The gulf would be narrowed if scholars gave more attention to the areas of fund raising and nonprofit management, two of the most popular interests among people working in American philanthropy these days. There is a strong demand to know more about fund raising--how it works, how to do it, how to be more efficient (in use of resources) and more effective (in achieving purposes). The growing social pressures and rising expectations mentioned earlier will only add to efforts already underway to improve fund raising effectiveness--that is, to raise more money--and nonprofit management--that is, to spend money more intelligently. Scholars will have to expose themselves to the realities of fund raising and of management practice if they are to judge the sector's performance as well as its capacity and limitations.

Research, both basic and applied, is always necessary. (There is much basic work still to be done on motivation, for example, and on cultural variables affecting philanthropic behavior.) The demand for research may also increase along with other consequences of rising expectations. More than ever, the public will be asking: What are we getting for our money? Does philanthropy make a difference?

III.

Past research on philanthropy and the training of practitioners, although inadequate and flawed, have laid the groundwork to make teaching about philanthropy now possible. The current emphasis of management programs is on training, but increasingly these programs are adding a new dimension--education in the ethics, values, history, and philosophy of philanthropy. This educational enrichment is in response to an expansion of both the role and the responsibility of the "professional" (although the philanthropic tradition still relies heavily on the volunteer).

We have not yet begun what I hope will be a great expansion of education about philanthropy into the general education of all Americans. Our starting point will be the education of undergraduates, especially those who want to know something about philanthropy but whose careers will be in other fields. The students who will have the greatest influence will be those in teacher education; if we can penetrate that curriculum with knowledge of voluntary giving, service, and association we will begin to reach the truly eager and receptive audience of the very young.

Philanthropy's future might be brighter and less problematic if philanthropy were to permeate education at every level, in informal as well as formal settings.

But why would a society like the United States take such a bold step? What is so important about philanthropy that it dares to lay claim to space in the congested curricula of the schools?

The answer for me is revealed in the history of the struggle to make Poland a civil society. Civil society, my Polish colleague said, means a society "growing more independent of the state." If the Solidarity movement led the way to that independence, it is crucial to see the principle of "voluntary action for the public good" at work in the movement.

Solidarity offered a vision of civil society; many people, like my colleague, shared the vision; they came together in the organization of Solidarity and its counterparts and extensions; and somehow the organizations were able to gather the resources they needed to pursue their goals. That, in one long sentence, summarizes the pattern of philanthropy in social action--in Poland as well as the United States.

However, the Overwhelmingly dominant role of Roman Catholicism in Poland affects Philanthropy differently than does the pluralism of American religion. Our Polish colleagues will have to help us learn about the role of the Church in philanthropy and in the politics of welfare in their country. one example of the affect of American religious pluralism on philanthropy is the recent attack by "evangelical" and "fundamentalist" Protestant groups on social programs advocated earlier by "liberal" denominations.

The history of philanthropy in western civilization may be seen (mythistory again) as a paradigm of charity that has been expanded into a paradigm of philanthropy. That is, the primal source of all altruistic behavior is seen as action to protect or rescue the vulnerable. Gradually that takes on a broader and longer-term perspective; there is both an awareness that action prevent suffering, and that action can also improve the quality of life. There may be a hierarchy with the demands of charity at the bottom rising to enlightened, rational philanthropy at the top. or philanthropy may be divided into a self-interested concern at the bottom to a sacrificial concern for the stranger at the top.

Such imprecise values shape: the shared truths to which we appeal when we argue for welfare policy based on concepts of justice and mercy. Justice and mercy are abstractions to which Most Of Us might give assent but when we fill in the details we may find important, even irreconcilable differences between us.5

My inference is that Polish society has such a different view of these matters that the Americans in this seminar will find it difficult to sustain an image of a generous America, even if they were inclined to do no.

Improvements in practice change the focus of attention but they should build on or challenge received opinion and theory. Fund raising is based primarily on experience and anecdote; that in too thin a foundation on which to base professional training.

Recent embarrassments stemming from fraud and other abuses make the ethics of philanthropy a compelling concern. There is as yet little study of the history of philanthropic ethics or of the moral imagination to enlighten either scholars or practitioners.