Definition
To raise money means to obtain or realize funds through any available means, including but not limited to subscription, loan, sale of assets, issuance of securities, taxation, or other financial mechanisms. The phrase functions less as a term of art with precise legal content and more as a general descriptor appearing across multiple legal contexts — constitutional, corporate, municipal, and estate law — where the specific method of obtaining funds takes on legal significance depending on the governing framework.
The phrase appears most distinctly in two contexts:
1. Constitutional and legislative usage: The power to raise money by taxation or public borrowing is a foundational governmental power. In U.S. constitutional law, the Origination Clause requires that bills for raising revenue originate in the House of Representatives. Here, "raising money" is closely associated with the taxing and appropriations power and carries structural constitutional weight.
2. Private law usage: In corporate, estate, and property contexts, to raise money means to generate funds by any lawful mechanism — subscriptions, mortgages, loans, sale of shares, or bond issuance. A trustee or executor authorized to "raise money" by an instrument has broad discretion as to method unless the instrument specifies otherwise.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To collect or gather money, often through fundraising, solicitation, or campaign efforts.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To collect or obtain money; used generally of any effort to accumulate funds for a purpose.
The gap between common and legal usage is narrower here than with many legal terms, but it matters at the margins. In ordinary speech, "raising money" typically implies active solicitation — fundraisers, campaigns, donations. In legal usage, the phrase is deliberately expansive and includes passive or structural mechanisms such as borrowing against assets, issuing instruments, or levying taxes. A legal instrument authorizing a party to "raise money" by its terms does not restrict that party to solicitation; it may encompass a mortgage, a bond issuance, or a sale.
Why It Matters in Research
The phrase is a floating connector term — it recurs across constitutional law, corporate finance, trust and estate law, and municipal finance, but it carries different weight in each. Researchers who encounter it in historical instruments or opinions need to identify the legal context before inferring scope.
In historical sources, "raise money" appears frequently in trust instruments, wills, and deeds of power, granting trustees or executors authority to monetize assets. Courts interpreting these instruments often had to decide whether a particular method of monetization — especially a mortgage — fell within the scope of a power to "raise money." The answer was not always obvious and generated litigation, particularly in English equity courts during the nineteenth century. American treatises and opinions drew heavily on this body of equity doctrine.
In constitutional research, the phrase is inseparable from the Origination Clause debate and from the broader taxing power jurisprudence. Researchers working on revenue legislation history will find "raising money" used synonymously with "raising revenue" in founding-era materials, but the terms are not always interchangeable in later doctrine — "raising revenue" became the operative phrase in Origination Clause analysis.
In corporate and securities research, "raising money" is largely descriptive rather than operative. Statutes governing securities offerings, crowdfunding, and public borrowing use more precise terms (issuance, offering, subscription). The phrase serves as a general framing device but is not itself a defined term under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act.
Trap for researchers: In older equity materials, a power to "raise money" by mortgage was sometimes construed narrowly to exclude sale, and vice versa. Do not assume that a historical judicial statement about the scope of a power to "raise money" applies uniformly across instrument types or jurisdictions.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary and Rapalje & Lawrence are in complete agreement: to raise money is to realize money by subscription, loan, or otherwise. Both definitions are notable for their deliberate openness — "or otherwise" signals that neither source intended an exhaustive list. This breadth reflects the phrase's practical usage: it was a drafting shorthand for any money-generating transaction.
Both sources define the term functionally rather than technically, which is accurate but limits their utility as guides to the term's legal significance. Neither source addresses the constitutional dimension, nor the equity-law disputes over the scope of testamentary and trust powers. For those dimensions, researchers must move beyond the dictionaries to treatises on powers (Farwell on Powers; Gray on Powers) and constitutional commentary on the Origination Clause.
Jurisdictional Note
The constitutional dimension is federal and distinct. In state law, the scope of a private power to "raise money" — as found in a trust instrument or will — is governed by state property and trust law, and may be subject to the Uniform Trust Code or its state variants, which have largely replaced the older common-law power doctrine. Researchers working on pre-twentieth-century instruments should apply the common law of the relevant state, not the modern uniform act.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Property Law Encyclopedia: Mortgages — Purchase Money Mortgages and PMSIs in Real Property (property_56) — relevant when the means of raising money involves a mortgage instrument.
Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia: Banking — Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) (business_123) — relevant when the context involves regulatory oversight of money-raising activities in financial institutions.
Criminal Law Encyclopedia: Money Laundering (18 USC 1956-1957) (criminal_93) — relevant when the method of raising money implicates criminal proceeds or structured transactions.