The Award Process:
Twenty-one institutions begun by Andrew Carnegie during his lifetime and which continue with the work he had the vision to endow have the responsibility for judging awardees and honoring those chosen for the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy. Nominations are made by the Carnegie family of institutions. The three members of the steering committee who organized the Centennial celebration and who launched the medal are permanent members of the selection committee—Carnegie Corporation of New York, Carnegie Institute of Washington and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Two of the other 19 institutions will rotate each year.

Carnegie Corporation of New York took the lead in organizing the awards ceremony in 2001.

The Award:
Each recipient receives a bust of Andrew Carnegie—an original work of art cast in bronze and created specially for the award—and a bronze medal.

The 2001 awards ceremony celebrated one of the most important financial transactions of the 20th century, when J.P. Morgan purchased U.S. Steel for $480 million (the equivalent of $10.6 billion today) from Andrew Carnegie, who then devoted the rest of his life to philanthropy on a level not then seen in America or anywhere else. By his death, Mr. Carnegie had given away 90 percent of his fortune.