Lending a Hand at Home
OVER A CENTURY AGO A FEW VISIONARIES LAUNCHED CHARITIES THAT NOW COLLECT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS
UNLIKE THE PEACE CORPS, with its Cold War focus on foreign lands, these leading charities were launched to solve problems at home, such as growing poverty and urban crowding, and were founded in the 19th century, amid the moral and spiritual revival sometimes known as the Third Great Awakening. They remain potent
symbols of Americans’ generosity, collecting some $7.5 billion in donations in 2019.
1851 AMERICAN YMCA
The sea captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan made waves for surviving a shipwreck in Antarctica and a pirate attack off the coast of Brazil. But his most lasting legacy came while doing missionary work among the seamen of Boston. Inspired by a London-based group called the Young Men’s Christian Association, founded in 1844, Sullivan launched the first U.S. YMCA in 1851. Today, there are 2,700
YMCAs nationwide.
1880 SALVATION ARMY
Emigrating from England to Philadelphia in 1879 with her parents at the age of 16, the precocious Eliza Shirley—following in the footsteps of the idealistic preacher William Booth, who had founded the first Salvation Army in England in 1865—used an abandoned factory to start the group that would become the American Salvation Army. Today, the organization serves nearly 60 million meals a year.
1881 AMERICAN RED CROSS
After the Civil War, Clara Barton went to treat casualties in the Franco-Prussian War under the International Committee of the Red Cross. She then founded the American Red Cross while lobbying the U.S. government to ratify Geneva Convention protections for wounded soldiers, which it did the following year. The group provides 4.8 million meals and collects four million blood donations annually.
1887 THE UNITED WAY
The United Way was conceived in Colorado by a rabbi, a priest, two ministers and Frances Wisebart Jacobs, the daughter of Bavarian-Jewish immigrants, who led the group for five years. The Charity Organization Society—it wasn’t called the United Way until 1970—raised more than $21,000 in its second year, over $581,000 in today’s money. It remains the nation’s largest charity, with $3.6 billion in donations in 2020.