COMMUNITY CHEST, a designation in the United States for the system under which the social agencies of a city combine to raise their funds by making one collective appeal each year. Origi nally, it meant a financial federation allotting to each social service organization its budget from the common fund contributed by the community. By 1928 the term had become more elastic and des ignated the arrangement in those cities where ideas and plans were pooled as well as finances. The central financing body is now either a council of social agencies; a federation of contributors; a council of social agencies with some direct representation of con tributors; a federation of contributors and a federation of social agencies acting separately with budget liaison; or a federation of contributors and a federation of social agencies acting as one body with a joint staff.
Denver was the first city to institute a community chest (1888). Cleveland next adopted the plan in 1913. Not until 1917, as an outgrowth of war chests when contributions were put into a com mon fund out of which war-time philanthropies were met, did community chests become common. There were then 14; 85 in 1923; and 400 were known in the United States and Canada on Dec. 31, 1929, according to the American Association for Com munity Organization. There was a sharp controversy about them for some years, but their permanence is now recognized. On Feb. 20, 1928, at the Citizens' Conference, Washington, D.C., the secretary of commerce said: "They represent probably our great est advance in the administration of charity." It is claimed they spare people repeated charity solicitation. Cleveland, for instance, has 56 members of its community chest uniting in a single appeal; they eliminate waste of publicity and other resources by individ ual organizations and prevent overlapping by different agencies in any one social welfare field. If the appeal to the community for funds does not reach the sum set, the budget allotment to each agency is cut down accordingly. Nineteen out of 83 community chests have been uniformly successful in drives. Where the finan cial goal has not been reached, the revenue under the new system has been greater than under the old. Cleveland's average annual chest yield is $4,103,328 as against the pre-chest estimate of $1, 000,000; Detroit's $2,765,366, as against $800,000, Cincinnati's $1,802,1o4, as against $5oo,000; St. Louis' $1,2oo,000, as against $535,000; Minneapolis' $1,15o,162, as against $40o,000; and Den ver's $6o9,65o, as against $5o,000. According to a 1928 estimate community chests raise $66,000,000 annually for social welfare work in the United States. Cities outside the United States which have recently adopted the plan are Cape Town and Havana.