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“Creating a Philanthropic Imagination”:Reimagining Love, Philanthrocapitalism, and Communication

25Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 27He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.” 28And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”  29But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35The next day he took out two denarii, and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ 36Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

–Luke 10:25-37, NRSV

Learning to Love: Introduction

        As a preacher’s kid, I grew up around Biblical stories like this one. These parables were

used in our and other churches as evidence for why Jesus Christ is both a celebrated figure in the

Christian faith and a model for how Christians should act. But it wasn’t until I studied both

communication and religion in college that I saw significance for those stories outside of a

religious tradition. As a student of religion, I’m interested in how religious teachings, such as the

“Great Commandment” above, inform and impact our actions and work outside of the church –

in our interactions with others and our lives in general. As a student of communication wanting

to put my rhetorical skills to work in the nonprofit sector, I’m also very interested in the

development of philanthropy. According to the Urban Institute Center on Nonprofits and

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Philanthropy, there are currently over 1.6 million nonprofit organizations in the United States

and the field is growing faster than for-profit and government sectors. While these charitable

institutions accounted for 5.4% of the national GDP in 2010, there have been more significant

changes to Americans’ understanding of philanthropy that have come from firms technically

outside the nonprofit sector. In previous projects I have analyzed the rhetorical effectiveness of

such for-profit, socially minded companies like TOMS Shoes in an attempt to better understand

the current state of philanthropic work.

        As much as it has evolved since ancient times, philanthropy has still been associated with

the “Great Commandment.” The idea of loving your neighbor is an ancient, well-known teaching

– it is declared as a critical commandment numerous times in the Bible. But that axiom is still

relevant in contemporary society. Such a lesson is pervasive because the Christian tradition is

inherently embedded in American culture. This teaching likely prompts a similar widespread

view of philanthropy as the public institution of loving our neighbor. But regardless of how

common such teachings about love are, thinking and living accordingly isn’t always so easy.

What we need, as communication scholars and as people living in community with one another,

is a mindset that allows us to incorporate those ancient religious teachings – whether we’re

religious or not – into our everyday lives. We can achieve that goal with what I call the

philanthropic imagination.

        After all, philanthropy today doesn’t always fit the ethical assumptions the field’s name

brings with it. Philanthropy, charity, the nonprofit sector – whatever we call it – is supposed to

be focused on doing good and nothing else. But in 2014, even generosity is commercial.

Corporate philanthropy, or philanthrocapitalism, is taking over the charitable scene (Bishop xii).

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So is there a way to refocus on the original intentions of such a well-meaning sector? I believe so

– and that path goes all the way back to religious teachings.

The Parameters of Love: Methods and Goals

        Given the earliest etymological origins of philanthropy, which use “Love Your

Neighbor” as the sole guideline, this project seeks to create a path towards incorporating those

origins of love back into modern philanthropy. This path, which I call the philanthropic

imagination, isn’t a foreign concept, but if we are going to put it to good use, it’s necessary that

we name and organize it, connecting meaning to a symbol (Wood 12). Only then can we situate

ourselves as scholars of communication and rhetoric along the path towards a modern

understanding and implementation of agape.

        For the purposes of this project, certain limitations are necessary. First, advocating for a

society in which everyone loves each other is not the point of this project because such a goal

would be naïve and unrealistic. But creating a scholarly community that cares for humanity –

that is possible, and without a doubt worth arguing for and supporting. Furthermore, while every

major religion has its own connections to philanthropy, this paper will deal solely with

Christianity. Such a decision was made for two reasons: first, Christianity is the context with

which I am most familiar, and second, the origins of the words for philanthropy and charity have

clear connections to Biblical teachings. The philanthropic imagination certainly speaks to much

broader cultural ideals than just communication and religion. This project will in no way attempt

to tackle every aspect of what that notion entails, but it will serve as a first step on the road

towards fully understanding what it could look like for our community.

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       This paper will reconceive philanthropy and college communication programs’ role within it

because academia serves as a place in which an imaginary like this one is allowed to prosper. My

argument is threefold. First, the current state of philanthropy has moved away from the original

motivations of love, which is regrettable. Second, my proposed philanthropic imagination serves

as a valuable remedy to that divergence. Third, collegiate communications programs can and

should have an important role to play in bringing this new mindset into the academy. To better

understand the need for a philanthropic imagination – what I hope will become part of the future

of philanthropy – we must get a sense of where philanthropy came from, as well as its current

existence as a business-focused sector. Only then could we propose a future and position our

field within it. Perhaps by doing so, we aren’t just reinventing philanthropy – we’re really

reimagining love for a modern context.

In the Beginning Was Love: Etymological Origins and Implications

Today the nonprofit sector is assumed to be a well-meaning, but still secular, part of the

economy. In fact, of the millions of charities registered in the United States, only 6.1% of them

are “religion-related” (McKeever and Pettijohn 6). Yet etymologically, there’s a much stronger

connection between this sector and religion. The two most common words used to describe

nonprofit organizations are charity and philanthropy. These terms have two things in common –

love and Biblical origins. While the connections that will be drawn in the first part of this section

are largely semantic, as scholars of communication, rhetoric, and writing studies writ large, we

recognize the value of language and the importance that our words have. For us, the words we

use, and the origins they have, matter.

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The same is true for scholars of religion. As celebrated author and lay theologian C. S.

Lewis wrote in his 1960 book The Four Loves, “[o]f course language is not an infallible guide,

but it contains, with all its defects, a good deal of stored insight and experience. If you begin by

flouting it, it has a way of avenging itself later on. We had better not follow Humpty Dumpty in

making words mean whatever we please” (12). Scottish theologian James Moffatt would have

agreed with Lewis. In his 1930 book Love in the New Testament, Moffatt cautions that “[i]t is to

court misconception if one attempts to study ‘love’ or any other feature in the NT [New

Testament] without some accurate linguistic and literary criticism; many of the current

misunderstandings have arisen out of a failure to examine the terms employed and to ascertain

their original associations…” (53). So with a clear exigence for providing a better understanding

of key terms in a religious context and their wider importance, this section will retell the histories

of the words philanthropy and charity, contextualize them in Biblical teachings, and connect

those lessons to a universal understanding of morality. By doing so, we will have an important

appreciation for our nonprofit sector’s earliest beginnings. While we recognize that the origins of

words to not necessitate a certain modern interpretation, such an analysis allows us to recover old

wisdom and apply it to our imaginary, our new way of seeing the world and the people in it.

Word Origins

Both philanthropy and charity originate from Greek words for love. In English, we use

one term to represent any kind of meaningful affection, and that was true for classical Greek too.

But by 250-50 BC, when the Hebrew Bible was being translated to Greek, the language had

modernized to include four different words to distinguish as many kinds of love, though scholars

don’t know how that linguistic shift developed (Rausch 29, 37). Eros is a passionate, physical

love, usually of a sexual nature. Storge is the sort of natural affection felt by parents for their

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children. These two forms of love, while real and important, are not relevant to this project. Eros

and storge are also far less common in the Bible than are the two forms of love we will now turn

our attention to: philia and agape.

Our modern word philanthropy originated from philia, which is usually translated as

brotherly love (as in Philadelphia, the “City of Brotherly Love”). In The Four Loves, Lewis

argued that even though this form of love is sometimes assumed to be weaker than others, philia

“is the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others” (126). Through

this brotherly love, we are able to experience other kinds of love, as well as all other “beauties”

the world offers. Philia became the root word phil-, still meaning love. That root combined with

-anthropy, which is derived from anthro, meaning human, gives us the modern word

philanthropy, meaning “love for humanity.” So when we consider the present and future of

philanthropy, we shall keep in mind that the word, in its purest origins, means love.

The evolution of the English word charity is a much better story. The origin of that word

is the fourth Greek word for love, and by far the most used word in the Septuagint, the main

Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (Rausch 37). Agape is regarded as the highest form of

love – it’s the love between God and Christians, but it’s also the love that humans should feel

towards one another. Its standard definition is of an unconditional love for humanity. In a word,

agape encapsulates the Great Commandment. Agape is the love Christians are taught to emanate.

From the Bible, agape was eventually reinterpreted by Saint Augustine, a North African

bishop and theologian whose writings are among the most influential for Western Christianity

(circa 400 AD). Augustine wrote extensively on caritas, the Latin translation of the Greek

agape. He defined it as “Love to God and love to neighbor” (qtd. in Nygren 495), importantly

linking those two pieces together, just as the Great Commandment does in the Bible. Augustine

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characterized caritas as different from cupiditas, love of things of the world, by situating them as

the right and wrong approaches to the same sentiment. He argues that love can be “the highest

thing” if directed towards something significant, but it can also be “the lowest thing” if targeted

at temporary, material things (qtd. in Nygren 494-5). So for Augustine, and therefore for Western

Christians, one must love something worth loving for the desire to have real meaning.

The word caritas was eventually translated to charity, and all the way through Old

English, the word was tied to Christianity. Still today, though we mainly understand charity to

mean institutions that help the poor, dictionaries still include definitions of love for humanity. So,

both philanthropy and charity mean a love for humanity. It is this origin of love that should

remain in our philanthropic and charitable endeavors. After all, that’s what they’re meant to be.

Biblical Teachings

The word agape was characteristic of early Christianity, especially as the tradition’s

foundational writings expanded that term, that love, far beyond a standard definition of neighbor.

In the Old Testament, where the “Love Your Neighbor” teaching originated (Leviticus 19:18),

neighbor was interpreted as not just those nearby, but all permanent residents of the wider area.

This definition would include almost everyone an Israelite would meet in daily life – “[y]et there

is no clear evidence that before Jesus anyone took ‘neighbour’ to mean fellow-man” (Moffatt

103). Moffatt went on to write, “[i]t was he who taught and practised love so deeply that it broke

with particularism and emerged into love for man as man, a neighbor being anyone who needs

our help, irrespective of creed or nationality.” A contemporary understanding of this teaching as

referencing humanity in general, then, is a direct result of the recorded teachings of Jesus Christ.

Elaborating on that broadened definition, Swedish theologian Anders Nygren provides

four distinguishing features of agape love: it is “spontaneous and unmotivated,” meaning it and

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the actions it encourages exist not because any teachings tell you to do so, or because you’re

acting in your own best interest (as in to reach Heaven or any other religious goal); it is

“indifferent to value,” requiring followers to love absolutely unconditionally (in the Bible, this is

to say, loving the sinners along with the righteous); it is creative, in that it creates value in those

who love and are loved; and it is “the initiator of fellowship with God,” inspiring the foundation

of the relationship that Christians have with God and with one another (75-80). Let us keep

Nygren’s characteristics of agape in mind, as they provide an optimistic framework for living

out such a love for humanity, even in the twenty-first century.

Universal Morality

Obviously, the teachings of Jesus are important to Christians because members of the

tradition are taught to base their worldview and actions on those parables. Yet, these stories have

implications that reach far beyond the two billion Christians in the world (Hackett et al. 9). The

“Love Your Neighbor” maxim and wider understandings of agape have shaped the way people

think and act in the broadest sense. To begin with, Saint Augustine’s doctrine of caritas as love

of the highest thing “is undeniably one of the most interesting and important junctures in the

whole history of ideas,” as it contributed to an ongoing scholarly conversation about what should

be philosophically considered the “highest good” (Nygren 501). So whether one is Christian,

otherwise religious, or not, these works are still critical to our understanding of how humans

relate to one another.  

The works of Augustine, Nygren, and others serve as interpretations of the “Love Your

Neighbor” teaching, which is the Christian origin of the Golden Rule. While every other world

religion has a similar version of this ethical code (Blackburn 101), the phrasing that Americans

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are most familiar with, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” comes straight

from the Bible. Jesus is quoted as delivering this message in both the Gospels of Matthew and

Luke (Mt 7.12; Lk 6.31). While the Golden Rule has been critiqued as being impractical (for

naturally unbalanced relationships like parent-child) and depending on self-interest, Moffatt

argues that these criticisms exist because humans simply have a difficult time living up to such

an idealized standard:

The fact is, justice is always easier for the average individual than generosity; to refrain

from injury sounds more simple and feasible than to act kindly; ‘hurt nobody’ is more

intelligible than ‘help everybody.’ But when we take the Golden Rule not as a complete

summary of what Jesus taught on mutual duties but in connexion with the rest of his

teaching on the reign and love of God, it turns out to be not so open as it seems to

certain criticisms which have been passed on it. (102)

Loving our neighbor is never characterized as an easy task, but it is worthwhile enough that it’s

the center of our sense of morality.

Again, Christianity is not the only origin of the Golden Rule. Every major religion

incorporates some version of the same general principle, which is why it is so ubiquitous even

today. Still, it is not fair to discount the Biblical understanding of the Great Commandment

because “[t]he Gospel form is a splendid working principle, which has wrought incalculable

good to humanity” (Abrahams 22). So although it is one interpretation of many, this Christian

representation of the Golden Rule is worth crediting. Regardless of our individual beliefs, then,

there is no denying the connections between our moral teachings and their Christian origins.

Overall, based on the etymological origins of philanthropy and charity, Biblical teachings and

later interpretations, and their influence on the Golden Rule, it should be clear that the love-

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origins of our current nonprofit sector are worth keeping.

The Business of Love: Contemporary Shift Toward Capitalism

We began with philanthropy and charity as words for love, and we now understand those

terms as identifiers for legal institutions that work to further a social cause. Institutionalized

giving has existed across cultures since ancient times, but it has evolved away from being a

strictly religious practice. Perhaps that’s not such a surprise. As The Economist pointed out in a

2006 special report on wealth and philanthropy, some of America’s early philanthropic

powerhouses came from the business world, such as Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

Their charitable endeavors were based on maximizing their social impact, and the same could be

said for a new trend in giving back, popularly referred to as philanthrocapitalism. This hybrid

term coined by economists Matthew Bishop and Michael Green is understood as incorporating

values and practices of capitalism into the philanthropic realm. This broad genre includes

charitable billionaires like Bill Gates, online giving through sources like kiva.org and Facebook

Causes, and for-profit companies that incorporate a social cause into their business model.

It is that third category – the for-profit, socially minded corporation – that is the most

interesting and recent development. Therefore, it will be the focus of this section. To narrow our

attention even further, I will use the example of one such company – TOMS Shoes – and its

“One for One” business model as a sort of case study. I chose to narrow that focus in this way

because of my previous scholarship on TOMS, and more importantly because this company is

the firm that has popularized the One for One model, which I will argue blurs the lines between

philanthropy and capitalism.

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TOMS Shoes was inspired by a 2006 trip its founder, reality television star-turned-

entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie, took to Argentina. In his 2011 New York Times best seller Start

Something That Matters, Mycoskie recounted that fateful vacation. Over the course of his visit,

he met children who were prohibited from attending school because they couldn’t afford shoes.

Before returning to his home in Venice, California, he had conceived of a company that would

manufacture shoes based on the traditional Argentine alpargata and for every pair sold, would

donate a pair to a child in need. His plan was summed up by the mantra (now a registered

trademark), “One for One.” Mycoskie called his brand “Shoes for a Better Tomorrow,”

eventually abbreviated with “TOMS.” Eight years later, the company has donated over 35

million pairs of shoes to children across the world, so they have sold a comparable number of

products (“One for One”). More recently, they have expanded to sell sunglasses, which are

connected to the giving of medical treatment, surgery, or prescription glasses to someone who’s

visually impaired – and coffee, which is connected to giving clean drinking water to someone

who doesn’t have access to it.

TOMS’ main form of advertising is their website. In a previous rhetorical analysis, I

noted that all of the rhetorical strategies employed by the company’s web writers rely on heavy

pathos-based appeals. This strategy isn’t always problematic – we know that emotional appeals

are effective. Yet, in the case of philanthrocapitalism, it’s this strategy that causes customers to

think of themselves more as fellow philanthropists than capitalist consumers. Particularly on

their homepage and the pages under the “One for One” tab, the company refers to itself as a

movement and positions its audience – potential and returning customers – as participants in that

movement through inclusive pronouns. Through a cluster analysis of their website for that

previous project, I found that we and our were used far more often than any other pronouns.

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Even when you and they were used, those terms still identified customers as members of the

movement (Martin 13). The use of the term movement certainly creates a deterministic frame.

We are reminded more of a charity’s website than of one for a major corporation.

Yet as rhetoricians and scholars of communication, we know it’s important to keep in

mind that this movement mindset is created by a profit-maximizing company. We know that

when a corporation uses a cause to market a product, customers are more likely to make a

purchase (Marconi 3). As consumers ourselves, that makes sense. Tiffany White, associate

professor of business administration at the University of Illinois notes in a 2012 edition of the

college of business’s Perspectives publication, “[c]ustomers are enthusiastic about spending

money at a business that shows they understand who their customers are and what they value. It

helps build brand loyalty and trust and long-term, resilient relationships with customers. It

validates their decision making and enhances the brand.” As a business, it makes perfect sense to

incorporate a social cause as a way to make a product stand out in the market.

But the language that companies like TOMS use to talk about their work is what’s

important because that’s what is causing the shift in philanthropy from being a separate sector to

a universal undertaking. And they know exactly what they’re doing. Mycoskie told the Wall

Street Journal in 2010, “My customers are my biggest evangelists,” clearly recognizing the

power of word-of-mouth advertising (and let’s not overlook the fact that he used religious

language to do so). In Start Something That Matters, Mycoskie doesn’t shy away from the fact

that his enterprise is a for-profit company, and that its connection to a powerful story encourages

customers to connect to more than just a product, making it more likely that they tell others about

their new shoes (32). Cause marketing is effective because it allows customers to feel more like

philanthropists, participants in a movement, than just people buying a product.

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We know that one cannot not communicate, so the terms we use matter, and that’s just as

true for corporations as it is for individuals. An organization doesn’t arbitrarily decide to be

called a charity or a company. Those words matter because it determines how the firm runs. This

language can also be interpreted as indicative of its biggest economic priority, whether they are

considered maximizers of profit or cause – they cannot be both (McEachern 52). It’s not wrong

to go a for-profit route, but that decision does affect how an organization is perceived by its

audience – its customer base. At this point, we could be quick to assume that

philanthrocapitalism is a ruse, that customers are being scammed, and that corporations are

always corrupt. These suspicions are fair and do encourage us to pay closer attention to the

institutions we support financially (whether that’s by donations or purchases). Most importantly,

they lead us to recognize the rhetorical strategies used by these companies, if only because of

their widespread success.

Even on a larger scale, this development towards for-profit philanthropy is not

necessarily destructive, but there’s no denying its effectiveness. And we can move forward that

way as long as we’re still tied to the origins of love. But we aren’t, at least not on a technical

level. The Great Commandment is above all others – love is to be our highest priority. So the fact

that profit has now entered the equation complicates things. Engaging in corporate charity

necessarily places the cause below profit on their priority list. Mycoskie wrote that he preferred

the for-profit model because it allowed his project to be sustainable – “rather than being

dependent on kind people making donations” (6). That stance makes sense to us in 2014; starting

a business sounds like a safer investment. But as Christians, or at least as optimists, shouldn’t the

kindness of others be something we can depend on? If we can’t, that’s undoubtedly a goal worth

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pursuing. Our current mindset shows that we’ve grown away from holding agape paramount, so

that we think in terms of individualistic profit before we think of the rest of the world.

Maybe philanthrocapitalists create profitable projects so they can generate more

sustainable service, or because companies pay higher salaries than nonprofits. That disparity is

irrelevant to this project. I have no interest in determining why it has evolved this way – I’m only

interested in studying how this new system works, now that it’s here. What’s clear is that

philanthropy has developed away from agape to a self-serving model, but this shift also suggests

that love is simply not reserved for the nonprofit sector anymore. This development, which I see

as only continuing, shows that philanthropic actions are suitable for every sphere of influence.

The Future of Love: Thoughts for Undergraduate Communications Programs

We are used to thinking of charity as synonymous with nonprofit organizations, so that’s

how we use the word. But now the act of being charitable, of showing agape to others, is being

taken on by businesses. While that development does blur lines between what’s philanthropic

and what’s profit-driven, the optimistic side of that development is that perhaps charity is

becoming everyone’s responsibility. From a religious standpoint, it’s easy to argue that showing

agape is the responsibility of every individual, and therefore every organization of people. So if

that’s true, how do we make that development real and widespread? And what role could

collegiate communications programs play? This final section of analysis will answer such

questions with the introduction of the philanthropic imagination.

The term I’m introducing may be new, but there’s clear precedence for it. As an

academic discipline, sociology relies on C. Wright Mill’s sociological imagination: a mindset

that “enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the

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inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals” (5). The sociological imagination

encourages the scholar to contextualize the experience of one person in the wider experience of

their society, which we now understand as critical to the study of sociology.

More generally, creating a social imaginary is something scholars in a variety of fields

do, whether intentionally or not. Prominent Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor defines a social

imaginary as “the ways people imagine their social existence, how they fit together with others,

how things go on between them and their fellows, the expectations that are normally met, and the

deeper normative notions and images that underlie these expectations” (23). Taylor goes on to

write that any effective social imaginary “incorporates some sense of how we all fit together in

carrying out the common practice” (24). So in creating any sort of collective mindset, as Mills

did for sociology, one is must pay attention to how the actions of one individual, one

organization, one discipline, affects and coincides with the actions of the wider community.

Using that context, the philanthropic imagination is a mindset that incorporates back into

our lives the etymological root of philanthropy; it is keeping agape at the forefront of everything

we do, professionally and personally. For Christians, a philanthropic imagination is inherently a

life of grace because it requires one to live above and beyond the law – we aren’t trying to get by

with the minimum. For all individuals, the philanthropic imagination is a reminder to think of

others always, to care for those around us without prioritizing our own needs. It’s living out the

Great Commandment to love our neighbor, to live a life of love. Sure, suggesting that every

person on earth reframe their entire lives may not be realistic – but just think of what the world

would look like if we could. Prominent political commentators Tavis Smiley and Cornel West

have thought about it, imagining such a world in their 2012 “poverty manifesto” The Rich and

the Rest of Us. “If Americans cultivated a surplus of compassion, our children would not be

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without food, shelter, and quality health care...With a surplus of love, the untapped potential of

our youth would not rot away in our nation’s prisons” (119). As we focus on what the

philanthropic imagination means for individuals and disciplines, let us remember the powerful

potential such a mindset could have on our wider community.

But for now, we’ll focus on a first step towards that powerful potential. Spreading any

sort of new message, much less a new mindset, requires effective communicators. If the

philanthropic imagination is going to live in the present day, we’ll need to do some heavy

persuading. By now we recognize that agape has a place in our culture, and if we want it to catch

on, we need to do our part. We already know that the academy is a context that can breathe life

into these sorts of theories and imaginaries, and we know that effective communicators are

ethical. So let us imagine the role that undergraduate communications programs could play in

cultivating a philanthropic imagination in our students. To do so, we’ll first reflect on the

interdisciplinary nature of the college experience. Second, we’ll discover unique advantages this

mission provides for our discipline. Finally, we’ll look towards areas for further research as we

continue to explore what a new understanding of love could mean for our field and our students.

Because the philanthropic imagination, like any social imaginary a la Taylor, recognizes

implications and connections, let us first turn our attention to our wider community of higher

education. Undergraduate programs are becoming more interdisciplinary, which creates a more

holistic student experience. As Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University writes, this

development is beneficial for faculty, too:

How can we find more ways to give our professors opportunities to teach what they are

most passionate about while giving our undergraduates the skills and contextual

comprehension they need to launch their own intellectual adventures? If we keep this

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question in mind, I believe that campus communities can reshape their curricula in ways

that offer a transformative experience to their students while giving faculty the chance to

advance their own fields.

A move towards interdisciplinary studies is advantageous for both students and faculty.

Incorporating the philanthropic imagination into the collegiate experience, as worthwhile aspect

of students’ “intellectual adventures” and faculty advancement, makes sense then.

There are many ways to diversify our programs, but the philanthropic imagination has

unique advantages that will only enhance the education we offer. This social imaginary is

applicable to an expansive audience, not just those wanting to work in the nonprofit sector

professionally. First off, this mindset allows us to “practice what we preach.” If we understand

communicative competence as the way we effectively communicate based on context and social

knowledge (Saville-Troike 18), then employing a philanthropic imagination is a way to reach

that highest level of praxis. We won’t just be talking about loving our neighbor and making a

difference in the world, or teaching it, or thinking about it, or idealizing it. We’ll be living it.

Moreover, incorporating the philanthropic imagination into our collegiate programs helps

us integrate our courses with other disciplines on our campuses. It prevents academic disciplines

(ours included) from unknowingly committing the communicative crime of bypassing – we may

be teaching similar concepts and skills and not know it because we don’t take the time to

connect. After learning about religious scholars’ recognition of the importance of language, as

well as the implications of language’s evolution, we can predict that the discipline of religion

would also be on board with living the philanthropic imagination, and even with incorporating it

into discussions of living out religious teachings. So, integrating a philanthropic imagination

would certainly help the field of communication connect to other academic disciplines.

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When we claim the philanthropic imagination as part of the field of communication,

rhetoric, and writing studies, we become the experts. We become the discipline that champions

service and agape in our research, work, and lives. We know how it connects to our own theories

about empathy and effectiveness, but by explicitly teaching it, we can share what we know more

broadly. By adopting an all-embracing theory like this one, are enhancing the credibility of the

communication field. As the world of higher education becomes more interdisciplinary, other

fields, or at least students in other fields, would seek out the communication department for ways

to create their own philanthropic-minded courses and objectives.

Incorporating a philanthropic imagination into our undergraduate programs makes sense

on a more basic level, too. There are numerous courses that exist in institutions of all sizes that

educate and train students in developing cultural awareness. Teaching students to cultivate a

philanthropic imagination is another form of achieving that goal – enriching our students’

experience and providing them with a wider range of skills and perspectives, exactly what they’ll

need as they enter our increasingly interdisciplinary workforce. We’d be helping students learn

both the value and the techniques of communicating for yet another audience, reminding them

that one of the most basic guidelines of communication is to be empathic, which is certainly a

guideline we should follow in every aspect of our lives.

Focusing on this specific audience, whether it is in the official nonprofit sector or more

generally, is increasingly important because our students are craving an explicit connection

between their education and service. College-age Americans are more service-minded than ever,

and are looking for careers that incorporate those same values (Bishop 179). They’re looking for

ways to learn how to make a difference, and to prepare to do so once they enter the workforce.

So why not let the communication department be the place where they can do just that? This

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shift to a more philanthropic-minded audience simply provides us with a new rhetorical situation.

In this case, we have the same audience and constraints as always, but the philanthropic

imagination deepens our exigence. Bitzer would surely argue that incorporating this new mindset

would be a rhetorical exigence, or goal for persuasion, because it’s “capable of positive

modification and when positive modification requires discourse or can be assisted by discourse”

(6). This means that to really make this shift in thinking, to begin to alter how we live teachings

of love, we don’t need a major policy change or drastic action. We need to communicate with

humanity better.

So how do we do that exactly? For the purposes of this project, I have explored the

reasoning for this philanthropic imagination, justifying this new exigence. But if our programs

are truly going to incorporate an education of agape, far more research must be done. We need to

break down specifically what this development would look like for different kinds of schools,

from R1 research universities to small liberal arts colleges. We need to develop curricula for

specific courses we want to incorporate, perhaps classes with titles like “Writing for Nonprofits”

or “The Rhetoric of Service.” We need to work with our colleagues in other academic disciplines

on our campuses to find courses that may already be doing exactly what we’re looking for, and

cross-list or team-teach them for students of communication. Finally, to generate a more

thorough understanding of what love means today – for the nonprofit sector, for education, and

for daily life – we must trace the teachings and developments in other religions and cultures,

beyond what I have done with Christianity. Only by expanding our understanding could we

fairly say that we’re working to teach our students how to love – and communicate with – our

neighbors, whoever they may be.

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The Call of Love: Conclusions

From its very beginnings, Christianity has revolved around the Great Commandment, as

taught by Jesus in the conclusion of the Good Samaritan parable. It’s no wonder that St.

Augustine called Christianity the religion of love (Nygren 450). We can rejoice in the evolution

of the Bible’s most powerful words for love, philia and agape, into distinguishing institutions

that strive to love our marginalized neighbors in a variety of ways. We can even be glad that

service has become such a pervasive part of our culture that corporations are integrating

philanthropy into their annual budgets, and even into the core of their business models. Yet,

because we know that philanthropy is to be an unconditional love for humanity and nothing else,

we are wary of any person or institution that suggests that making a profit is the best way to

make a difference, though that strategy can surely be effective.

So now we’re ready to bring those origins of love back into our lives. The philanthropic

imagination is a way for us to reimagine love in a contemporary context. I’m not asking anyone

to make drastic changes to their lifestyle. But we can – and should – all recognize that we have a

responsibility to think of others, to care for them, to love them, with our actions. We are ready to

change our perspective, knowing that doing so has far-reaching effects. Smiley and West write:

This new day must begin with a fresh imagination, a decision to discover some hard

answers to some hard questions. Namely, what kind of person do we really want to be?

Cowardly and complacent or courageous and compassionate? What kind of country do

we really want to be? Cold-hearted and callous or caring and considerate? The choice is

ours. (136)

Let us not be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems we face, but by the simplicity of

our solution’s first step. The philanthropic imagination is, at its core, about communication –

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with ourselves about what we want for our lives, and with each other about what we want for the

future of our world.

We know now, too, that this love-minded mindset is right at home in communication

departments. We know our audience, our exigence, and our constraints moving forward. We

know to be empathic. We know that everything we do – what we say, how we spend our money,

how we treat people – is sending a message to the world, and we know how to teach others to

value effective communication in whatever future career they desire. But beyond the pragmatic

need to teach what students want to learn, we’re doing philosophically what we need to do –

teaching them what they’ll need in order to change the world. We already know college to be an

inherently transformative experience, and what could be a better way to make that experience

even more positively transformative than with the philanthropic imagination?

College students are taught to decide on a clear plan for what they want to do next – what

their vocation is going to be. The workforce is competitive and we want our students to be

prepared. But we shouldn’t forget that a true vocation is more than just a job. It’s a calling. If we

want our students to study communication, let’s give them something worth communicating

about and advocating for – humanity. And let’s help them discover it in our programs and not

leave the discovery of a calling to their extra-curricular involvement. Our students are looking

for a calling and the philanthropic imagination helps us all create one. The goal of

communication is to effectively persuade an audience to support a specific message. We have

our message, and it’s a vital one. Now it’s our job to start communicating it – in our classrooms,

in our research, and in our daily lives.

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