According to Wikipedia, “Philanthropy” means the love of humanity. A conventional modern definition is “private initiatives for the public good focusing on quality of life,” which combines an original humanistic tradition with a social scientific aspect developed in the 20th century. The definition also served to contrast philanthropy with business endeavours which are private initiatives for private good.
Philanthropy has distinguishing characteristics separate from charity; not all charity is philanthropy, or vice versa, …charity aims to relieve the pain of the particular social problem, whereas philanthropy attempts to address the rooot cause of the problem – the difference between the proverbial gift of a fish to a hungry person, versus teaching them how to fish.
I believe it is our responsibility to teach how to fish so that we are empowering others rather than merely feeding them.
