Change Foundations Should Believe In

For years (eight, to be exact), some foundation executives argued that their grant recipients were devising policy ideas that could best be carried out by the next presidential administration. Unburdened by the daily demands placed on harried policy makers barely able to get through their in-boxes, let alone read the carefully wrought prose of think-tank scholars and academic researchers, those out-of-government idea mongers could use their foundation money to think deep thoughts and challenge prevailing wisdom.

While a number of critical philanthropic investments produced more near-term, policy-oriented dividends, much of the intellectual capital created during the out years would be cashed in, foundation officials reasoned, once there was a rotation of national political power.

Following that logic, the good news for progressive grant makers is that many of their grant recipients will now be working inside the Obama administration. In the foreign-policy realm, especially, there has been an exodus of foundation grantees into high-level government posts. Although some former Bush-administration officials have found employment at leading policy research centers, even at the centrist Council on Foreign Relations, the numbers flowing the other way have been far greater.

But what does this shift mean for the institutions those new government functionaries have left behind?

Predictably, people are asking questions about the effect of this brain drain on think-tank capacities and whether some organizations will continue to be viable. On the whole, however, progressive grant makers should embrace the changes now under way, especially as they see the trace elements of the projects they once supported appearing in the policies the Obama administration has adopted.

At the same time, these philanthropists face another more subtle and complex challenge. No longer can they “kick the can down the road” by contending that foundation-financed ideas need only the enabling conditions of a new administration to come to fruition. After supporting the loyal opposition for eight years, some progressive foundations will be forced to adjust both their rhetoric and their approach to grant making in critical ways. Without the foil of the Bush administration, the task ahead is more complicated but no less important.

To start with, progressive foundations must step back and examine how they conduct their business. Does it make sense to develop (or aspire to develop) bold, long-term efforts seeking to influence government policies when the new president’s policies are not yet clear; when the ideas that grantees once generated have not yet undergone the pull and haul of the policy-making process in the Obama era? Can institutions long supported by foundations be expected to know at this point how they will adapt to changes in Washington, beyond submitting proposals that largely restate, albeit creatively, what they were doing before?

To be sure, even the most enlightened and well-intentioned new policies will require outside checks and constructive criticism. Yet any critiques emanating from the institutions that once employed those who are now members of the Obama administration are likely — at least initially — to largely involve refinements or variations on broadly accepted themes rather than fundamental challenges to core values and beliefs.

The recent realignment of political power in Washington is not the first time that progressive grant makers have had ostensible allies in government. But for better or worse, many grant makers don’t seem to remember much about philanthropic practices that worked during the Clinton administration, when the last such opportunity arose. This is partly because of the effects on institutional memories of a turnover in foundation personnel and, perhaps more significantly, by the deep frustration and disorientation induced by the Bush years.

Whatever the cause, many foundations will endure a disorientation of a different sort when they discover that their perennial efforts to devise grant-making approaches using standardized templates and terminology have become increasingly disconnected from the immediate challenges before them.

The impact of the global financial crisis on foundation endowments and those of the institutions seeking their support has added another major disorienting dimension that differentiates this era from earlier ones. Social Darwinism in the nonprofit world may lead to mergers or even the end of some organizations. In the face of such change, it is not enough to look just at the merits of individual proposals. Grant makers need to think about how a decision to award or withhold a grant might affect the fate of public-policy organizations and academic centers, or, more broadly, for the field in which they operate.

Second, they should seek to better understand what government cannot or will not do that is still worth pursuing and shows some promise of benefiting from foundation support. Grant making to influence public policy, of course, can serve many functions; it can support informed critics of official policy or those who seek to complement and help advance government efforts. It also can finance outside experts who can prod policy makers or keep their feet to the fire when bureaucratic torpor or political expediency threatens to lessen their resolve. And, occasionally, philanthropic venture capital can support potential path breakers with novel ideas, even if their immediate value may not be apparent.

But it would be premature to embark on any of these before governmental policies have been unveiled. Once the dust has settled on some key policy directives, the real work will begin as independent scholars reposition themselves in relation to their former colleagues who now wield official power. Nurturing a new generation of policy experts who can not only offer commentary on public policies but also someday take their own foundation-supported ideas with them into government is one way to replenish the stock of policy-relevant intellectual capital. In any case, progressive grant makers should take heed that their counterparts on the right will surely not remain idle.

Third, they should give greater attention to issues that transcend the headlines of the day, and peer over the horizon. That may be a familiar notion in philanthropy, but it is rarely given more than lip service. The current agenda of crises around the world is so packed that there is little time to worry about, let alone plan for, what might be coming next. The incentive structure within the rarified air of senior policy makers is heavily weighted toward solving today’s problems. Foundations should moderate their obsession with short-term, quantifiable results and invest in more projects that try to anticipate tomorrow’s problems and propose ways of preempting or responding to them.

And fourth, they should help shape the policy discourse by redoubling efforts to bridge the gap between theory and practice, between scholarship and public policy. Scholarly research can be a powerful tool to generate and sustain the political will that supports policy. But “policy relevance” has been discounted in the social sciences, most notably in the increasingly abstruse field of political science, while the need for rigorous, empirically based analyses of problems in the policy realm remains acute. Helping ensure that scholars focus on puzzles rooted in real-world problems and provide building blocks for crafting feasible solutions, even if they must adhere to the fashionable disciplinary trends of the day, can help advance the cause of both scholarship and policy.

Pundits and politicians assert that we are facing unprecedented challenges. But despite the daunting nature of the policy agenda, America and the world are encouraged by the advent of the Obama administration, even as it labors in its early days to hit its stride. To make the most of this much anticipated opportunity, foundations that endorse the change it represents would be well advised to change along with it.

Stephen J. Del Rosso Jr. directs the international peace and security program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of the foundation.