When I tell friends, family, or even strangers that I am majoring in Philanthropic Studies, I always get one of two answers.  Many people will say something like, "That's interesting, what do you want to do with that?"  Others may know what philanthropy is and they say something along the lines of, "so you're going to college to learn how to not make money?"  I can't think of a time where I didn't have to explain what philanthropic studies is and how it could even be a major, before saying the types of opportunities I can obtain from it.

Formally, philanthropic studies is a “multidisciplinary inquiry into the origins and evolution, forms and contexts, structure and institutionalization of philanthropic and other pro-social behaviors,” (LFSOP Faculty; Hatcher, Shaker & Freeman, 2016).  What that means is that, through a lot of different ways of education, within a Philanthropic Studies degree, I am able to study philanthropy and how it started to where it is now, in addition to its impact on our society and our economy.  Philanthropic studies is a broad term to define a massive load of philanthropy and the historical and cultural context within that.

Check out out the paper below to get a more in depth discussion about what PHST is!

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