Created by
Andrew Carnegie to provide
funding through
grants,
endowments, etc to
support education and
research projects. Its
orignal intent was to provide
communities with
free libraries but it expanded to include
international peace and
justice programs and
fine arts education.
The criteria for grants from the Carnegie Corporation is split. All projects that the Corporation funds must directly benefit the people of the United States. Andrew Carnegie wrote that into his will. The "exception" to that are countries who are or have been members of the British Commonwealth. Right now that basically means commonwealth Africa.
There seems to be a struggle within the Corporation to adhere to the basic ideas of Andrew Carnegie while acknowledging that the world isn't the same place it was in 1887. The new rubricks up for consideration seem to reflect that need to move the vision and direction into the current century where isolationism has not been United States foreign policy for decades.