New Structure at Carnegie Is Designed to Respond to Emerging Issues

The Carnegie Corporation of New York has announced that it is changing its grant making and simplifying how it categorizes its giving.

After a yearlong review, which included discussions with grant beneficiaries, outside academic experts, and others, the foundation said it wanted to make its efforts more strategic.

Carnegie, which is one of the nation’s oldest foundations, will continue to focus on its traditional goals — improving education and supporting international peace — but it is changing how it classifies its giving. Most grants will now fall into two broad categories, national and international programs, whereas before, the foundation had six distinct grant-making priorities.

Vartan Gregorian, the foundation’s president, said the new structure will continue to meet Andrew Carnegie’s original vision of the fund, which the steel magnate established in 1911, but will also allow it to be more responsive to emerging needs, streamline its work, and speak to its grant recipients with “one voice.”

“It will be one mission delivered through two vehicles,” he said.

Previously, he said, the staff members were too isolated in “internal silos” to discuss broad issues related to Carnegie’s grant making.

Ending Grant Programs

While the major change is structural, Carnegie is ending several grant programs.

In its international giving, the fund will end its support for efforts to promote the nonproliferation of biological weapons and for Russian higher education. On the domestic agenda, Carnegie is cutting its giving to alter campaign-finance laws.

Mr. Gregorian said the programs had accomplished what the foundation set out to do. What’s more, other financial resources are more readily available to support those goals today. For example, since Russia is now flush with oil wealth, Mr. Gregorian expects the country’s government to make larger investments in its universities and colleges.

Carnegie is relatively flush with cash as well, thanks to gains in the stock market. While the growth in its assets — from $1.96-billion at the end of 2004 to $3-billion today — did not trigger the changes in how it makes grants, Mr. Gregorian said it will allow the foundation to increase its annual grant making by about $20-million this year, to $125-million.

One new topic the foundation plans to support in a larger way is efforts to understand the Islamic religion, Muslim nations, and American Muslims — a subject that foundations have largely ignored, according to charities that seek to promote a dialogue between the West and Islam.

Mr. Gregorian said that given its global scope, the “Islam Initiative” will benefit from the foundation’s decision to break down the walls between domestic and international efforts.

Several philanthropy observers attributed recent changes at Carnegie and other established New York funds to the emergence of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which was started in 2000. The Gates fund’s focus on efficiency has influenced how older philanthropies operate, they say.

A former Carnegie staff member, who asked not to be identified, said Carnegie and the others have made shifts to show the world, “No, we’re not dinosaurs. We’re not antiquated grant makers.”

However, Mr. Gregorian disagreed with this opinion. He said that the Gates foundation did not affect his organization’s decision making.

“We don’t have an identity crisis,” he said. “We don’t follow trends. We set trends.”