Power of Grant Makers Examined in Study of a Poverty-Fighting Effort

NEW BOOKS

Unequal Partnerships: Beyond the Rhetoric of Philanthropic Collaboration, by Ira Silver, uses archival data and interviews to analyze a project in Chicago in the early 1990s. The Chicago Initiative, as it was known, was a collaboration between foundations, charities, community leaders, and local government, formed after the race riots in Los Angeles in 1992 to attempt to systematically solve problems affecting poor youths. After tracing the history, context, causes, and implications of the Chicago Initiative, Mr. Silver discusses the news media’s influence on foundations’ grant making, and argues that collaboration between foundations and community groups allows the grant makers to take credit for the grantees’ work. Appendices include a description of Mr. Silver’s research process and a timeline of the Chicago Initiative.

Publisher: Routledge, 270 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016; http://www.routledge.com; 148 pages; $70; ISBN 0-415-97446-1.