Special Edition 15: The Great Philanthropists - Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Philanthropy After Fame
Special Edition 15: The Great Philanthropists - Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Philanthropy After Fame
I thank you for taking a few moments to join me, Randall on this edition of "Around with Randall." We move back into our periodic, but I think important and illuminating series on the great philanthropists. Today we really focus on two, and sometimes it's unfortunate that it takes the loss of someone to really elevate their philanthropy. Particularly people that have a persona, a notoriety that goes much beyond that philanthropy.
Today I want to highlight the couple of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. There will be some that will say something about his presidency. There will be some that will say the issues of that time when he was president from January of 1977 to January of 1981 were with all kinds of things I'm not going to get into the political today because I don't think that that's relevant to the actual conversation. I will ask this question though, when we look at presidents how many presidents can you think of whose life is almost highlighted more so by when they weren't president, particularly post-presidency then they were during their presidency. In particular the post you can certainly mention Dwight David Eisenhower and his military leadership during World War II as the Supreme Allied Commander in the European theater. You could mention certainly, Ronald Reagan, who had a movie career. But think about the world after they became president or for that matter anyone else and I think what you might find is is that life wasn't as, not, wasn't as much notoriety maybe an exception for Teddy Roosevelt and what he did after he left the White House in 1909 after not running in 1908. It's really kind of fascinating, and yet the Carters, in particular Jimmy Carter, but Rosalynn who he called his equal in every way, maybe their greatest contribution to this world happened post-presidency.
Think about this. It's 2024 here in January, that is 40 plus years removed from when he left office, when they left the White House. And yet their life in giving back as philanthropists is enormous and was done almost entirely in terms of the largest of it post presidency. That's remarkable. So we'll to take a few minutes and talk about these two amazing people that really I think unfortunately with the passing of the former first lady was illuminated at a much higher level and probably by design because I don't think they were looking for the credit in the first place.
Starting with Jimmy. Jimmy Carter was born in Plains, Georgia, all the way back in the 1920s and interestingly enough Rosalynn Carter was born three years approximately later in Georgia. And in fact, Rosalynn Carter's closest friend or amongst her closest friends was Jimmy Carter's younger sister. Growing up they lived very close to each other and it wasn't until their first date when Jimmy Carter was beginning to head towards the Naval Academy, actually I think he'd be admitted, they have their first date. Things move quickly and they don't finally get married until 1946 as Jimmy Carter is coming out of the Naval Academy to serve as an active officer in the United States Navy. They go begin their lives in the Navy upon a loss of a father. Jimmy Carter resigns his commission and moves back to Plains, Georgia, with his family where the both of them begin to take over various business interests that the family had, the most famous being a Peanut Farm, which you always heard it was Jimmy Carter the peanut farmer. And eventually into the 1976 election for the presidency of United States after having been elected governor of the state of Georgia in which he won and beat Gerald Ford, serves for four years as President. Obviously that means that Rosalynn Carter serves as well. Rosalynn Carter didn't have as much education as her husband, graduating with a junior college degree, basically, but Jimmy Carter always indicated that she, he thought she was brilliant and it goes back into a time when possibly women, most likely, women weren't given the same opportunities as men.
Post presidency you can imagine it's kind of tough. You are limited in what you could do. You're not as free as maybe the world would think you are, and you have to start making decisions. And it was finally in 1984 that they opened the Carter Center, and through the Carter Center remarkable things have occurred and they're related to various aspects, and that's really what I want to spend about four or five minutes talking about paying tribute, and really what we can learn about their philanthropy. The first maybe major philanthropic thing that they were involved with actually took place during Rosalynn Carter's time as the first lady when she did a multitude of interviews on mental health, and actually was a vibrant part of some Congressional legislation in 1977 and 78 around mental health challenges and how hospitals, government, communities, nonprofits need to be paying more attention to it. So her advocacy, we talk about philanthropy not meaning money, meaning love of mankind, love of humankind. Well that's what they were professing at the time, and I don't think Jimmy Carter if you could get him to comment today although he is pulled back from the world as he's lost his wife 70 plus years would tell you that they ever wanted to be rich. And what they wanted to be was influential in making the world better place. That's the essence of philanthropy.
In any case, in 1984 several things began to happen. Number one is that they opened the Carter Center, and we'll get into that some of the details there. I think the other thing that came from this is that they began a lifelong or rest of their lifelong connection actively involved not using their name. I mean using their hands into the thing that they're probably most famously connected to from a charity perspective, which is Habitat for Humanity. Now Habitat was founded in 1942 and not by the Carters, but if you look at the growth from the early 1980s when they became affiliated what they kind of call the The Carter connection, The Carter work. the Carter engagement, to today you can begin to see that the work of Habitat for Humanity grew exponentially in that 40 years since their initial really deep connection with Habitat for Humanity. There have been more than 100,000 volunteers worldwide throughout 14 countries and they have built more than 4,000 homes. Did they give all the money for those? They did not. Were they the reason philanthropy occurred in most of those opportunities and impacts in community people's lives? You're darn right. That is an immense contribution to our communities where people either looking for second chances, first chances to get their lives square and to achieve what we've always kind of constituted as the American dream to own a home.
And Habitat for Humanity is an amazing organization who literally builds houses that are unbelievably well thought out and built for the most part and then finds people and helps them financially qualify and be able to afford a house and that structure. It's just not the building it's the process of helping people budget, and get loans, and have accessibility to finances and resources to get them into the home that's probably even more important than the house itself. And that's being done all over the world now because of the Carter work project that started in the early 1980s with Habitat for Humanity. But that Humanity, the caring perspective and vision isn't limited to just Habitat for Humanity. And by the way, when I say they got involved there are pictures of Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter in their 90s helping to build a house were they lifting the major beams they weren't and at 95 plus so be it but you talk about putting your money where your mouth is they weren't just saying it they were doing it. That's pretty amazing.
The Carter Center also has been involved with other things besides building homes which they think of as kind of a basic right to have a place to live. They've been incredibly involved, as Jimmy Carter was when he was President, with peacemaking initiatives. Whether it was in countries like Tunisia, Sierra Leon, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Guinea, and the issues of free voting and of democracy being pushed throughout the world, they were also involved with women's access to the ballot and being a part of the political process in places like Liberia, Bangladesh, and Guatemala. They oversaw as a kind of what I would call election monitoring in various ways through Latin America, Africa, and Asia to ensure that access for information was shared. They've worked with the United Nation. They've been involved with conflict resolution. When we talk about and that's you might think about the Nobel Peace Prize that Jimmy Carter was awarded in during his presidency but going on into Mali and Syria and the Israeli Palestine conflict, and I don't mean the one right now but prior, so they've been involved with how do we bring peace to the world. And frankly we could use a little more of that no matter where your politics are. I don't think anybody views War as a positive.
As I get older I love military history. I find it more and more difficult to watch war movies because War provides death. As you get a little older you realize how precious life is. It's a little harder to watch even though they're 1940, 50, 60s movies. I mean they're John Wayne and others like that, the black and white submarine movies and others. Peace has value. Now that doesn't mean you sacrifice it without purpose, but Jimmy Carter believed in that idea of peace and so did Rosalynn and Carter. They also were very heavily involved in worldwide health issues so they went into countries and there were six what they thought of as or thought of as preventable diseases from worm, Guinea, worm issues, river blindness, lymphatic Phil, I excuse me not my area of expertise, and even malaria in Hispanola. All of these diseases, the six of them that they have focused on throughout their lives, particularly since after their presidency and being first lady, were all about simple low cost methods and health education to to stop them, so they didn't, it wasn't just about big dollars and let's go in. It was about how can small things make enormous differences, and that people could control that because of their humanitarian efforts from a medical perspective as well as from others. The national Foundation of infectious disease has an annual humanitarian award that is named for the former president first lady, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Humanitarian Award.
What do we take from all of this? The value of life doesn't actually have to be defined by when you're most known. There's no question being President of the United States, it's the smallest probably group of people from an American perspective. I mean if Senators, maybe Supreme Court Justices, is a few less actually. I think it's more because there's nine of them, but you're talking about a small group of people. What I find interesting is that the most important thing Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter did probably happened after that presidency. So whether you are in business and you are being given awards, or whether it's, you're writing books or whether it's you're in the community and that the most important thing you do isn't when you're most known by but really by what you most give and when you give it. I would tell you, and I have no knowledge, never met obviously the former president or the former First lady, but you just kind of read around the edges. I don't think they were looking for notoriety. I think they were just looking to make a difference, and no matter where your politics are isn't that what we want from people in this world? Who are the people in your community that aren't looking for notoriety, that just are kind of in the shadows, but only Shadows from a public perspective. Privately, philanthropically, they want the best. How do you find those individuals and allow them to be part of your organization? And they may not be the richest, maybe it's their heart that's the biggest, their willingness to get their hands involved in the dirt so to speak, that's philanthropy at its finest, and I think we could learn a lot from the 40 plus years post-presidency of Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. That life isn't at its fullest when you're the most known most important the leader of the free world and the first lady who supports him. And as he called her her equal, his equal in everything he ever did. But in the 44 years that came after that change people's lives day-to-day. Who are the people in our community that might fit that bill?
Don't forget check out the Pod, or excuse me the blogs, at hallettphilanthropy.com. If you like to get a hold of me this podcasted@hallettphilanthropy.com. The old saying which I use every podcast when I speak, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then there are those who wondered what happened. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were people who made things happen for everybody else. And in that time and there 70 plus years of marriage and all the things that they did, they found a life of giving and it harkens me back to what Winston Churchill once said. You make a life by what you get, what you make, you make excuse me, you make a living by what you make. You make a life by what you give, and that is critically important to what we learned today. We'll jump back into the normal process of development, fundraising, nonprofits, and charity in the next edition of "Around with Randall." until then I thank you for joining me. I look forward to seeing you the next time and don't forget make it a great day.