Question

1.)  Describe the five factors mentioned in Reckhow that could shape a foundation’s decision to fund a proposal.

2.) What does Reckhow claim are the two major factors influencing the likelihood of foundations funding particular school districts?

Answer 1

Our study of Gates’ and Broad’s education grantmaking revealed two main aspects of their strategic approach towards policy influence: 1) cultivating direct relationships with high-level officials and 2) supporting widely recognized and influential organizations in education, from both traditional and reform contexts, to engage in advocacy activities at the federal level. These activities engendered a shift in funding from the local level to the national level, and accordingly grantees were frequent witnesses in Congressional testimony on teacher quality, particularly as Gates’ and Broad’s support for advocacy increased over the course of the last several years. In particular, Gates’ and Broad’s purposeful convergence on advancing similar policy issues and organizations emerged as a key factor in marshalling their resources towards their desired outcomes. As a caveat, our study does not claim to make a causal argument regarding foundation funding of advocacy, as it is impossible to link policy outcomes definitively to grants. Furthermore, we do not assume that foundations necessarily dictate what their grantees testify, or that witnesses’ testimony is similar because they received grants from Gates and Broad. In fact, it is likely that Gates and Broad sought out organizations already engaged in reform initiatives that resonated with their philanthropic objectives. Rather, we emphasize that the strategic and purposeful alignment of foundation funding focused and accelerated the volume of grantees’ advocacy work on key issues, which subsequently had the effect of saturating the market of policy-relevant ideas related to teacher quality and propelling the foundations’ preferred models of reform onto a national stage. In effect, these actions legitimated and diffused some approaches to teacher quality over others, illustrating the power of foundations to anoint exemplars within a field of organizations.