Opinion: Reshaping of Philanthropy by ‘Megafoundations’ Carries Risks

The new era of “megafoundations” is significantly changing the American landscape of giving, bringing “strategic” grant-making and public-policy advocacy to the forefront of philanthropy, a Princeton University academic writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The emergence of unprecedentedly large donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates and Walton foundations and other groups with corporate roots has “reconceptualized [philanthropy] as something akin to venture-capital investing,” says Stanley N. Katz, head of the Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School.

With their emphasis on measurable grant outcomes and a push to influence policy, particularly in education, the megafoundations are “departing from the more reflective, more patient, and generally less aggressive behaviors of the classic 20th-century foundations,” and finding support for this approach in the upper echelons of government, Mr. Katz says.

At the university level, the writer adds, donors have shifted resources from investment in long-term research toward “the process of higher education,” emphasizing issues such as access to college, graduation rates, and the potential uses of digital technology.

“Are we outsourcing parts of our education policy to the private philanthropic sector? I think so,” he concludes.