Foundation Center Creates New
‘Alexis Institute for
Civil Society and Philanthropy’
Johns Hopkins Professor Lester M. Salamon Appointed First Director
New York, NY — May 16, 2006. The Foundation Center today announced the creation of its new Alexis Institute for Civil Society and Philanthropy, designed to serve as a major source of knowledge on the rapidly evolving world of philanthropy and civil society in the U.S. and around the world. Lester M. Salamon, Professor and Director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, has been named the founding director of this new institute. The Center’s Board and staff are committed to raising an initial $10 million for the institute as part of a broader campaign.
In making the announcement, Foundation Center President Sara L. Engelhardt said, “Philanthropy is undergoing a sea change that is extending its boundaries and re-shaping its contours as we move into the twenty-first century. The field is growing more diverse, more entrepreneurial, more collaborative, and more global. The Foundation Center is committed to enabling all the players—within the larger civil society sector, as well as in the governmental sector and among the engaged public, domestically and around the world—to understand and connect to these new dynamics.”
“The Alexis Institute,” according to Ms. Engelhardt, “is the keystone to our plan to transform the nation’s preeminent information resource on U.S. foundations and their grantmaking into a knowledge center on the broader field of philanthropy and civil society worldwide. And no one is better suited to lead this new institute than Les Salamon. He brings with him a body of knowledge about civil society in the United States and globally, developed over more than two decades, that exemplifies imaginative and intelligent inquiry into this large, and rapidly changing, sector of national and international life.”
“A global associational revolution is under way around the world, a massive upsurge of nonprofit and civic organizations,” noted Dr. Salamon, “and it is transforming our approach to public problems and stimulating new forms of citizen involvement. The Alexis Institute at the Foundation Center will provide an authoritative and reliable source of knowledge about these developments. As such, it will help advance, both in this country and around the world, the vision inspired by its namesake, Alexis de Tocqueville, who saw in civil associations an antidote to excessive individualism and a vehicle for fostering those ‘habits of the heart’ and civic virtues that are ultimately necessary for democracy, commerce, and civilization to flourish. I am delighted that an organization as respected as the Foundation Center would see fit to launch an initiative of this sort, and I am delighted to be joining with it to do so.”
M. Christine DeVita, Chairman of the Foundation Center Board and President of the Wallace Foundation said, “The Center’s Alexis Institute, under Les Salamon’s leadership, will fulfill a longstanding goal of the Foundation Center Board to create a twenty-first century global think tank for philanthropy and civil society. We are proud to see this goal become a reality today, and we are committed to a major campaign to help us to bring this initiative to fruition and to assure the resources it needs for the long-term future.”
The Alexis Institute for Civil Society and Philanthropy will operate under the guidance of an advisory board that will be chaired by Reynold Levy, President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and former President of the AT&T Foundation. The advisory board, which will include other foundation, nonprofit, and scholarly leaders from the U.S. and around the world, will provide advice on strategic directions for the institute, connect the institute to others in the field, and ensure the institute’s commitment to the highest ideals of objectivity and free expression.
“I cannot think of a better state of affairs than Lester Salamon teaming up with the Foundation Center to form an institute devoted to illuminating the critical challenges that confront civil society today,” commented Mr. Levy. “The combined research, convening, and publication power of Lester Salamon and of the Foundation Center are a rare combination. It will be a pleasure to serve at Lester’s side in helping to set the course for and create new knowledge as a result of this new initiative.”
About the Foundation Center
Established in 1956, and today supported by more than 600 foundations, the Foundation Center is the nation’s leading authority on organized philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust. The Center maintains the most comprehensive database on U.S. grantmakers and their grants and conducts research on trends in foundation growth and giving. It also operates education and outreach programs that help nonprofit organizations obtain the resources they need. More than 37,000 people visit the Center’s web site each day, and thousands more are served in its five regional learning centers and through its national network of more than 250 Cooperating Collections. For more information, visit foundationcenter.org or call 212-620-4230.
About Lester M. Salamon
Lester M. Salamon pioneered the empirical study of the nonprofit sector in the United States and, in recent years, around the world. Most recently he worked with the United Nations Statistics Division to generate a Handbook
on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts that is revolutionizing the collection of data on nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, and volunteering by statistical agencies around the world. For the past 18 years, Dr. Salamon has been at the Johns Hopkins University, first as Founding Director of its Institute for Policy Studies and later as director of its Center for Civil Society Studies. Prior to this, Dr. Salamon served as the director of the Center for Governance and Management Research at the Urban Institute and as Deputy Associate Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. Dr. Salamon received his B.A. degree in Economics and Policy Studies from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University. He is the author or editor of over twenty books, including most recently Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector (Kumarian 2004), The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit America (Brookings 2003), and The Tools of Government (Oxford University Press, 2002). For more information, visit www.jhu.edu/ccss.
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