US Foundations Research Articles

Exploring ‘place-based’ initiatives in philanthropic community development: A transnational examination of Canadian and US Foundations

ABSTRACT Though the concept of place-based philanthropy is common parlance in community development scholarship and practice, there is still uncertainty around its meaning due to the multidisciplinary nature of its study and definitional variation among and between scholars and practitioners. This article presents findings from a recently edited volume created by a binational research team. Ten cases of philanthropic initiatives were explored to develop a transnational understanding of foundation engagement in place-based philanthropy. Place-based philanthropy was explored by considering collaboration with other stakeholders, initiative evaluation, systems change efforts, and issues of power, equity, and justice. Our findings suggest that place-based philanthropy among foundations is heterogeneous. While some foundations adhere to traditional forms of place-based philanthropy, others are pushing the boundaries of this type of work. This article urges both academics and practitioners to reimagine place-based philanthropy for transformative purposes.

Social Sciences and the Cold War: US Foundations and the Racial Agenda in Brazil

Social Sciences and the Cold War: US Foundations and the Racial Agenda in Brazil

Evaluating the roles and reach of philanthropic foundations in sustainability efforts for tuna

AbstractTuna fisheries provide over 5 million tonnes of seafood annually to the global market but have historically raised conservation concerns due to weak management measures and impacts on non‐target wildlife. The focus of the first environmental awareness campaigns in seafood focused on dolphin bycatch in tuna fisheries in the 1980s. Since then, the sustainable seafood movement has evolved considerably, with philanthropic foundations playing a key role as agenda‐setters and funders of work carried out by non‐governmental organizations (NGOs). Here, we used tuna as a case study and investigated how three US foundations and associated NGOs have affected tuna fisheries reform through two primary pathways: advocacy for improved fishery management at intergovernmental meetings, and engagement with fishing companies in fishery improvement projects (FIPs). We found a total of USD 28.65 million was allocated to tuna‐related work from 2013 to 2021. While each foundation had different funding profiles, 65% of all grant funds were directed to two key priority areas: market leverage and RFMO advocacy. Further, almost 60% of all funding was allocated to only three NGOs, all of which are central actors at RFMO meetings, and which are collectively engaged in over 85% of all tuna FIPs (by volume). We reflect on how this concentrated funding relates to the overarching sustainable seafood agenda of these foundations and provide recommendations to ensure financial support and objectives remain transparent and do not perpetuate inequities between tuna fishing countries.

Деятельность фондов и НПО США в Белоруссии, Молдавии и на Украине

The article examines the US foundations and non-governmental organizations activities in the western Post-Soviet space in 2000–2020. The dynamic of project activities financing and approaches in socio-humanitarian and socio-political spheres depending on the situation in these countries and the US foreign policy is analyzed. Particular attention is paid to the foundations and NGOs priorities at a time of the deterioration of the political situation in these states.

Humanitarian activities of American NGOs and charitable foundations in developing countries

The article discusses the mechanisms and directions of charitable activities of US non-profit organizations and foundations in developing countries, which determine the humanitarian direction in the framework of International Development Assistance. Currently, humanitarian problems are exacerbated due to the growing risks to human life in the context of globalization, which, while providing a wide range of self-realization opportunities available to every person, at the same time expanded the boundaries of using human potential as a “consumable” material, increased risks and devalued the status of human life. Today, humanitarian crises cover entire regions - Tropical Africa, the Near East, a number of Central American countries, where, due to the limited capabilities of the respective states, NGOs and charitable foundations operate within the framework of social, technical, educational and medical programs. Independent studies show that often the services of the non-profit sector have no analogues in the commercial sphere - they often provide assistance to the population of developing countries in hard-to-reach locations, in places engulfed by military conflicts, develop and use new approaches and communication and information technologies in their work.

The Transnationality of the Secular

Abstract This essay discusses in how far we can understand the evolution of secularism in South and Southeast Asia between the end of the First World War and decolonisation after 1945 as a result of transimperial and transnational patterns. In the context of the growing comparative literature on the history of secularisms around the globe, I argue for more attention for the mobility of ideas and people across borders. Conceptually, I suggest to capture the diversity of 20th century secularisms in terms of family resemblance and to understand this resemblance less as colonial inheritance but as the result of translocal networks and their circuits of ideas and practices since 1918. I approach these networks through a combination of global intellectual history, the history of transnational social networks, and the global history of non-state institutions. Empirically, I illustrate my argument with three case studies: the reception of Atatürk’s reforms across Asia and the Middle East to illustrate transnational discourses around secularism; the role of social networks in the form of translocal women’s circles in the interwar period; and private US foundations as global circuits of expertise. Together, these illustrations are an attempt to sustain a certain degree of coherence within globalising secularism studies while at the same time avoiding conceptual overstretch.

An Exploratory Study of Types of Innovation in US Foundations

While foundations contribute in significant ways to the United States’ social, economic, and political life, they are experiencing increasing demands placed upon them by their own sector and need to respond to the major changes in their external environment. In order to create breakthrough solutions to long-standing problems, foundations have to become more innovative and seek to experiment and find new approaches. Unfortunately, innovation discourse within foundations has received little attention. This paper fills the gap in the literature as it describes the results of a study that explored different types of innovations implemented in foundations. More specifically, staff members of 17 US foundations that are known for supporting innovation in nonprofit organizations, were asked to describe programmatic and administrative innovations implemented in their own foundations. The results showed that foundations that support innovation are in fact innovative themselves. They implemented numerous innovations in programmatic and administrative, financial, and structural areas. This paper provides a rich description of a broad range of innovations implemented within each of those areas. The contribution of this study and insights are significant at this particular time when foundations’ roles and impact on social change are questioned. The results can enrich our discussion of where foundations can go from here in terms of becoming innovative themselves in order to be able to support and enhance innovation in the nonprofit sector.

RETROSPECTIVE AND MODERN ASPECTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHARITY

The article considers the retrospective and modern aspects of the development of charitable activity in the socio-economic sense, which is the assistance to other persons at the expense of own welfare or free time, and provided that this assistance does not harm other persons and is carried out within the law. Charity should benefit not only the immediate recipient of benefit but also society as a whole. The authors emphasize that the conducted study supports their hypothesis that under the conditions of globalization, society increasingly focuses on social issues that arise as a result of insufficient state resources and so charity becomes a factor in their successful resolution. The development of charity is a system of social, economic, and cultural factors. One of the stages of the development of charity was the creation of charitable foundations specializing in various fields: scientific, cultural, sporting, educational projects, assistance to needy families, help for orphanages, hospitals, fundraising for expensive treatment and other projects. In today’s world, the attitude towards charity as a professional occupation has become widespread, becoming a “social norm.” Charitable funds are a separate and important component of the charitable institution. The concept of “charity” came into the public consciousness as a humanistic call of a person to go to the needy, regardless of religious, national, racial, social affiliation or political or ideological beliefs. Retrospective analysis showed that forms of philanthropy in the advanced form existed already in ancient Rome and ancient Greece; in medieval Europe, they already acquired the status of state and social policy at the legislative level. In the Christian aspect of ancient Rus of the adoption of the Orthodox faith in 988, the foundations of charity are laid as socio-ethical norms of society. In the second half of the XVIII century, as a result of secularization, charitable societies, hospitals, almshouses, open by public organizations and private individuals arise, that is, there are social and state institutions of charity. And charitable funds, which are socio-economic professional activities, are beginning to develop. From ancient to modern times, charitable activity is carried out in the forms of patronage, sponsorship, volunteering, fundraising. Modern trends of charity include: increase of the non-profit sector and its internationalization; cooperation of charitable foundations, development of a social partnership with business, state bodies, and foreign funds; professionalization through the creation of network charity. In turn, charity abroad is characterized by growing professionalism, a variety of forms and programs of cooperation, the growth and expansion of the sphere itself and its importance for non-profit, in particular, socio-cultural activities. The undisputed leader in this area is the USA – the birthplace of modern sponsorship and fundraising. The authors conditionally distinguish three levels of charity. The typology and general characteristics of foreign charitable foundations, typical for the USA, European countries, and Ukraine, are presented. Features of creation and functioning of quasi-public funds are considered. On a global scale, the foreign activity of the US foundations is significant, and the expenditures exceed the official foreign aid budgets of many countries. However, their presence in Ukraine is relatively low. The volume of support is negligible compared to official support amounts: according to the OECD, the amount of grants actually received by Ukraine from other states and multilateral donors in 2011–2017 amounted to more than 5 billion USD while less than 0.1 billion USD came to Ukraine from US foundations. But this does not exclude the role of private donors in solving certain problems, in particular, in terms of supporting civil society, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups of the population, etc.

“Comprehensive approximation” with the EU: biopolitical governmentality and its spill-over effects in Georgia

ABSTRACTThis article examines Georgia’s experience of civil society engagement with reforms after 2008, which attests to the country’s Euro-integrationist aspirations. In particular, the research addresses practices of the promotion of liberal democracy as forms of biopolitical governmentality pursued by Western state and non-state actors towards and in Georgia, raising the question of what the mechanisms of adoption and “domestication” of this knowledge by recipients with significantly different cultural, social and political systems are and how these could be applied by post-Soviet countries to construct their own sovereign projects. Based on in-depth interviews with representatives of the US, EU and German foundations and institutions, such as OSI, USAID, GIZ, the Millennium Challenge Corporations, as well as with Georgian think tank experts, politicians and practitioners, conducted in 2015–2017 in Washington, DC and Tbilisi, the author of the article discusses the experts’ assessment of implementing Western techniques of governance to Georgia and then demonstrates how Georgia itself uses them as part of its own biopolitical programmes towards break-away Abkhazia.

The Changing Role of the Ford Foundation in International Development, 1951–2001

While US private philanthropic foundations are small in comparison with other international donors, the Ford Foundation was an important international actor and the biggest player within international philanthropy for almost 50 years. US-funded think tanks and research centers articulated various iterations of a development paradigm, but these paradigms shifted over the same 50 years. What are the driving forces behind these shifts? Why, for instance, were US foundations working directly with government officials in the 1950s while in the 1990s working mostly through non-governmental organizations? This article seeks first to trace the major shifts in the way the Ford Foundation engaged in international development and second aims to explain how and why these shifts took place. In order to conduct this research, I relied on archival research, such as annual reports, minutes from congressional hearings, and internal unpublished reports, and interviews with former high-level employees at Ford Foundation. In addition, I coded and analyzed a database of more than 40,000 grants from the Ford Foundation from 1951 to 2001. The article analyzes the Ford Foundation through four mechanisms of change: internal leadership, external regulation, displacement by competitors, and domestic pressures. These four factors are set against the backdrop of wider shifts in international politics.

Book Review: The Price of Climate Action: Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate by Edouard Morena

Edouard Morena The Price of Climate Action: Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; 140 pp.: ISBN 9783319424835 (pbk), 37.99 [pounds sterling] We know how corporate-funded right-wing think tanks and foundations have embarked on a crusade to deny the very existence of climate change--for the greater benefit of capital invested in the fossil economy. It should thus be a relief to find out that major liberal US-based foundations (such as the Oak or the Rockefeller foundations) have embraced, since the 1980s, progressive action on climate change--seeking to expand knowledge, awareness, policies and (to a lesser degree) mobilisation around greenhouse gases reduction and climate action. Well, argues Edouard Morena in his new book The Price of Climate Action. Philanthropic Foundations in the International Climate Debate, maybe this is not an unmitigated good. In his well-researched--and concise (140 pages)!--book, Morena argues that philanthropic foundations have had a crucial, even defining, influence on recent climate negotiations, but that their agenda-shaping power (through grant-making and organisation) has also reduced the pluralism of strategies for civil society, and has even marginalised or silenced more radical voices. The worldview of the foundations, especially their visions of top-down elite led technocratic social change--as opposed to more confrontational and mobilisation-driven transformations from below--fits quite well with the general trend of'liberal environmentalism' (a concept coined by Steven Bernstein in 2001) that has dominated international environmental politics over the last 20-30 years. The first chapter gives an overview of the book and the social science literature on philanthropic foundations. The engagement of large liberal US foundations (especially the Rockefeller Foundation) with climate change, since the 1980s, is described in Chapter 2. The author gives a cursory overview of the period and I felt that a larger understanding of the political and economic background would have helped: for instance, the Foundations' involvement in neo-Malthusian population scares in the 1970s or their decisive action in the so-called 'green revolution' could have been more developed, as these episodes have substantially shaped subsequent environmental and climate policies--and cemented US imperialism. Chapter 3 traces the strategic transformation that foundations have operated in the 1990s and 2000s, characterised by 'collaborative, proactive, outcome-oriented and evaluation-driven grantmaking methods with pro-business, market-centred and bottom-up understanding of social change' (p. 41). Indeed, Morena shows how the type of management implemented by these foundations parallels that of business organisations --even the language they use is indistinguishable from neoliberal managerial newspeak. And their overall approach has been to promote market-based, business-friendly, modes of environmental regulations--rather than a radical opposition to capitalist development. …

Who f(o)unded IR: American philanthropies and the discipline of International Relations in Europe

This article aims to present a history of International Relations (IR) that looks at the role of three big American foundations (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations) in the development of IR as an academic field in continental Europe. Its framework goes beyond the usual disciplinary history narratives that focus on IR’s US or UK trajectories, pointing instead to American foundations’ interwar and early post–World War II influence on French and German IR. The cases emphasize US foundations’ interactions with European scholars and international scholarly organizations as major factors shaping IR’s developmental pathways. This study offers a way to consider foundations’ role in IR’s gradual academic institutionalization by connecting disciplinary historical approaches to disciplinary sociology. Its sociologically conscious position underlines the significance of American philanthropies in a historical narrative and recognizes the relevance of transnational dynamics by going beyond usual emphases on ideas and national contexts.

Foundations Invest In Environmental Health.

Nearly one in four deaths globally are due to environmental hazards such as air and water pollution, according to the World Health Organization. However, knowledge about how the environment affects health and health equity outcomes has not been well integrated into decisions that shape the conditions in which people live, work, and play. To address this challenge, US foundations have invested millions of dollars to make it easier to incorporate environmental health information into decisions ranging from family purchases and governmental policy making to business, medical, and other professional practices. This article summarizes grant making aimed at improving environmental conditions to improve health and health equity outcomes. We provide examples of environmental health grants that focus on tools that the public, policy makers, and professionals can use in making decisions. We found that the investment in and attention to environmental factors, including in work addressing social determinants of health, have been insufficient to realize the potential for reducing negative environmental impacts on health and health disparities. We argue that the grant making highlighted here has increased knowledge that could enable more widespread consideration of environmental health in many decisions, with positive effects on health and health equity.

The Cold War Politics of Literature and the Centro Mexicano de Escritores

AbstractThis article describes the relationship of the Centro Mexicano de Escritores, Mexico's most important writing centre in the second half of the twentieth century, to the US foundations that funded it. The Centre was founded by a North American writer, Margaret Shedd, with the financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation. The Rockefeller Foundation understood the Centre as a ‘Pan-American’ effort to improve relations between the United States and Mexico by bringing its writers closer together. Later, there were also contributions from two CIA fronts, the Farfield Foundation and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, to the Centre and its star graduate, Juan Rulfo. However, this article argues that none of the US foundations realised the ambitions that they had for the Centre. Through a process of ‘Mexicanised Americanisation', a project that had elements of Yankee cultural imperialism produced instead one of the world's finest writing centres, but without any clear political benefit for the United States.

Funding allocation to surgery in low and middle-income countries: a retrospective analysis of contributions from the USA

ObjectiveThe funds available for global surgical delivery, capacity building and research are unknown and presumed to be low. Meanwhile, conditions amenable to surgery are estimated to account for nearly 30%...

US Foundations in Brazil and the Funding of the Human Rights Field – Data and Trends from 2003 to 2012

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to describe and analyze the presence of US philanthropy in Brazil with regards to the field of human rights from 2003 to 2012, using data from the Foundation Center on 1896 grants totaling $336M. Human rights NGOs are especially important in Brazil. Despite recent growth and development, it is a country that still faces many social, political and human rights challenges. But the local field is still largely dependent on international funding, and US foundations play a traditional and vital role in this scenario, thus it is important to understand recent changes on American foundations priorities. The numbers indicate that the US investment in Brazil is concentrated in few areas (environment and human rights account for 50% of the amount invested), and these priorities are clearly different from those in the Brazilian philanthropic agenda (more focused on education, income generation, youth and community development). When we focus on human rights, we must underline that the investment in human rights by American foundations is quite notable. Not only is Brazil the country in which there were more investments in this topic in the last 10 years, but human rights is also the second field of priority in the country, right after Environment. When examining the collected data, there are four large patterns emerging: dependence on big donors, relevance of the strategy of “many small grants”, incipient grants in advocacy and possible existence of thematic niches. Of all these issues, the main challenge is that the field is very dependent on a few very large donors: Ford Foundation, Kellogg Foundation and the Global Fund for Women account for over 65% of the grants and 89% of the amount in US dollars. The Kellogg Foundation has already left Brazil to concentrate on other geographic priorities; should the Ford Foundation take a similar decision, the field of human rights in Brazil might even collapse, since Brazilian donors do not yet demonstrate enthusiasm for the subject.

Funding flows to global surgery: an analysis of contributions from the USA

BackgroundIn recent years, funds for global health have risen substantially, particularly for infectious diseases. Although conditions amenable to surgery account for 28% of the global burden of disease, the external funds directed towards global surgical delivery, capacity building, and research are currently unknown and presumed to be low. We aimed to describe external funds given to these efforts from the USA, the world's largest donor nation. MethodsWe searched the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), National Institute of Health (NIH), Foundation Center, and registered US charitable organisations databases for financial data on any giving exclusively to surgical care in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). All nominal dollars were adjusted for inflation by converting to 2014 US dollars. FindingsAfter adjustment for inflation, 22 NIH funded projects (totalling US$31·3 million, 1991–2014) were identified; 78·9% for trauma and injury, 12·5% for general surgery, and 8·6% for ophthalmology. Six relevant USAID projects were identified; all related to obstetric fistula care totalling US$438 million (2006–13). US$105 million (2003–13) was given to universities and charitable organisations by US foundations for 14 different surgical specialties (ophthalmology, cleft lip/palate, multidisciplinary teams, orthopaedics, cardiac, paediatric, reconstructive, obstetric fistula, neurosurgery, burn, general surgery, obstetric emergency procedures, anaesthesia, and unspecified specialty). 95 US charitable organisations representing 14 specialties (ophthalmology, cleft lip/palate, multidisciplinary teams, orthopaedics, cardiac, paediatric, reconstructive, obstetric fistula, neurosurgery, urology, ENT, craniofacial, burn, and general surgery) totalled revenue of US$2·67 billion and expenditure of US$2·5 billion (2007–13). InterpretationA strong surgical system is an indispensable part of any health system and requires financial investment. Tracking funds targeting surgery helps not only to quantify and clarify this investment, but also to ultimately serve as a platform to integrate surgical spending within health system strengthening. Although USAID is a vital foreign aid service and the NIH is a leader in biomedical and health research, their surgical scopes are restricted both financially (less than 1% of respective total budgets over the study years) and in surgical specialty. By contrast, the private charitable sector has contributed more financially and to more specialties. Still, current financial global health databases do not have precise data for surgery. To improve population health in LMICs, more resources should be dedicated to surgical system strengthening. Furthermore, exact classification measures should be implemented to track these important resources. FundingNone.

US Foundations, Cultural Imperialism and Transnational Misunderstandings: The Case of the Marginality Project

This article analyses the failure of the Proyecto Marginalidad (Marginality Project), which the Ford Foundation financed in the 1960s, and the political and academic conflicts that it provoked. It takes into consideration the viewpoints of the principal actors involved (the director of the project, the Ford Foundation, and its critics). The original aim of the Marginality Project was to study the conditions of marginality of urban and rural populations in various Latin American countries, but it generated few results. The article shows that this outcome resulted from a series of ‘structural misunderstandings’, due to the fact that the different actors did not share what, in the words of Marc Angenot, might be called ‘social discourse’. In other words, their assumptions about what was thinkable and sayable in the Latin American context in the late 1960s and early 1970s diverged significantly, giving rise to a series of conflicts about the objectives and conduct of the project.

Modernization of Libraries in a Postcommunist State: The Roles of the George Soros, Andrew W. Mellon, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations in the Development of Latvian Libraries

This paper presents the most important changes in the library system of Latvia in the late 1980s, when, as a result of a nonviolent struggle, Latvia regained full independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Particular attention is paid to contributions by private foundations in the United States—the George Soros, Andrew W. Mellon, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations—to fulfill the main goal of library work: namely, helping to create a democratic society in which everyone has the opportunity to express their views and be able to freely access information. During the Soviet period, libraries were mainly agents of the dominant power; they were often forced to ignore the needs of Latvian society or even to work against them. The activities of libraries were strictly regulated and controlled. Latvian independence has allowed the libraries to end political censorship and strict control, and to independently determine their future directions and work methods. Political changes occurred so rapidly that the immediate normalization of professional work after fifty years of occupation was not possible. However, US private foundations supported strategically important areas of library work: automation and access to the internet, the creation of the State Unified Library Information System (SULIS), and the professional development of library staff. The US foundations, through requirements for the cofinancing of large-scale projects, also motivated state and municipalities in Latvia to increase their investment in libraries. The interest expressed in libraries by these foundations emphasized that Latvian libraries were vital. Consequently, targeted investments shortly after independence ensured the timely inclusion of the basic elements of the national library system—the National Library of Latvia and public, school, and academic libraries—in the modern information environment, thus allowing them to fulfill the main task of all libraries: the provision of public access to information.

The Emergence of International Studies in New Zealand

With acceptance of the responsibilities of a founder member of the League of Nations - including assuming an international mandate in the Pacific - the prospect of a distinctive New Zealand international role and awareness emerged, thus laying the foundation for a local version of international studies. The early figures in the field were a group of intellectuals trained in history, law, or economics, often with experience of British higher education. Members of the League of Nations Union, the Institute of Pacific Relations, and later the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs, their activities and publications sometimes challenged the boundaries of Empire-centric discourse. An avowed Internationalism - though sometimes compromised by racial anxieties - was a strong theme in their work; the impact of US foundations especially stimulated a knowledge of the importance to New Zealand of extra-Imperial issues in the Pacific and Asia. Although only intermittently engaged with policy, their influence is nevertheless discernible, especially from 1935.