Philanthropic Funding of Human Services: Solving Ambiguity Through the Two-Stage Competitive Process
- 1 March 2000
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
- Vol. 29 (1_suppl), 9-40
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764000291s002
Abstract
Philanthropic funders play an important role in human services—they support policy research and community services—but little is known about how they structure their funding or select grant recipients. Using personal interviews with Chicago-area foundation officials, this article documents how four types of philanthropic funders approach these decisions. The article shows that the grant process is constrained by how funders obtain their resources and govern themselves. It is also constrained by ongoing relationships between funders and grant recipients, reflecting pervasive task ambiguity and weakly institutionalized norms. The result is a grant award system that resembles a two-stage competitive process.Keywords
This publication has 13 references indexed in Scilit:
- Corporate Philanthropy: What Is the Strategy?Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 1999
- An Urban Grants Economy Revisited: Corporate Charitable Contributions in the Twin Cities, 1979-81, 1987-89Administrative Science Quarterly, 1997
- The United Way System at the Crossroads: Community Planning and AllocationNonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 1996
- Child Welfare Contracting: Market Forces and LeverageSocial Service Review, 1995
- Diversity and equity among foundation grantmakersNonprofit Management and Leadership, 1994
- Interorganization Contagion in Corporate PhilanthropyAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1991
- Corporate Philanthropy: Strategic Responses to the Firm's StakeholdersNonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 1990
- Realigning Corporate Giving: Problems in the Nonprofit Sector for Community Development CorporationsNonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 1990
- The Lid on the Garbage Can: Institutional Constraints on Decision Making in the Technical Core of College-Text PublishersAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1989
- A Garbage Can Model of Organizational ChoiceAdministrative Science Quarterly, 1972