Building the New New Orleans: Foundation and NGO Power

Abstract

Most accounts of organized philanthropy's response to the Katrina disaster portray foundations as either providing critical resources in the absence of federal, state, and municipal leadership, or as mildly ineffective and uncommitted grantmakers with little understanding of local nonprofit and community needs. Through an in-depth case study of the three largest regional foundations and two largest foundations established as a direct response to Hurricane Katrina, I examine the overall role of philanthropy in the post-Katrina New Orleans, including the history, leadership, grantmaking practices, and ideology of the largest and most influential foundations. Far from being saviors in the absence of state leadership, nor bumbling and ineffective grantmakers, it is shown that dominant foundations and major NGOs have proven very effective in leading the local growth coalition's opportunistic response to the disaster.