FOUNDATION FUNDING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY

Updated: August 09, 2004
 

A Research Project funded by the
Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, The Aspen Institute
One Dupont Circle, N.W.  Suite 700
Washington DC 20036

 
J. Craig Jenkins
Dept. of Sociology
Ohio State University
238 Townshend Hall
1885 Neil Avenue Mall
Columbus OH 43210
614 292-1411
Jenkins.12@sociology.osu.edu
Project email: greenmoney@osu.edu.
 

Robert J. Brulle
Dept. of Culture and Communication
Drexel University
3141 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia  PA 19104
215 895-2294
brullerj@drexel.edu
Click here for Environmental Movement Organization Web Page

Project Dates:  September 1, 2003-January 31, 2005

 
PROJECT SUMMARY

Private foundations have long provided core funding for environmental advocacy, making the environmental movement organizationally one of the stronger sectors of contemporary civil society.  Yet critics argue that the environmental movement lacks political clout because of an overemphasis on organization-building and professional advocacy at the expense of grassroots organizing.  In our past research, we have shown that foundation funding has largely gone to moderate discourses and professionalized advocacy (Brulle 2000; Brulle and Jenkins Forthcoming; Jenkins 1989, 1999, 2001).  This research builds on this by addressing three questions:
To examine these questions, we will collect data on foundation practices and funding strategies for 1960-2000 and see how these are related to environmental political action and its impact on national public policy.  The results will be disseminated to researchers interested in private philanthropy studies, social movements and environmental studies as well as to foundation managers and trustees, environmental advocacy groups and the general public.  Information about the project as well as the resulting data and reports will be distributed through a public website as well as through conference presentations, professional publications and articles written for philanthropy professionals.

FOUNDATION FUNDING FOR ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY

A prominent criticism of the environmental movement is that its political clout is limited by an overemphasis on organization building at the expense of grassroots organizing.  Critics often claim that foundation support for professional advocacy and limited support for grassroots activities contributes to an organizationally strong but politically weak environmental movement (Snow 1991; Dowie 1995).  This contention, however, is not based on systematic empirical research and there has been little investigation of the overall pattern of environmental philanthropy.  In earlier work on social movement philanthropy at large, Jenkins (1989, 1998, 2001; Jenkins and Halcli 1999) found that since the early 1960s, foundation funding has shifted generally from grassroots to professional advocacy and that alternative foundations (public charities with donee giving boards [cf. Ostrander 1995]) are the most distinctive funders, investing more of their support in grassroots activities.  Environmental advocacy has been one of the leading growth areas in social movement philanthropy.  Brulle (2000; also Jordan and Mulroney 1997; Shaiko 1999) shows that foundation funding makes up a quarter of the budgets of the major national environmental organizations, which often gives foundations significant leverage over advocacy programs.  Most funding is project support, which gives funders a significant say over what types of advocacy occur.  Brulle and Jenkins (Forthcoming) examine foundation support for environmental discourses in 2000, finding a strong preference for moderate environmental discourses as well as professional advocacy organizations.

MAJOR RESEARCH QUESTIONS.  Our major concern is what leads to foundation funding strategies and the impact of these on environmental advocacy and public policy?  Figure 1 below outlines our hypotheses for addressing these questions:

Foundation Characteristics ----->           Foundation              ----->                Environmental NGO's                   ---->     Environmental Policy
                                                                 Funding Strategies                          Program Activities                                     Impact

1.  Assets                                                      1.  Issue Focus                                  1.  Discourse Focus                                     1.  Legal Changes
2.  Staff Professionalism                                 2.  Grassroots/Professional                2.  Organizational Resources                             i.  Bills Introduced/adopted
3.  Type of Foundation                                       Advocacy                                     3.  Movement Actions/Tactics                          ii. Treaties Adopted
4.  Annual Giving – Total                               3.  Size of Program                            4.  Grassroots/Professional                          2.  Implementation:   Agency    
                                                                     4.  Program/Project Support                   Advocacy                                                   Funding & Personnel

Figure 1:  FOUNDATIONS AND ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

     This scheme addresses several problems with past research.  First, our own earlier work may have seriously underestimated the extent of grassroots environmental funding.  Jenkins’ earlier studies missed the funding for several of the longstanding environmental organizations by focusing on grants to organizations founded after 1965.  The environmental movement dates to the late 19th century and, by our estimate, currently includes over 1,300 major NGOs that will be identified by our project.  Second, little is known about why foundations follow different funding strategies.  In earlier work, we found that alternative and community foundations were more grassroots, corporate and large institutional foundations preferred professional advocacy, and family foundations were highly variable (Jenkins 1998; Jenkins and Halcli 1999).  More dramatic is the general preference for moderate environmental discourses with alternative foundations being the major funders of environmental justice and other non-traditional discourses (Brulle and Jenkins Forthcoming). Does this hold across time?  Are other factors, such as “slack resources” and staff professionalism, important?

     Third is the impact of this funding.  Jenkins and Eckert (1986) found that foundation funding for the civil rights movement was largely reactive, professionalizing advocacy but primarily on issues already framed by earlier grassroots activity.  Does this apply in the environmental area?  Or have foundations been  innovators in terms of issues and projects?  What is the impact of foundation funding on the structure, discourse and issue focus of environmental advocacy?  Fourth is the impact of this advocacy on public policy.  In the civil rights movement, foundation support came after the major policy changes and was largely invested in legal advocacy and service programs critical to implementing these policies (Jenkins and Eckert 1986; Jenkins 1989).  Does this hold with the environmental movement, which has a far more diverse constituency, a larger array of organizations and, on many public issues, far more powerful political opponents? 

     To address these questions, we will collect five decades of data (1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000) on foundation funding of environmental advocacy and its policy impact.  By focusing on five decade-based panels, we simplify our data collection while maintaining our ability to capture change.  We also build on existing annualized data that we have already collected, allowing us to focus more on actual analysis and the dissemination of results.  We begin first with the roots of foundation funding strategies and then turn to its impact on environmental advocacy and public policy.

     Foundation Practices and Funding Strategies:  Why do foundations adopt particular funding strategies?  Our first focus is explaining foundation funding strategies and their relationship to different forms of political advocacy.  By political advocacy, we include both “rights-based” and “civic involvement” advocacy (Boris and Mosher-Williams 1998).  We also distinguish between professional and grassroots advocacy, the latter meaning organizations with chapter memberships and/or community organizing where members can potentially influence organizational policies.  We also look at organizational governance, distinguishing democratic and semi-democratic from oligarchic organizations, and examine eight major environmental discourses (Brulle 2000).  Our prediction is that discourse is the major differentiating element in foundation strategy because of its close connection with specific goals, and that a pattern similar to our 2000 findings with respect to foundation type will hold across time.  The novel area will be evaluating the importance of foundation professionalism, which should promote professional advocacy funding, and “slack resources” in terms of assets and total giving, which should facilitate experimentation with alternative discourses and advocacy projects.  We will also use grant size and multi-year grants to distinguish project from program support.  Finally, we suspect that few foundations are particularly cognizant of governance questions or attend greatly to the “grassroots” vs. professional distinction, which should be evident from weak and inconsistent effects of foundation characteristics on these aspects of environmental funding.

     Funding Strategies and Environmental NGOs:  Our second focus is the impact of foundation funding on environmental advocacy.  As noted, foundation grants typically make up a quarter of the budget of the major national environmental organizations but have far greater leverage because of:  (1) less diffuseness than, e.g. “direct mail” contributors; (2) foundation preference for targeted project grants and ability to monitor outcomes; (3) the general weakness of internal member controls over policies; and (4) interorganizational exchange in terms of shared boards (Colwell 1993:105).  Critics argue that, although professionalization is often imperative in legal and scientific advocacy, it has become so overwhelmingly dominant that it has undermined the mobilization of effective public support for environmental protection.

     Our first step is to evaluate trends in environmental advocacy and links to foundation funding.  By analyzing comprehensive organizational data on the changing mix of environmental organizations and environmental political action (described below), we examine the impact of foundation funding on the environmental movement.  Has foundation funding encouraged changes in environmental discourse?  Has it promoted professional advocacy at the expense of grassroots organizing?  Has it centralized the environmental movement?  Has it promoted democratic over oligarchic organization?

     Foundation Funding, Environmental NGOs, and Policy Impact. Our fourth focus is the impact of environmental advocacy on national environmental policy.  Unfortunately we do not have the resources to examine local environmental advocacy, which is important to a comprehensive evaluation of environmental policy.  We can, however, assess the national policy impact of environmental advocacy and specifically the sectors most supported by foundations.  Foundations work to realize many of their goals indirectly by shaping the issue focus and practices of NGOs.  To ensure the efficacy of their funding strategies, foundation managers need to understand the relationship between the practices of NGOs that they seek to engender and the impact of these NGOs on the policy process. A core proposition of social movement theory is that organizational centralization, narrow goals, disruptive tactics and favorable political opportunities contribute to favorable political outcomes (Gamson 1975; Jenkins 1985; Staggenborg 1991; Amenta, Carruthers and Zylan 1992; Amenta, Dunleavy and Bernstein 1994).  Others counter that (1) decentralized networks are better able to survive repression and maximize grassroots participation (Gerlach and Hine 1970), (2) favorable public opinion is the key mediating factor behind favorable movement outcomes (Burstein and Linton 2002), (3) although protest may perform a signaling function by getting issues on the political agenda, it stimulates a negative public opinion backlash (Burstein and Freudenberg 1978; Burstein 1999), (4) victimization by police violence enlists favorable public opinion and thereby contributes to favorable policy (Barkan 1984; McAdam and Su 2002),  and (5)  informational lobbying is critical to influencing public policy (Berry 1999).  There is also the longstanding debate over the political impact of foundation funding.  Foundation funding goes largely to the moderate professional advocacy organizations (Brulle and Jenkins Forthcoming), leading to the claim that this channels the movement into moderate and less effective activities (Snow 1991; Jordan and Maloney 1997).  Berry (1977, 1999) argues, however, that this constitutes a strategic response by political entrepreneurs and foundations to the free-rider problems of public interest movements, leading to a “thin” but still effective popular mobilization.  We focus our investigation on whether the funding of “grassroots” and non-mainstream organizations is more effective than funding moderate professional advocacy organizations.  We also examine the relationship between NGO strategies and tactics, and specific policy outcomes.

RESEARCH METHODS.  To examine these questions, we will gather data and conduct analyses of five decade-based panels (1960, 1970, 1980, 1990 and 2000) plus, where appropriate, annualized data.  This will enable us to economize on our data collection while making inferences about change.  There are four specific tasks:

1.  Environmental NGO Panel Series, 1960-2000.  The first step will be to identify the population of environmental organizations that were in existence starting in 1960, and the four following decades following using the methodology developed in Brulle (2000).  For each of the five time series samples, we will also collect information regarding the characteristics of environmental organizations as to annual income, membership, and staff levels, as well as the nature of their environmental programs, including specifically:  (1) issue focus;  (2) strategy (professional advocacy, membership, community organizing, hybrids); (3) tactics (policy advocacy, service & education, institutional tactics/protests); (4) governance (democratic, semi-democratic, oligarchic), (5) extent of professionalization (staff size), and (6) range of programs.  This will provide five panels of data for 1960-2000.  From other projects, Jenkins has already constructed an environmental organization database identifying all organizations listed in the cumulative editions of the Encyclopedia of Associations (1957-1995).  This needs to be refined by: (1) expanding the coverage of NGOs by consulting the newer editions of the Encyclopedia and by adding NGOs listed in the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Directory; (2) coding the governance structure of these NGOs by consulting their by-laws filed with the IRS; (3) recording information on decade specific income, membership, staff and programs as available from the Encyclopedia and the Conservation Directory;  and (4) gauging their major revenue sources as reported in their IRS 990 reports.  Steps 2 and 4 will be limited to a 10 percent sample representative of the environmental discourses, strategies and budgets.  By-laws and financial information will be gathered either directly from the National Center for Charitable Statistics (Krehely 2001), or by writing the IRS.  These will yield a data set of national environmental organizations that will be studied over the 1960-2000 time period.  The methods used to develop this data set are available at 
http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brullerj/Envorgdata.htm

2.  Foundation Funding for Environmental Advocacy 1960-2000.  Based on this listing of national environmental SMOs, we will then obtain foundation grant amounts to all of these organizations for each of the five time samples.  This will allow us to judge the relative and absolute contribution of foundations to the environmental movement over time, and to identify those types of organizations that receive significant foundation funding.  Also, in an expansion of previous studies, we will also be able to identify those environmental NGOs that received no foundation funding at all.  In the earlier work, Jenkins restricted the environmental list to organizations founded after 1965.  In our study of foundation grants for 2000 (Brulle and Jenkins Forthcoming), we relied on the all grants identified as focused on the environment in the Foundation Center’s Dialogue database and coded foundation characteristics using the membership of the National Network of Grantmakers, which constituted over half of all these grants.  We will expand the 1960-1980 grants data by using our NGO list as well as the relevant issue categories for grants listed in the Foundation News and, for 1990 and 2000, those listed in the Foundation Center’s Dialogue database.  Because the Foundation Center data represent only grants of $5000 or more ($10,000 or more after 1990), we supplement this with a review of the 990 PF’s of smaller foundations included in the National Network of Grantmakers (2001) which identify the environment as a funding priority.  Adding to our existing data, each foundation will be coded as to its type:  (1) family (inferred from having one or more donor family members on the board); (2) institutional (i.e. no family on the board); (3) corporate; (4) community; (5) public charity; and (6) alternative foundation (donee grants board).  We will also collect from the Foundation Directory and the NNG directory the assets, annual giving, and staff size of these foundations for our decades.  Phone calls will be used to complete missing information.  Combined with our environmental organizational data, this will allow us to examine the trend in foundation funding for environmental advocacy, the types of organizations supported, and the foundation practices that lead to particular funding strategies. 

3. Environmental Movement Action 1960-2000.  The third data-gathering task is to refine the environmental movement action data coded by Jenkins from the New York Times Index.  The objective is to gauge the extent to which foundation funding in, e.g. 1960, was associated with the pattern of environmental action.  This data set will provide measures of movement activity by counting basic event forms, including symbolic events (speeches, press releases, conferences & meetings), organizational formation, membership campaigns, lobbying, electioneering, litigation, protests, and violent protests.  Events are coded in terms of actor (including NGO names), event form, target and issue.  Initial coding has already been completed for 1955-1997 in a daily events file but needs additional cross checks for missed Index headings and to be extended to 2000.  Since our action data include organizational identifiers, we can also evaluate the extent to which this is linked to organization-specific action and the proportions of professional vs. grassroots action.

4.  Policy Change 1960-2000.  Our final focus is examining the environmental policy adoption and implementation measures assembled by the Policy Agendas Project.  Based on a comprehensive coding of Congressional activity, the Agendas data provides bi-annual Congressional term measures of environmental laws introduced and passed, treaties ratified, and, to gauge implementation, the personnel and budget authority of federal agencies responsible for environmental enforcement.  Our question is quite simple:  What has been the impact of the environmental movement across decades? Is this related to foundation funding and associated patterns of environmental organization and activity?  Using annual as well as decade units of observation, we will assess the extent to which foundation funding and environmental movement action have influenced the introduction and passage of environmental legislation and policy implementation.  We will also statistically control for other possible contributors:  (1) the partisan composition of Congress; (2) the Presidential party and electoral margin; (3) “crisis” incidents (e.g. Three Mile Island, the Exxon Valdez oil spill); and (4) the general status of the national economy gauged by real GDP/capita and inflation. 

PRODUCTS AND IMPACT. This project has both theoretical and practical research objectives.  On the theory end, it will go beyond current ad hoc claims about the intentions and impact of foundation funding for social movements to actually examine the pattern of foundation funding for the environmental movement and the policy impact of that movement.  Current discussions are enmired in critiques of philanthropy or limited to the “ideal-real” counterfactual analysis of the limitations of the environmental movement.  These discussions often do not recognize the complexity of what foundations actually fund or of environmental movement strategy.  By building systematic data on each step in this process, we will provide a systematic basis for gauging the extent and sources of foundation funding for environmental advocacy and the policy impact of this advocacy.  The project will not be able to gauge the broader potentials of environmental action or probe the depths of philanthropic motive but will provide systematic evidence on how foundation funding has influenced the development of the environmental movement and how effective that movement has been in changing public policies.  We see this as a first major step towards a broader assessment of the impact of foundation funding for environmental advocacy.  We anticipate the publication of several professional research articles in major academic journals, such as the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review, several articles for philanthropic and practitioner audiences, and the core basis for a monograph.

     Our primary audience for these efforts will be scholars of social movements, philanthropy and environmental studies.  Our work will help evaluate contemporary resource mobilization/political process theories of social movements by bringing in a strong cultural element into the analysis in our handling of the multiplicity of discourses in the environmental movement.  It will also provide an historical basis for discussion and generate invaluable new data that can be used by other scholars.  It will also inform philanthropy studies by providing a longitudinal picture of the sources of foundation funding strategies and an assessment of the policy impact of different funding strategies.  It will contribute to environmental studies a better picture of the nature of environmental mobilization, the way in which philanthropy influences this, and the impact of environment mobilization on the development of public policy.

     The second audience is foundation trustees and managers as well environmental advocates and the general public.  Foundations often conduct internal evaluations of their programs but have only a general sense of whether these efforts payoff in terms of public policy or environmental protection.  Internal evaluations are often ad hoc and internal, raising questions about the independence of the evaluation.  Our approach is to develop systematic quantitative evidence about what funded what, what impact this had on movement activity, and what impact movement activity had on public policy.  While limited to a particular slice of the environmental movement, it will provide information about the impact of foundation funding on the development and impact of the environmental movement on national public policy.  It should help answer questions about the wisdom of different funding strategies and the impact of foundation funding in this important area.

To insure that we reach both audiences, we will construct a public website and develop articles for relevant professional, philanthropic and general audience publications.  This will include articles written for such outlets as Foundation News and Chronicle of Philanthropy as well as magazines of major environmental organizations, such as the Sierra Club Magazine, or the Natural Resources Defense Council’s On Earth.  We will also make presentations of this work to forums such as the Environmental Grantmakers Association, the Council on Foundations, and NNG.

References

Amenta, Edwin, Bruce Carruthers, and Yvonne Zylan.  1992.  “A Hero For the Aged?  The Townsend Movement, the Political Mediation Model and U.S. Old                    Age Policy, 1934-1950.”  American Sociological Review 49:678-702.

Amenta, Edwin, Kathleen Dunleavy, and Mary Bernstein. 1994.   “Stolen Thunder?  Huey P. Long’s “Share Our Wealth,” Political Mediation and the Second New              Deal.”  American Sociological Review  59:678-702.

Barkan, Steven.  1984. “Legal Control of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.”  American Sociological Review 49:552-65.

Berry, Jeffrey M. 1977.  Lobbying for the People.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Berry, Jeffrey M.  1999.  The New Liberalism.  Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.

Boris, Elizabeth and Rachel Mosher-Williams. 1998.  “Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations.”  Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 27:488-506.

Brulle, Robert. 2000. Agency, Democracy and Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Brulle, Robert and J. Craig Jenkins. Forthcoming “Foundations and the Environmental Movement: Priorities, Strategies and Impact.” In Daniel Farber and                             McCarthy, Debra, Foundations for Social Change: Critical Perspectives on Philanthropy and Popular Movements Temple University Press.

Burstein, Paul. 1999.  “Social Movements and Public Policy.”  Pp. 3-21 in How Social Movements Matter, ed. By Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam and Charles                   Tilly.  Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

Burstein, Paul and William Freudenburg. 1978.  “Changing Public Policy: The Impact of Public Opinion, Anti-War Demonstrations and War Costs on Senate Voting             on Vietnam War Motions.”  American Journal of Sociology 84:99-122.

Burstein, Paul and April Linton. 2002.  “The Impact of Political Parties, Interest Groups and Social Movement Organizations on Public Policy?”  Social Forces                      81:380-408.

Colwell, Mary Anna. 1993.  Public Policy and Foundations.  N.Y.: Garland.

Dowie, Mark. 1995.  Losing Ground.  Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Gamson, William. 1975.  The Strategy of Social Protest.  Homewood, Il.: Dorsey.

Gerlach, Luther and Virginia Hine. 1970.  People, Power and Change.  Indianapolis, In.: Bobbs-Merrill.

Jenkins, J. Craig.  1985.  The Politics of Insurgency: The Farm Worker Movement of the 1960s.  N.Y.: Columbia University Press.

Jenkins, J. Craig. 1989.   "Social Movement Philanthropy and American Democracy."  Pp. 292-314 in Richard Magat (ed.), Philanthropic Giving:  Studies in                        Varieties and Goals (Vol. 3).  NY: Oxford University Press.

Jenkins, J. Craig. 1998.  "Channeling Social Protest:  Foundation Patronage of Contemporary Social Movements."  Pp. 206-216 in Walter Powell and Elisabeth                     Clemens (eds.) Private Action and the Public Good.  New Haven:  Yale University Press.

Jenkins, J. Craig.  2001.  “Social Movement Philanthropy and the Growth of Nonprofit Political Advocacy:  Scope, Legitimacy and Impact.”  Nonprofit Advocacy                 and the Policy Process: II.  Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute.

Jenkins, J. Craig. Forthcoming.  “Nonprofit Organizations and Political Advocacy.”  In Walter W. Powell and Richard S. Steinberg, eds. The Nonprofit Sector                       Handbook (2nd ed).   New Haven, Ct.: Yale University Press.

Jenkins, J. Craig and Craig M. Eckert. 1986.  “Channeling Black Insurgency.“ American Sociological Review 51: 812-29.

Jenkins, J. Craig and Abigail Halcli. 1999. "Grassrooting the System?  Recent Trends in Social Movement Philanthropy, 1953-1990.”   Pp. 277-299 in Ellen                         Condliffe-Lageman (ed.) Studying Philanthropic Foundations: New Scholarship, New Possibilities.  Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press.

Jordan, Grant and William Maloney. 1997.   The Protest Business?  Mobilizing Campaign Groups.  NY: Manchester University Press.

Krehely, Jeff. 2001.  “Assessing the Current Data on 501(c)(3) Advocacy: What IRS Form 990 Can Tell Us.”  Pp 37-50 in  Exploring Organizations and                               Advocacy, ed. by Elizabeth J. Reid and Maria D. Montilla.  Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute  www.nccs.urban.org).

Jordan, Grant and William Maloney. 1997.  The Protest Business?  N.Y.: Manchester University Press.

McAdam, Doug and Yang Su. 2002.  “The War at Home: Antiwar Protests and Congressional Voting, 1965 to 1973.”  American Sociological Review                                 67:696-721.

National Network of Grantmakers. 2001.  Grantmakers Directory, 2000-2001.  San Diego, CA: Vanard Lithographers.

Ostrander, Susan.  1995.    Money for Change: Social Movement Philanthropy at Haymarket People’s Fund.  Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Sale, Kirkpatrick. 1993.  The Green Revolution.  N.Y.: Hill and Wang.

Shaiko, Ronald G. 1999. Voices and Echoes for the Environment. N.Y.: Columbia University Press.

Staggenborg, Suzanne. 1991. The Pro-Choice Movement.  N.Y.: Oxford University Press.  

Zald, Mayer and John D. McCarthy. 1987.  Social Movements in an Organizational Society.  New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction.