Funding the humanities: what story do we want to tell?

By Earl Lewis. To grow investment for the humanities, we must start with a clear sense of narrative backed up by solid data, says Earl Lewis. Three quarters of a century ago, Virginia Woolf posed the question: if you had just three guineas to share, what would you support?
In each age we face ostensibly insurmountable challenges that require choices to be made, resources to be allocated and areas to be ignored. This is particularly the case in the US, which has seen an explosion in the number of registered philanthropic organisations, as well as a rethinking of what it means to be philanthropic. According to the Foundation Center, 81,777 foundations and charitable entities dot the US social landscape. More...