If there is a need in the community, across the country, or around the world, someone in the United States is trying to address it, and if there is a resource, someone is trying to match it to a need. In truly American fashion, when two or more things can be accomplished at the same time—for example, helping the poor and promoting a product, or having fun, or publicizing an issue—all the better. Often the finding and matching process involves some unique or entrepreneurial activity or is noteworthy because it's a first. This keeps the field of philanthropy lively, but it makes the characterization of programs difficult as the blend between philanthropy and volunteerism, commercial and charity, and government and nongovernmental (or public and private) blurs as partnerships and collaborations are created.

This section features brief profiles of a number of philanthropic organizations and activities through which Americans help others. These examples are meant to be representative of the many foundations, programs, and projects supported by Americans. For each example, there are another thousand we could have chosen, and only the limits of our publication prevent us from including more of them. The examples are taken largely from the Web sites of the organizations mentioned. We encourage you to start with these examples, then continue on, learning more about the creativity, generosity, and commitment to others demonstrated daily as Americans share their time, talent, and treasure.

National Basketball Association (NBA) All-Star Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean Jacques Wamutombo of the Houston Rockets came to the United States to study medicine, with the goal of returning home to help correct health problems in his native Democratic Republic of Congo. During his college years at Georgetown University, the tall student was invited to try out for the basketball team. He not only made the university team, but later became a leading professional basketball player, a career that made him a star.

Having played basketball in the NBA for the better part of a decade, Mutombo has accumulated the celebrity and wealth to allow him to engage in charitable activities. While playing for a team in Atlanta, he visited hospitals, worked with the Special Olympics athletic program for developmentally disadvantaged young people, and supported the trip of the Zambian women's basketball and track teams to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. He is active with the organization Basketball Without Borders and travels throughout Africa on behalf of the NBA. He is a spokesman for the international relief agency CARE, and he was the first Youth Emissary for the United Nations Development Program. Perhaps his most impressive work has been in building into his basketball programs in Africa extensive community outreach and educational seminars addressing such important social issues as education about and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.

In 1997, he created the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, which is dedicated to the eradication of childhood diseases that are now rare in the developed world but that still threaten life everyday in Congo. USA Weekend named Mutombo the 1999 Most Caring Athlete for his efforts to raise money to help support HIV/AIDS efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Those efforts continue, and in 2006 Mutombo convinced the U.S. Congress to promise $2 million to fund clinics and health centers in his homeland. More information on the Dikembe Mutombo Foundaton is available at http://www.dmf.org.

More than 50 years ago, a struggling young Lebanese-American entertainer stopped to pray to St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes. He prayed for career guidance and promised, in return, to build a shrine to the saint. A few years later, now a successful singer, actor, and producer, the entertainer, Danny Thomas, made good his promise. He decided to build a research hospital to help children with life-threatening diseases and to dedicate it to St. Jude. Thomas, his wife, and local businesspersons in Memphis, Tennessee, the future site of the hospital, worked to raise money. After years of effort and of sharing the dream with others, they had enough money to begin the hospital, but not enough to fund its operating expenses.

To solve this problem, Thomas turned to his fellow Americans of Arabic-speaking heritage. He believed that this would be a way for the group to thank the United States for the gifts of freedom given their parents and to honor immigrant forefathers who had come to the United States. One hundred representatives of the Arab-American community met in Chicago to form the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC), with the sole purpose of raising funds for the hospital. Since that time, ALSAC has assumed full responsibility for the hospital's fund-raising efforts, raising millions of dollars annually. Today, Americans of all ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds support the hospital—the third largest health care charity in the United States—as do more than one million volunteers nationwide.

Not only do individuals around the country support St. Jude, but so do businesses and organizations. Target Corporation, the U.S. merchant with an impressive record of local and large-scale philanthropy, has built Target Houses I and II to provide living quarters for the families of children whose treatment at the hospital is scheduled to last more than three months. Together, the Target Houses feature 96 fully furnished, two-bedroom apartments for children and their families from around the world. Each apartment is equipped with a full kitchen. Shared areas include a playground, a library, a communal kitchen and dining rooms, recreation rooms, and laundry facilities. Target's dedication to St. Jude shows not only in the construction of the houses but also in the company's day-to-day support of families in any St. Jude-sponsored housing facility.

Another of the now many St. Jude corporate supporters, Univision Radio, the largest Spanish-language radio broadcaster in the United States, joined St. Jude in a live broadcast for more than 30 hours in February of 2006. Thousands of donors jammed the phone lines, pledging $4.2 million during the annual Promesa y Esperanza (Promise and Hope) program and making it the most successful outreach in the program's history. ALSAC spokesman David McKee thanked Hispanic audiences across the country for their support, which he said would help St. Jude continue its global mission of finding cures and saving children around the world, including at affiliated hospitals in Central and South America.

Committed to the idea that no child should die in the dawn of life, Danny Thomas's hospital treats all children, regardless of their ability to pay. And through its research, shared freely with the medical community throughout the world, St. Jude has helped raise the survival rate for many diseases, including some pediatric cancers that used to have a 20 percent survival rate and now have greater than 70 percent.

Since the death of her parents, the Thomas's daughter, Marlo, on the right in the photograph, has taken over the role of spokesperson for the hospital. Here the actress poses with some of the children treated at St. Jude. Learn more at http://www.stjude.org.

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The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government.

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