Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter left behind enduring nonprofits as part of their legacy of giving back

President Jimmy Carter ‘s legacy of giving back endures in several nonprofits he and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, supported for the almost 50 years after they left the White House. “In so many ways, he set the standard for how presidents should be in their post-presidency, as someone who is going to continue to do good, someone who’s going to continue to positively impact society,” said presidential historian Cassandra Newby-Alexander, professor of Virginia Black history and culture at Norfolk State University, Carter’s giving came in the form of his seemingly ceaseless personal effort to use his stature and presence to rally resources and attention to his causes. “To the demise of the worm” was the catchphrase, according to Dr. Jordan Tappero, deputy director for neglected tropical diseases at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is The Carter Center’s largest funder having donated $292.5 million since 2000. “It was a tiny organization in 1984 when President and Mrs. Carter went up with a busload of volunteers from southwest Georgia to help rehab a tenement building on the Lower East Side of Manhattan,” said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International, in an interview in 2023. “It means so much to me that he knew me,” said Taylor, speaking in 2023 from her living room in the home the Carters helped her build, on a street named Carter Court.