Jeremy Beer

Jeremy Beer is Principal Partner at American Philanthropic, LLC, a consulting firm whose mission is to strengthen civil society by improving the effectiveness of charitable foundations and nonprofit organizations. He works closely with dozens of philanthropies and nonprofit clients in such areas as strategic planning, message creation, program analyses and audits, major-donor club creation and implementation, direct mail, grantwriting, and collateral material development. He is also the co-founder of AmP Publishers Group and has served as a literary agent for a select group of clients, including the Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn family.

Jeremy has published more than forty essays and articles on philanthropy, culture, and politics in various academic and popular journals, including Perspectives on Political Science, First Things, Touchstone, The American Conservative, Front Porch Republic, and the Utne Reader. He was the project director or editor in chief for four editions of a critically acclaimed essay-style college guide, Choosing the Right College, and the coeditor of American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia. He has lectured at Georgetown University, Calvin College, Augustana College, national meetings of the American Political Science Association, and elsewhere. 

Jeremy is the author of Philanthropic Revolution: An Alternative History of American Charity and Oscar Charleston: The Life and Legend of Baseball's Greatest Forgotten Player, as well as co-author with Jeff Cain of Forgotten Foundations of Fundraising: Practical Advice and Contrarian Wisdom for Nonprofit Leaders.

What is the Philanthropic Revolution?
Jeremy Beer / 3 min read
Satan was the first philanthropist

Never one to indulge in understatement, nineteenth-century Catholic philosopher Orestes Brownson once claimed that Satan’s “favorite guise in modern times is that of philanthropy”…

Jeremy Beer / 11 min read
St. John Chrysostom and the theology of giving
Jeremy Beer / < 1 min read
Dennis: For nonprofits’ health, lower tax rates more important than charitable deduction
Jeremy Beer / < 1 min read
The Council on Foundations refuses to engage
Jeremy Beer / 2 min read
On Zunz’s “Philanthropy in America”
Jeremy Beer / 2 min read
Philanthrocapitalism in the dock
Jeremy Beer / < 1 min read
Philanthropy and the triviality of “small deeds”

Since the rise of professional philanthropy, major foundations and their progenitors sought to abandon old-fashioned attempts to alleviate immediate distress for a more focused scientific, expert-driven approach that would provide permanent solutions to vexing social problems. Over a century later, contempt for traditional charity – for “trivial” “small deeds” – is still conventional wisdom within the professional philanthropy industry.

Jeremy Beer / 3 min read
On wealth camps for the scions of the rich
Jeremy Beer / < 1 min read
More nefarious doings sponsored by Templeton
Jeremy Beer / 2 min read

MORE WORK