July 14, 2008 | Read Time: 1 minute
Are foundations incapable of driving substantive social change?
William A. Schambra, senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, said in a recent speech to a group of Chicago grant makers that American philanthropy has become so awash in bureaucracy that even the most powerful foundations have no hope of pushing forward any form of meaningful change.
“What foundations can do, I suggest, is to be serious, quiet, attentive students of their surroundings, watching carefully for opportunities to enhance slightly the trends that they applaud, and diminish slightly the trends that they deplore,” Mr. Schambra said.
“That modest, humble goal is the best that foundations can aim for today.”
Mr. Schambra’s biting assessment of the state of foundations is causing some foundation leaders to bristle.
Albert Ruesga, vice president at the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, in Washington, has a sarcastic response to the speech on his blog, White Courtesy Telephone.
Mr. Ruesga notes the Hudson Institute receives most of its money from conservative organizations and suggests that his assessment is clouded by those who bankroll his think tank.
“We should presumably leave the social engineering to Mr. Schambra’s funders and to the conservative think tank that employs him,” Mr. Ruesga writes. “After all, an activist, liberally inclined philanthropic sector — one that postulates ‘causal connections’ between our current sociopolitical arrangements and the plight of the poor — can only be a nuisance to Bill and those who bankroll his attacks on our reformist ambitions.”
