Replace ‘History’ With ‘Philanthropy’ and Read It Again

While reading The Lost Art of Thinking Historically, I was struck by the fact that if you replace the word ‘history’ with ‘philanthropy,’ the essay still holds true.

In particular, these lines:

“Making consequential choices about an unknowable future is a profoundly challenging task. The world is not a laboratory. It is a vortex of ambiguity, contingency and competing perspectives, where motives are unclear, evidence is contradictory and the significance of events changes with the passage of time.”

That feels like the daily work of philanthropy, too. We often yearn for certainty, with clear models, predictable outcomes, and tidy causal stories. Yet the practice is more about holding ambiguity, sitting with contradictions, and choosing anyway, knowing how provisional our judgments will look in hindsight.

Philanthropy, like history, may not offer prediction. But it can hold a different sensibility: modesty, curiosity, empathy and a constant reminder that our ignorance is very deep.

Originally written for LinkedIn on 24 September 2025. View original →