This site brings together the papers of Robert L. Payton, one of the people most deeply involved in the practice and study of philanthropy over the past several decades.

Payton was one of the founders of the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.  He was also one of those involved in establishing the field of Philanthropic Studies.  The site therefore contains documents used in conceptualizing, organizing, and seeking funds for the Center and for some of Payton's other work in philanthropy. 

This record is a tribute to the man and the exploratory discourse on philanthropy's moral dimensions. These pieces are pulled together at paytonpapers.org simply to show a mind at work.

Robert L. Payton thought in this manner...

Francis Bacon once wrote a short essay for his sons entitled "The Clue to the Maze" that began, "Francis Bacon thought in this manner..."  He spoke of himself in the third person and he tried to distill his philosophy into a few pages. 

An introduction to the subjects is available in the entry "Major Challenges to Philanthropy."  The paper was commissioned by Independent Sector as the discussion paper for its annual conference in 1984.  The essay was later published with a number of other essays in Payton's book, Philanthropy:  Voluntary Action for the Public Good.  The book is now out of print, but is available on this site. With Michael P. Moody, a former student and now Frey Chair for Family Philanthropy at the Johnson Center at Grand Valley State University, Payton published Understanding Philanthropy: Its Meaning and Mission in 2008. They created this book as a way to capture Payton's approach to philanthropy in one, easy-to-digest place--to make it simpler for people to see the philosophy in a structured format, which people wanted alongside the collected essays format of his first book and paytonpapers.org.

 This site provides links to the sites of the Center on Philanthropy, the Joseph and Matthew Payton Philanthropic Studies Library, the Philanthropy Archives at IUPUI University Library, and the School of Liberal Arts of Indiana University at Indianapolis.