Where Are The Men?

Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz

In researching articles about women's philanthropy for our book, Women and Philanthropy: Boldly Shaping a Better World, it became very clear that the super majority of articles were penned by women.  And the tradition continues.  For example, the articles in the publication, Woman to Woman, featuring Buffy (co-author of our book) and giving by women in Howard County, MD, were written by Laura Linley.  Another recent article from the Baltimore area, "Charitable Giving: Women's Philanthropy Emerges as a Force," for The Daily Record, was also written by a woman: Betsy Nelson. 

I think back to Anne Matthews writing that seminal article in the New York Times Magazine in 1991, "Alma Maters Court Their Daughters; Holly Hall's numerous articles, beginning with "Cultivating Philanthropy by Women," for the Chronicle of Philanthropy; Erin Strout's article about courting and reaching female donors in the Chronicle of Higher Education; the People magazine article in 1998 about the Washington Women's Foundation that motivated so many of us to start giving circles; and Joanna Krotz many articles for the annual issue of Town&Country.

On the one hand I mightily applaud all the women in the media who have brought women's philanthropy to the forefront.  But I also greatly lament the lack of men in the media who have written about women's philanthropy.  Where are you?  There are a few "good men" but many more are needed to give validity to a very valid subject impacting all of human kind: women's philanthropy and how it is reshaping not only philanthropy, but the world as well.