WELCOME . . .

We’re inviting luminaries from the field—and from outside the field—to guest-blog for us for one week apiece: post five brief essays on a theme or themes of their choosing. We expect the Intrepid Philanthropist to generate lively conversation in its comments section among a community of interested and engaged readers. We hope you’ll make a habit of stopping by and contributing.

The Case Study Database is a key feature of the website. Although dozens of foundations, academic centers, affinity groups, and other institutions have cumulatively produced hundreds of philanthropy case studies, there has been no simple way of getting a handle on what was available online. We hope that scholars planning to teach courses in philanthropy, foundation consultants looking for real-life examples of strategic philanthropy, donors or foundation executives who want to learn from the experiences of other foundations, and anyone else who’s curious about philanthropy will find the Database to be a useful tool. Currently we have more than 400 cases in the Database, and we’re adding more every day. If you know of a philanthropy case study and you’d like to see it included in the Database, please contact Mary Grimm at mary.grimm@duke.edu. We’ll make sure it’s added to the Database. We hope that it, as well as the rest of the website, will become a valuable resource for scholars, foundation personnel, and other members of the interested public.