Non-profit

Carnegie Corporation of New York

Logo for Canargie Corporation of New York (link)
Website:

www.carnegie.org

Location:

NEW YORK, NY

Tax ID:

13-1628151

Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)-PF

Budget (2015):

Revenue: $252,292,260
Expenses: $191,737,566
Assets: $3,300,084,286

Formation:

1911

President:

Vartan Gregorian

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Andrew Carnegie founded the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911.  The earlier nonprofits Carnegie founded, such as the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Carnegie Hero Fund, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, had narrow, limited aims. But Carnegie, who still had half his fortune when he crated the corporation, left no restrictions on what the Carnegie Corporation should be used for. As a result, the nonprofit gradually deviated from Andrew Carnegie’s beliefs. Before Carnegie’s death in 1919, the Carnegie Corporation eliminated a program created by Carnegie that subsidized the construction of libraries. However, until World War II the Carnegie Corporation largely funded other Carnegie charities.

Under the presidencies of John W. Gardner (1955-1965) and Alan W. Pifer (1965-1982), the Carnegie Corporation dramatically expanded. Its most significant achievement was the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television (1965), which inspired the creation of the Corporation for Public Television. A second commission, the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting (1979; also known as “Carnegie II”) was far less effective.

Vartan Gregorian has been the president of the Carnegie Corporation since 1997.  Under his leadership, the Carnegie Corporation has awarded substantial grants to such liberal groups as the Alliance for Justice, the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). It has also funded numerous prizes, including the Carnegie Medals for Philanthropy, the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, and the Andrew Carnegie Fellows, a program similar to the MacArthur Foundation’s fellowship programs but limited to college professors.

Origins

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) retired from business in 1901, when he and his partners sold Carnegie Steel to U.S. Steel. He created many organizations with limited aims, including the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which conducts scientific research, the Carnegie Hero Fund1, which gives medals to people who save others’ lives, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which funds educational research.

By 1906, notes Carnegie biographer Joseph Frazier Wall, “Carnegie was sick of the game” of philanthropy, and by 1910 “he was desperately sick of it.” “The final task dispensation of wealth preparing for the final exit,” Carnegie wrote to a friend, is “a heavy task…all sad.. You have no idea the strain I have been under.”2

When the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace was created in 1910, Carnegie still had half of his fortune. Under the advice of Elihu Root, Secretary of State in the Theodore Roosevelt administration, Carnegie used $125 million to create the Carnegie Corporation of New York in 1911. He imposed only one restriction on the corporation: It would provide pensions for Presidents of the United States and their widows.3

Three years later, Carnegie tried to change his mind. He tried to take $10 million from the Carnegie Corporation budget for a new organization to serve Great Britain. When Root advised that the endowment could not be reversed, Carnegie used money he had saved for his retirement to start the British organization. 4

Carnegie’s wishes were violated a second time during his lifetime when the Carnegie Corporation board voted to slow down and ultimately eliminate the program that funded libraries. Of the 1.419 libraries funded with Carnegie’s money, only six were approved after 1917, two years before Carnegie’s death, with the last opening in American Fork, Utah in 1919. Historian Theodore Jones notes that there is no evidence what Carnegie’s reaction was when the Carnegie Corporation board voted to terminate the library program.5

Eugenics

While the connections between philanthropy and eugenics encompass many groups besides the Carnegie Corporation, one of the most egregious examples lies squarely at the feet of former longtime board member Frederick H. Osborn. 6 Osborn, a staunch population-control enthusiast, authored Preface to Eugenics in 1940. He began the Population Council in 1952 alongside John D. Rockefeller III and wrote a chapter on population control in Rockefeller Foundation executive Warren Weaver’s volumes on American philanthropical action in 1967. 7

Specifically related to Carnegie Corporation funds is the Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. In 2002, then-Governor Mike Easley issued an apology for the state’s history with eugenics and genetics testing. These state-integrated programs were funded by the Carnegie Corporation. 8

While the above can be attributed only to the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Carnegie Institute of Washington helped fund the eugenics movement. Charles Davenport and Harry Laughlin opened the Eugenics Record Office in 1910 with the backing of the Carnegie Institute and the Rockefellers. 9 There, they compiled records of the “feebleminded” from the slums of New York and the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Laughlin testified before Congress about his work and was later awarded an honorary degree in the “science of racial cleansing” from the University of Heidelberg in Nazi Germany. 10 The Second World War and the Nazis’ fascination with eugenics ended public interest in the United States and western Europe and the Eugenics Record Office was closed in 1939. 11

Carnegie Corporation in the 20th Century

Until World War II, the Carnegie Corporation remained relatively small. Under the presidency of Henry S. Pritchett, the foundation largely funded other Carnegie charities.  Pritchett’s successor, Frederick S. Keppel, discarded old programs but created few new ones.  As a result, the Carnegie Corporation remained small until after World War II.12

After World War II, and the presidencies of John W. Gardner (1955-1965) and Alan Pifer (1965-1982), the foundation dramatically expanded. Under Pifer’s presidency, according to foundation observer Waldemar Nielsen, Carnegie became “the quintessential liberal, activist entrepreneurial foundation, more of a combat force than a traditional charity.”13

Carnegie’s most significant achievement of the 1960s was funding the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television in 1965. The Commission issued a report, Public Television: A Program for Action, which said “we contemplate assistance to Public Television on a far larger scale than at present.”14 All of the commission’s recommendations, including changing the name of educational television to “public television,” creating one quasi-governmental organization to run the stations and oversee content (the Public Broadcasting Service) and a second one (the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) to fund the stations. The only proposal Congress rejected from the commission was a two-percent excise tax on the sale of television sets to pay for shows on public television.

In 1977, the Carnegie Corporation created a second commission to explore ways to fund public broadcasting. Unlike the first Carnegie Commission, the report of the Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting, or “Carnegie II,” issued in 1979, published recommendations that were not implemented, including doubling the size of the public broadcasting budget and paying for it in part by taxing commercial stations’ broadcast licenses.15

In 1985, the Carnegie Corporation met with representatives of other nonprofits Carnegie created to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Andrew Carnegie’s birth.  At the event Carnegie Corporation president David Hamburg told the Chronicle of Higher Education that Andrew Carnegie, were he alive, would appreciate “a continuing commitment to three themes that shaped his philanthropy: peace, education, and social justice.”16

The Vartan Gregorian Years

Vartan Gregorian became the Carnegie Corporation’s president in 1997, a position he continues to hold today. Prior to becoming Carnegie Corporation president, he was president of Brown University and also served as an adviser to Walter Annenberg in his Annenberg Challenge, a $500 million series of grants to public schools that many consider a major philanthropic mistake.17

The Carnegie Corporation under Gregorian has funded numerous liberal groups. Among others, it has funded the Alliance for Justice, the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), and the Mexican American Legal and Defense Fund (MALDEF).18

The Carnegie Corporation has also funded a wide variety of prizes in recent years.  These include:

The Carnegie Medals for Philanthropy, launched in 2001, awarded to eminent philanthropists. The most recent winners include H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest and Marguerite Lenfest of the Lenfest Foundation, Julian Robertson of the Robertson Foundation, and Jeff Skoll of the Skoll Foundation.19

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction, co-sponsored with the American Library Association. The winners in 2017 were Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad for best novel and Matthew Desmond for Evicted for best non-fiction book.20

The Andrew Carnegie Fellows, launched in 2015, which give 35 professors two-year, $200,000 grants. These grants are similar to the MacArthur Fellowships, but are limited to professors.21

The Academic Leadership Award, launched in 2015. In 2017 this prize was given to seven university presidents, including Georgia State University president Mark P. Becker, Georgetown University president John J. DeGioia, and Case Western Reserve University president Barbara J. Snyder. Schools whose presidents received these prizes got $500,000 grants.22

Evaluations

In 2011, the Carnegie Corporation marked its centennial. President Vartan Gregorian gave an interview with Carnegie Corporation vice president Susan King in which he said his role was to be “a guardian of a tradition: a guardian of an important mission…We just have to keep Andrew Carnegie’s notion of spreading the gospel of wealth, and that’s what we are doing.”23

Indiana University philanthropy professor Leslie Lenkowsky noted in Philanthropy that “in important ways, the Corporation’s work has departed from its founder’s vision. Although it remains riveted on curing social and political inequalities, it has come to regard them less as the unfortunate by-product of an otherwise successful and worthy economic system and more as symptoms of fundamental flaws that require substantial changes to the system itself.”24

The Economist noted that both IBM and the Carnegie Corporation had both been created in 1911. The magazine had concluded that IBM had done more good since 1961 because it continued to grow, while the Carnegie Corporation stagnated. IBM had sales of $200 billion and employed 427,000 people, while Carnegie barely made the list of America’s 20 largest foundations.

One reason why Carnegie was far smaller than IBM, The Economist noted, “may be that 100 years is too old for a philanthropic foundation. The absence of an existential threat have made it too comfortable…It is not clear what, if anything, keeps the people in charge of the Carnegie Corporation awake at night. The passage of time saps a foundation of the unique energy of its founder.”

“No wonder,” the magazine concluded, “many of today’s philanthropists aim, as Carnegie did, to give away all of their money by the time they die, or at least put a time limit on the lifespan of their foundation after their death.”25

Political Activities

Voter Registration

In late 2000, the Carnegie Corporation invited left-leaning groups to a meeting in order to discuss coordinated voter registration efforts with funding from major liberal donors. Because the IRS prohibits 501(c)(3) nonprofits from engaging in partisan voter drives, the targeted demographics were referred to as “historically disenfranchised” communities. According to liberal journalist Sasha Issenberg in his 2012 book The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns, “Major liberal donors got into the GOTV [get-out-the-vote] game: Project Vote organized urban areas, Rock the Vote targeted the young, the NAACP National Voter Fund focused on African-Americans.” 26

References

  1. For a history of the Carnegie Hero Fund, see Martin Morse Wooster,  “Ordinary People, Extraordinary Rescues,” The American Enterprise, November 2000.
  2. Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh:  University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989), 881.
  3. Robert M. Lester, Forty Years of Carnegie Giving (New York:  Scribner’s, 1941), 166.
  4. Burton J. Hendrick, The Life of Andrew Carnegie, Volume II (New York: Harper, 1932), 351.
  5. Theodore Jones, Carnegie Libraries Across AmericaA Public Legacy (New York:  Preservation Press/Wiley, 1997), 101.
  6. Schambra, William A. “Philanthropy’s Original Sin.” Hudson Institute. October 1, 2013. https://www.hudson.org/research/9747-philanthropy-s-original-sin.
  7. Schambra, William A. “Philanthropy’s Original Sin.” Hudson Institute. October 1, 2013. https://www.hudson.org/research/9747-philanthropy-s-original-sin.
  8. Schambra, William A. “How the Carnegie Corporation contributed to NC’s shameful past.” Philanthropy Daily. September 19, 2011. https://www.philanthropydaily.com/how-the-carnegie-corporation-contributed-to-ncs-shameful-past/.
  9. Krisch, Joshua A. “When Racism Was a Science.” The New York Times. October 13, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-files-the-eugenics-record-office-recreates-a-dark-time-in-a-laboratorys-past.html.
  10. Krisch, Joshua A. “When Racism Was a Science.” The New York Times. October 13, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-files-the-eugenics-record-office-recreates-a-dark-time-in-a-laboratorys-past.html.
  11. Krisch, Joshua A. “When Racism Was a Science.” The New York Times. October 13, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/14/science/haunted-files-the-eugenics-record-office-recreates-a-dark-time-in-a-laboratorys-past.html.
  12. Martin Morse Wooster, The Great Philanthropists and the Problem of ‘Donor Intent,’ third edition (Washington, D.C.:  Capital Research Center, 2007). 54.
  13. Waldemar Nielsen, The Golden Donors:  A New Anatomy of the Great Foundations (New York:  Dutton, 1985), 134.
  14. Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, Public TelevisionA Program for Action (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 36.  The report capitalizes “Public Television” in the text.  It is unclear who wrote this report.
  15. For a discussion of the Carnegie Corporation and public television, see Martin Morse Wooster, Great Philanthropic Mistakes (Washington, D.C.:  Hudson Institute, 2010), 125-143.
  16. Paul Desruisseaux, “What Would Andrew Carnegie Think About How His Money Would Be Used Today?” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 1985.
  17. For a discussion of Gregorian’s role in the Annenberg Challenge, see Martin Morse Wooster, Great Philanthropic Mistakes, 187-202.
  18. Kirk MacDonald, “The Carnegie Corporation of New York:  From Building Libraries to Undermining American Society,” Foundation Watch, May 2013 https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-carnegie-corporation-of-new-york-from-building-libraries-to-undermining-american-society/
  19. Celeste Ford, “Announcing the 2017 Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy Recipients,” press release from the Carnegie Corporation, June 22, 2017. https://carnegie.org/news/articles/announcing-the-2017-carnegie-medal-of-philanthropy-recipients/ The Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy website is https://www.medalofphilanthropy.org;
  20. “Andrew Carnegie Medals for Fiction and Nonfiction,” undated press release issued by the American Library Association http://www.ala.com/awardsgrants/carnegieadult
  21. Celeste Ford, “Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program Recognizes 35 Scholars,” press release issued by Carnegie Corporation April 26, 2017. https://www.carnegie.org/news/articles/andrew-carnegie-fellows-program-awards-research-fellowships-35-scholars-important-research-social-sciences-and-humanities/
  22. Celeste Ford, “Academic Leadership Award Recognizes Seven University Presidents,” Carnegie Corporation press release issued September 12, 2017. http://www.carnegie.org/seven-higher-education-visionaires-recognized-2017-academic-leadership-award/
  23. “In His Own Words:  A Q and A With Vartan Gregorian,” http://www.carnegie.org/media/filer_public/58/2d/582d3b2e-50c1-4f77-b1a7-74c9d31d20f/ccny_essay_2010/vgp_t1.pdf
  24. Leslie Lenkowsky, “The Carnegie Corporation at 100,” Philanthropy, Winter 2011.  http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/donor_intent/the-carnegie-corporation-turns-100/
  25. “The Centenarians Square Up,” The Economist, June 9, 2011 http://www.economist.com/node/18802844
  26. Sasha Issenberg. The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns2012. Pp. 85-86.

Directors, Employees & Supporters

  1. Geri Mannion
    Program Director, U.S. Democracy Fund (1988-Present)
  2. Lynn Fahselt
    Former Communications Consultant
  3. Scott Nielsen
    Former Employee
  4. Darren Sandow
    Consultant
  5. John Holdren
    Informal adviser, grant recipient

Donation Recipients

  1. We Are America Alliance (WAAA) (Non-profit)
  2. ACORN (Non-profit)
  3. ADC Research Institute (ADCRI) (Non-profit)
  4. Alliance for Justice (AFJ) (Non-profit)
  5. America Abroad Media (AAM) (Non-profit)
  6. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (Non-profit)
  7. American Bar Association (Non-profit)
  8. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) (Non-profit)
  9. American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation (Non-profit)
  10. American Independent Institute (Non-profit)
  11. America’s Voice Education Fund (Non-profit)
  12. Arms Control Association (Non-profit)
  13. Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Civic Engagement Fund (Non-profit)
  14. Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC) (Non-profit)
  15. Asian Americans for Equality (AAFE) (Non-profit)
  16. Aspen Institute (Non-profit)
  17. Ballot Initiative Strategy Center Foundation (Non-profit)
  18. Bipartisan Policy Center (Non-profit)
  19. Brookings Institution (Non-profit)
  20. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Non-profit)
  21. CASA de Maryland (Non-profit)
  22. Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) (Non-profit)
  23. Center for a New American Security (Non-profit)
  24. Center for American Progress (CAP) (Non-profit)
  25. Center for Community Change (CCC) (Non-profit)
  26. Center for Investigative Reporting (Non-profit)
  27. Center for National Independence in Politics (Non-profit)
  28. Truman Center for National Policy (CNP) (Non-profit)
  29. Center for Public Integrity (Non-profit)
  30. Center for Public Interest Research (Non-profit)
  31. Center for Responsive Politics (Open Secrets) (Non-profit)
  32. Center for Rural Strategies (Non-profit)
  33. Center for Strategic and International Studies (Non-profit)
  34. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) (Non-profit)
  35. Central European University (CEU) (Non-profit)
  36. Century Foundation (Non-profit)
  37. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) (Non-profit)
  38. City Year (Non-profit)
  39. Civic Nation (Non-profit)
  40. Common Cause Education Fund (Non-profit)
  41. Common Counsel Foundation (Non-profit)
  42. Common Sense Media (Non-profit)
  43. Communications Consortium Media Center (Non-profit)
  44. Council on Foreign Relations (Non-profit)
  45. Democracy North Carolina (Non-profit)
  46. Demos (Non-profit)
  47. Echoing Green (Non-profit)
  48. Electronic Privacy Information Center (Non-profit)
  49. Equal Justice Works (Non-profit)
  50. ExcelinEd (Non-profit)
  51. Fair Elections Center (Non-profit)
  52. FairVote (Non-profit)
  53. Faith in Public Life (Non-profit)
  54. Federation of American Scientists (FAS) (Non-profit)
  55. Firelight Media (Non-profit)
  56. Fiscal Policy Institute (Non-profit)
  57. Four Freedoms Fund (Non-profit)
  58. Free Press (Non-profit)
  59. FSG (Non-profit)
  60. Fund for the City of New York (Non-profit)
  61. German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) (Non-profit)
  62. Human Rights First (Non-profit)
  63. Human Rights Watch (Non-profit)
  64. iCivics (Non-profit)
  65. Immigrant Justice Corps (Non-profit)
  66. Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) (Non-profit)
  67. International Crisis Group (Non-profit)
  68. International Institute for Strategic Studies (Non-profit)
  69. International Rescue Committee (Non-profit)
  70. Justice at Stake (Non-profit)
  71. Leadership Conference Education Fund (Non-profit)
  72. League of Women Voters (LWV) (Non-profit)
  73. Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) (Non-profit)
  74. Migration Policy Institute (Non-profit)
  75. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) (Non-profit)
  76. NALEO Educational Fund (Non-profit)
  77. National Democratic Institute (NDI) (Non-profit)
  78. National Immigration Forum (NIF) (Non-profit)
  79. National Immigration Law Center (Non-profit)
  80. National Institute on Money in State Politics (Non-profit)
  81. National Public Radio (NPR) (Non-profit)
  82. National Security Archive Fund (NSAF) (Non-profit)
  83. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) (Non-profit)
  84. NEO Philanthropy (Non-profit)
  85. New America (New America Foundation) (Non-profit)
  86. New School (Non-profit)
  87. New Venture Fund (NVF) (Non-profit)
  88. Niskanen Center (Non-profit)
  89. Nonprofit VOTE (Non-profit)
  90. Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) (Non-profit)
  91. Opportunity Institute (Non-profit)
  92. Partnership for a New American Economy Research Fund (Non-profit)
  93. People for the American Way (PFAW) (Non-profit)
  94. People for the American Way (PFAW) Foundation (Non-profit)
  95. Ploughshares Fund (Non-profit)
  96. ProPublica (Non-profit)
  97. Public Citizen (Non-profit)
  98. ReThink Media (Non-profit)
  99. Right Question Institute (RQI) (Non-profit)
  100. Rock the Vote (Non-profit)
  101. Roosevelt Institute (Non-profit)
  102. Russell Sage Foundation (Non-profit)
  103. SCOPE (Non-profit)
  104. Small Business Majority (Non-profit)
  105. Social Science Research Council (Non-profit)
  106. Sojourners (Non-profit)
  107. Spitfire Strategies (For-profit)
  108. State Voices (Non-profit)
  109. Take Back Our Republic (Non-profit)
  110. Taxpayers for Common Sense (Non-profit)
  111. The 74 Media (The 74) (Non-profit)
  112. National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund (Non-profit)
  113. The New Teacher Project (TNTP) (Non-profit)
  114. Tides Center (Non-profit)
  115. Tides Foundation (Non-profit)
  116. Tobin Project (Non-profit)
  117. U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US-PIRG) Education Fund (Non-profit)
  118. UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza) (Non-profit)
  119. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) (Non-profit)
  120. Urban Justice Center (Non-profit)
  121. Vera Institute of Justice (VIJ) (Non-profit)
  122. Volcker Alliance (Non-profit)
  123. Voter Engagement Evaluation Project (VEEP) (Non-profit)
  124. William J. Brennan Center for Justice (Non-profit)
  125. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Non-profit)
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: September - August
  • Tax Exemption Received: May 1, 1938

  • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2015 Sep Form PF $252,292,260 $191,737,566 $3,300,084,286 $124,702,254 $0 $0 $0 $0 PDF
    2014 Sep Form PF $237,322,042 $158,644,182 $3,332,078,461 $132,080,028 $0 $0 $0 $0 PDF
    2013 Sep Form PF $257,346,063 $156,112,963 $3,033,694,178 $100,107,787 $0 $0 $0 $0 PDF
    2012 Sep Form PF $115,963,408 $137,099,975 $2,764,849,515 $102,914,876 $0 $0 $0 $0 PDF
    2011 Sep Form PF $143,964,480 $120,906,152 $2,548,230,211 $99,714,953 $0 $0 $0 $0 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    Carnegie Corporation of New York

    437 MADISON AVE
    NEW YORK, NY 10022-7001