1 State Of The Research On Philanthropy In Chile. Overview of The Past 20 Years By Luis Garrido, Pedro Narvarte and Mario Radrigán, Professors of the Management and Public Policies department, Faculty of Administration and Economy of the University of Santiago in Chile. Researchers of the International Center for Social and Cooperative Economy, CIESCOOP. 1.General presentation The tradition of philanthropic and social action took root in Chile as of the Spanish conquest in the mid-16th century, under the protection of humanitarian actions encouraged by the different religious orders that were supporting the Spanish conquest and colonization of the Americas. This tradition was then spread and developed over two hundred and fifty years without interruption, still via the religious orders. These latter, supported by the great agricultural and commercial fortunes of the time, concentrated their activities in the sectors of health, education and in the care of widows and orphans. Already during the republic of 1810, and up until the mid-19th century, the philanthropic tradition, Catholic in origin, diversified into two new traditions that are still exercised today. On the one hand, we find secular philanthropic actions in direct reaction to the strong presence of the Catholic Church’s social charities in Chile. These new philanthropic practices are led by the Freemasons and the budding Radical Party. In parallel to these two trends, as of the second half of the 19th century, social actions stemming directly from the great commercial fortunes of the country begin to emerge. They occur either through direct action of their economic units, or through institutional donations to different social action groups, be they religious or secular. These three traditions (religious, secular and commercial) of the first half of the 20th century are connected to the actions of the State who is starting to build the foundations of a future welfare state. More generally, these three trends, as well as their different strategies of complementarity/exclusion of different public policy and social development orientations, have maintained and developed themselves up until today. The only innovative element of the last few years is related to the emergence, almost 25 years ago, of Corporate Social Responsibility practices and its different modalities in Chile.