1630
John Winthrop preaches AA Model of Christian Charity" to Puritans bound for New England

1638
John Harvard bequeaths library and half of his estate to newly founded school at Cambridge, Mass.

1715-18
Elihu Yale sends gifts to Collegiate School of Connecticut (chartered 1701); school changes name to Yale College.

1729
First orphan home in present boundaries of United States established in Ursaline Convent, New Orleans

1751-52
Dr. Thomas Bond, assisted by Benjamin Franklin and others, founds Pennsylvania Hospital, the first general hospital in the United States.

1790
Death of Benjamin Franklin; his will established Franklin Funds in Boston and Philadelphia to lend money to Ayoung married artificers of good character."

1817
Thomas Hopkins Galludet establishes in Hartford, Conn., America's first free school for the deaf.

1825
Founding of New York House of Refuge, first reformatory for juveniles.

1846-47
Large American contributions for Irish famine relief.1861 U.S. Sanitary Commission, forerunner of American Red Cross, organized.

1881
Booker T. Washington organizes Tuskegee Institute for Negroes in Tuskegee, Ala.

1889
John D. Rockefeller gives $600,000 to help found new University of Chicago.

1910
Boy Scouts of America founded (Campfire Girls, 1910; Girl Scouts, 1912).

1913
American Cancer Society founded.

1919
Death of Andrew Carnegie; contributions total $350 million.1927 Restoration of Williamsburg, Va., financed by John D. Rockefeller, begins.

1931
President's Organization for Unemployment Relief conducts publicity campaign for local fund appeals.

1937
Congress accepts Andrew Mellon's offer to give art collection and National Gallery building in D.C. to public.

1946
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., gives 17 acres of downtown Manhattan land as site for Untied Nations headquarters.

1955
Salk vaccine against paralytic polio climaxes 17 years of work by National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis.

1961
Peace Corps established by the U.S. government, providing volunteers to needy countries.

1966
Jerry Lewis begins annual Muscular Dystrophy Association telethons, marking the arrival of major media as an effective fundraising technique.

1985
Bob Geldof organizes Live Aid, a music extravaganza which raises $40 million for international hunger relief.

1986
First National Philanthropy Day

1997
Ted Turner makes one billion dollar gift to the United Nations.

1998
United States Postage Stamp honoring philanthropy is issued.

2001
Relief efforts for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks become the single largest charitable giving campaign in history, raising $2.3 billion in one year.

2006
Total giving in the United States reached $295 billion, with three-quarters of that total coming from individuals.