Philanthropy as a core strategy for corporations did not emerge until the early 20^th century.  Scattered works by religious organizations sought to mitigate the suffering in tenements and for the urban poor following the Civil War, but the concept had not yet taken root in American corporations. 

Andrew Carnegie’s 1889 essay “The Gospel of Wealth” set the tone for a wave of philanthropy that accelerated innovation in the early 20^th century.  Primarily through investments in education, scientific discovery, and in Carnegie’s case, a pension fund for professors, that eventually became TIAA-CREF. All of this played a role in America’s rise to economic world power. 

Carnegie, and his peers like John D. Rockefeller, considered the business of giving their money away to be far more onerous than making it.  They took it very seriously, and embraced a scientific approach to their giving, collecting thorough data, and making…