especially regarding the welfare state.

The princes and the various imperial states continued traditional efforts, funding monumental buildings, parks,
and art collections. Starting in the early 19th century, the rapidly emerging middle classes made local philanthropy a way to establish their legitimate
role in shaping society, pursuing ends different from the aristocracy and the military. They concentrated on support for social welfare, higher education,
and cultural institutions, as well as working to alleviate the hardships brought on by rapid industrialization. The bourgeoisie (upper-middle class) was
defeated in its effort to gain political control in 1848, but it still had enough money and organizational skills that could be employed through
philanthropic agencies to provide an alternative power base for its worldview.[21]

Religion was divisive in Germany, as Protestants, Catholics, and Jews used alternative philanthropic strategies. The Catholics, for example, continued
their medieval practice of using financial donations in their wills to lighten their punishment in purgatory after death. The Protestants did not believe in
purgatory, but made a strong commitment to improving their communities there and then. Conservative Protestants raised concerns about deviant
sexuality, alcoholism, and socialism, as well as illegitimate births. They used philanthropy to try to eradicate what they considered as "social evils" that
were seen as utterly sinful.[22] All the religious groups used financial endowments, which multiplied in number and wealth as Germany grew richer. Each
was devoted to a specific benefit to that religious community, and each had a board of trustees; laymen donated their time to public service.

Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, an upper class Junker, used his state-sponsored philanthropy, in the form of his invention of the modern welfare state,
to neutralize the political threat posed by the socialistic labor unions.[23] The middle classes, however, made the most use of the new welfare state, in
terms of heavy use of museums, gymnasiums (high schools), universities, scholarships, and hospitals. For example, state funding for universities and
gymnasiums covered only a fraction of the cost; private philanthropy became essential. 19th-century Germany was even more oriented toward civic
improvement than Britain or the United States, when measured in voluntary private funding for public purposes. Indeed, such German institutions as
the kindergarten, the research university, and the welfare state became models copied by the Anglo-Saxons.[21]: 1–7

The heavy human and economic losses of the First World War, the financial crises of the 1920s, as well as the Nazi regime and other devastation by
1945, seriously undermined and weakened the opportunities for widespread philanthropy in Germany. The civil society so elaborately built up in the
19th century was dead by 1945. However, by the 1950s, as the "economic miracle" was restoring German prosperity, the old aristocracy was defunct,
and middle-class philanthropy started to return to importance.[21]: 142–73

War and postwar: Belgium and Eastern Europe[edit]

Poster requesting clothing for occupied France and Belgium
The Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) was an international (predominantly American) organization that arranged for the supply of food to
German-occupied Belgium and northern France during the First World War. It was led by Herbert Hoover.[24] Between 1914 and 1919, the CRB
operated entirely with voluntary efforts and was able to feed eleven million Belgians by raising money, obtaining voluntary contributions of money and
food, shipping the food to Belgium and controlling it there. For example, the CRB shipped 697,116,000 pounds of flour to Belgium.[25]: 72–95 Biographer
George Nash finds that by the end of 1916, Hoover "stood preeminent in the greatest humanitarian undertaking the world had ever seen."[26] Biographer
William Leuchtenburg adds, "He had raised and spent millions of dollars, with trifling overhead and not a penny lost to fraud. At its peak, his
organization fed nine million Belgians and French daily.[27]: 30

When the war ended in late 1918, Hoover took control of the American Relief Administration (ARA), with the mission of food[clarification needed] to Central and
Eastern Europe. The ARA fed millions.[25]: 114–137 U.S. government funding for the ARA expired in the summer of 1919, and Hoover transformed the ARA
into a private organization, raising millions of dollars from private donors. Under the auspices of the ARA, the European Children's Fund fed millions of
starving children. When attacked for distributing food to Russia, which was under Bolshevik control, Hoover snapped, "Twenty million people are
starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!"[27]: 58 [28]

United States[edit]
Main article: Philanthropy in the United States