A TAXONOMIC TREE OF PHILANTHROPY

There are innumerable lists of fields in philanthropy, usually associated with directories of grantmakers and their funding interests. Because the categories organizing these lists are not systematic—i.e., logically related—they are technically not taxonomies. This limits their value in donor education, data collection and analysis, and comparisons between philanthropic markets, and leads to instability of field lists over time.

From the outset, the Catalogue developed its own donor-friendly taxonomy of fields, for educational reasons, to assist donors in finding their niches, and for data collection and analysis. With only 100 charities each year, categorization in fields was relatively easy. For stability, comparability, and donor education, we based our taxonomy on three fundamental, irreducible, and thus extremely stable, areas of both philanthropy and quality of life: “Nature”—the given material and biological environment in which humans live; “Culture”—what humans create and make; and “Human Services”—what humans do for each other. These are not just stable, they are Classical (cf. Aristotle’s Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics).

The total number of charities we were categorizing increased annually—by 2007 our family of charities has grown to about 850, almost one-third of the entire sector. In the first Directory (see next page) there will be three times that many—2600 charities of general philanthropic interest with budgets below $3 million. To expand the taxonomy for them requires a team effort, so we are collaborating with the charities themselves on their classification. A simplified (two-dimensional) schematic rendering of our taxonomy is presented in this fold-out page; a more elaborate model, with Web 2.0 interactive moving parts, may be found on our website, with the Directory itself. It also depicts, for human services, various categories for both humans (by stage of life, gender, etc.) and services (food, clothing, shelter, etc.), which complicates things, and is impossible to render in print—basically new technology makes our taxonomy possible and practical.

To our knowledge, this taxonomic tree is the first graphic representation of all of philanthropy, as a coherent whole. Our choice of a living tree as the metaphor is not just owing to schematic tradition, of branches deriving from a main trunk; it also suggests that philanthropy is organic, alive and growing, becoming ever more variegated and specialized through time. In practice of course, many charities work in more than one field, so they are listed accordingly in the Directories; the purpose of the taxonomy is to assist classification, for practical purposes.

No matter how many branches there are, they are all related to a single living tradition which is as old as humanity itself—going back figuratively to Prometheus’ creation of humankind and the fire and optimism that made possible civilization and historical progress in the human condition. Because “philanthropy”— love of humanity, of what it is to be human—is defined as “private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of life”, this map of philanthropy also illustrates and connects objective dimensions of quality of life, which is also an organic whole of integrated parts, each of which is necessary to the whole, just as parts of a body are to the body as a whole, each playing a different though complementary role.

There is a lot to think about here, and this is enormously complex. We cordially invite readers to help us study and think about this approach, and share with us any constructive comments or suggestions.


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