Should foundations be committed to participatory processes from stakeholder engagement to listening to grantees?

Large institutional foundations are beginning to have conversations that are hinged on listening to grantees, engaging stakeholder forums, being open to feedback for programmatic work. Concerns about philanthropic behaviors range from being financial accountability to driving public policy initiatives. A different perspective for philanthropic accountability is needed. Philanthropic Accountability uses models of democracy as well as stakeholder theory to understand the role of philanthropy in public policy making in the United States, and how philanthropic organizations capture diversity of goals and interests.

Moving beyond performance metric testing to examine and analyze the central logics that inform foundations as they engage in public policy initiatives, Kraeger and Robichau use institutional logic theory to provide a framework to combine participatory democracy theories and philanthropic theories. Case studies and content analysis from the Foundation Center’s Glass Pockets Initiative, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the David and Lucille Packard Foundations, Krager and Robichau help illustrate the foundation stakeholder engagement and outcomes from materials on website, reports and interviews.

Philanthropic Accountability presents a unique starting place to bridge siloed theories and provide an avenue to assess philanthropic engagement in the public policy arena from both a theoretical perspective as well as to be empirically tested. A rich and valuable resource for students, scholars, foundation leaders and practitioners interested in community democracy, philanthropy, the larger social sector and measurement.