November 28, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
American Foundations: Roles and Contributions
Edited by Helmut K. Anheier and David C. Hammack
Foundations’ abilities to build institutions and influence public policy have long outstripped their financial power, say the editors of this volume of essays examining the roles foundations have played in shaping government and society since the 1860s.
From the early 1900s onward, grant makers concerned with social services have sought to assist the poor whenever government aid was lacking. Wolfgang Bielefeld, a professor of public and environmental affairs at Indiana University and Purdue University-Indianapolis, and Jane Chu, chief executive of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, show that grant makers were social innovators, starting new activities but also trying hard to avoid taking the place of government aid. For example, they point to the Russell Sage Foundation’s efforts to professionalize the social-services field in the early 1900s.
As soon as federal and state governments paid more attention to needs in social services, foundations decreased their own grant making yet were willing to step in to provide more assistance whenever aid dipped again. By the 1990s, foundations transitioned out of this role and focused more on leading collaborations with charities and businesses, write Mr. Bielefeld and Ms Chu.
However, foundations now face irrelevance because charities have grown quickly in size and number and spending by government agencies has well outpaced that of grant makers. Mr. Anheier, a professor of public policy and social welfare at the University of California at Los Angeles, and Mr. Hammack, a professor of history at Case Western Reserve University, write that foundations must cope with an environment in which “their resources have been declining relative to the resources devoted to the fields with which they engage.” If they are to stay vibrant, grant makers may have to lower their ambitions or become more creative in their efforts.
Brookings Institution Press, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; (202) 797-6000; http://www.brookings.edu; 457 pages; $64.95; ISBN 978-0-8157-0339-6.
