned with voluntary giving and voluntary service for the public good, these groups may constitute a powerful rival claim for attention and participation.

The Future

This essay began with a mythistorical profile of the American philanthropic tradition and its role in shaping the American character. It is a story that has been told to and by Americans for generations. Immigrants have found it persuasive, even compelling; many from very different traditions have found American philanthropy as important to their integration into American life as voting or shopping at the mall. (Perhaps not quite.) The question that has been raised is whether the American philanthropic tradition has become problematic. Is its future threatened or merely difficult to predict?

I.

First, it seems clear that the recent "reforms" of social welfare will result in increased expectations of philanthropy. The numbers of people denied public assistance will increase, and presumably many of them will turn to private charity for help. The absolute numbers of people living below the poverty line will also increase; if they resemble those being disqualified for assistance under federal programs, they will turn either to state-level programs or to private charity. Thus the total of those in need of private charity will be significantly larger than in recent years.

However, present levels of giving for human services suggest that the profile of private charitable giving will have to change dramatically if new levels of expectation are to be met. There is no evidence that such drastic change will occur in giving patterns, at least not without new incentives to change the priorities of giving and to increase the level of contributions. As Dwight Burlingame reported, average household giving has in fact declined in recent years.

I raise these points to emphasize that philanthropy may be tested severely at a moment of relative weakness rather than strength, and when expectations of philanthropy will have been raised by political rhetoric that is designed to lessen criticism of changes in welfare policy. There will be more homeless people on the streets and fewer shelters to help them. Whether there will be an increase in voluntary service to help meet the additional need, no one can predict.

This may indeed be a "defining moment" for American philanthropy, as it is for American society as a whole.

Those who wish to see philanthropy survive and grow stronger must make a more persuasive case for heightened philanthropic activity overall, but especially in the area of social welfare and human services. The present share for social welfare is about nine percent. If that share increases but the total overall giving remains constant or declines, other priorities will suffer.

II.

The challenge to build a better knowledge base for understanding and promoting the role of voluntary giving and service in social welfare takes on a new and immediate urgency. We look to scholarship to provide us with a basis on which to develop new strategies. As far as I know, we do not yet have the information that we need on the depth and detail of philanthropic giving for welfare purposes. Nor do we know enough about how priorities change in response to changing conditions.

However, thanks to the rapid academic development of the field of philanthropic studies over the past decade, we are much better prepared now than heretofore to respond to this challenge. The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and its new counterpart, the International Society for Third Sector Research, give us a large and growing network of scholars. On the welfare issue especially, it is noteworthy that the great majority of the scholars in both organizations are social scientists.

The problematic future of philanthropy does not become less so because we know more about it, but knowledge remains the first step toward policy and implementation. At Indiana University we stress the close link between knowledge and action, theory and practice, that emerges when philanthropy becomes a serious academic subject. But the sizable gulf between scholars and practitioners remains, and we have only just begun to build a bridge across it.