Not long ago, I had the opportunity to take in a concert of the Allman Betts Band, led by sons of two core members the Allman Brothers Band, a southern rock band that leapt to fame in the 1970s and is, perhaps, best known for the 1973 hit and classic rock staple, Ramblin’ Man.

I have Andrew Carnegie to thank for that memorable evening.

Carnegie’s legacy is known globally but is especially salient in the Pittsburgh area, including its art and natural history museums, a world-class university and even a community bearing his name.

A steel magnate, Carnegie built Pittsburgh into the industry’s global epicenter, ultimately selling his Carnegie Steel Company and related entities to JP Morgan as part of a transaction that formed U.S. Steel, the world’s first billion-dollar corporation. Carnegie pocketed $480 million in the deal, the equivalent of $15 billion today.

He then dedicated the rest of his life to giving it away.

Carnegie’s 1889 treatise, “The Gospel of Wealth,” argued that “Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the common good.”

He backed up his words with actions, ultimately leaving only about 6% of his fortune to heirs. The rest was donated to charitable efforts, and libraries were a central focus.  He funded more than 2,500 libraries globally, 1,700 of them in the U.S.

Carnegie, himself born in poverty, believed philanthropy should provide the tools for people to improve themselves. Libraries embodied this principle, providing needed opportunity for self-education. A young Carnegie had been allowed to use a private library and credited that access to helping shape his personal success.

“A library,” he said, “outranks any other one thing a community can do to benefit its people. It is a never failing spring in the desert.”

Carnegie’s libraries were more than collections of books. About half of his U.S. libraries included auditoriums, built to support civic and cultural life – vibrant community centers for lectures, debates, education for immigrants and, yes, music and theater performances.

So it is that, well more than a century later, the Carnegie Library of Homestead, built atop the valley where Carnegie’s steel business took root, remains a central local asset, its value constant in a community always working to firm its footing in its post-industrial present.  This is true broadly – more than two-thirds of the Carnegie-funded libraries in the U.S. still function in that role.

Surely, my taking in the Allman Betts Band is a trivial afternote in the Carnegie legacy.  But the sellout crowd in the recently renovated 1000-seat auditorium were heirs to Carnegie’s pioneering charity.  And each was perhaps an unknowing donor to his legacy, a portion of their ticket purchase sustaining Carnegie’s gift.

Carnegie likely would argue that the legacy is theirs—ours—not his.  That’s the true power of his philanthropy.