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The Massachusetts Catalogue for Philanthropy was the first of its kind—conceived in November 1996, as a "Foundation-Initiated Project" of the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation. From the outset, it was designed to be the nucleus of interrelated and mutually reinforcing elements, engaging all constituencies of philanthropy in a comprehensive, institutionalized system for promoting philanthropy itself. Originally this included the "Generosity Index." We later added a website, statewide systems for Venture Philanthropy, Special Projects, and Capital Campaigns for Small Charities; state "Giving Days" following Thanksgiving; and various stylistic and substantive elements. The constituencies we engage are charities, grant makers, community foundations as a group, fundraisers, donors, the media, scholars, and financial and philanthropic advisors.

Within the Catalogue and website are many innovative elements: a donor-friendly taxonomy of charities, organizing them for presentation to the public as an intelligible, sensible, navigable tool for finding philanthropic fields and specific charities one might enjoy supporting; the Giving Form, enabling "one-stop" year-end giving and facilitating gifts of stocks; a rigorous conceptualization of philanthropy, clarifying its role and significance in history, particularly in American history; a fresh vocabulary describing philanthropy in more precise, constructive, attractive, and even compelling, terms; a new view of the philanthropic sector—i.e., an annual showcase or snapshot of the entire field in a given "market", displaying current work being accomplished or proposed in all fields, all across that market, focusing on the 92% of all charities with budgets below $3 million, that are otherwise relatively invisible and unknown to the public because they cannot afford junk mail, junk telephone calls, or media advertising, and are of only rare interest to the media.

Notable and indicative results: Largest gifts to date: a $10 million pledge; a multi-year total for one donor of $450,000; and a $100,000 grant by a new foundation. These were made to Catalogue Venture Philanthropy projects from donors whom those charities could not have found by any other means. Several donors evoked by the Catalogue have contributed five- and six-figure gifts and grants in subsequent years. The Catalogue has directly helped to inspire the creation of two new community foundations, and has assisted at the births of three more. The Catalogue has helped to change a number of lives, and possibly saved one life by introducing a charity to a person in dire need. The Catalogue has changed the history of many charities, according to them.

Strategically, and though we would never claim exclusive credit for this, we think it fair to point out that in the first four years after the first publication of the Catalogue and the Generosity Index, Massachusetts giving doubled — from $2 billion to $4 billion, the highest rate of increase in the nation; New England became the fastest- growing region in charitable giving. Massachusetts has ranked higher in the nation in each of the first four years since 1997 (2001 was disruptive everywhere) than it did in every year before 1997, and in 3 out of those 4 years Massachusetts' rank in the Generosity Index rose to an unprecedented 47th in the nation, from our accustomed slot of 50th in the years 1991-6. In five years since 1997, nearly 1,000 new private foundations have been created in Massachusetts — twice as many as would have been added at the pre-1997 rate, and one of the highest relative rates of increase (i.e., compared to the size of our foundation cohort) in the nation.

Among all the causes of these increases, the particular role played by the Catalogue was leadership: we were the first to identify publicly the fundamental problem of New England and Massachusetts giving, the nation’s widest disparity between our wealth and our charitable giving; the first to do something precisely conceived and targeted to change it; and the results reflected that effort exactly in timing, agency, and direction.

The model has spread nationwide, with Catalogue projects in Washington, D.C., St. Louis, MO, in certain counties of Washington state and North Carolina, and in a variety of other applications. Our challenge and opportunity now is to promote that dissemination more effectively.