Nine in 10 foundation leaders say their foundation seeks to influence public policy through their grant making and other activities, although their boards and legal counsel often are skeptical of such activities, according to a study of more than 200 grant makers released Wednesday. What’s more, nearly three-fourths of those foundations have increased their policy efforts during the past three years, most frequently at the state and local levels.
“Most foundation leaders view efforts to influence public policy as an important way to achieve their goals,” says the report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. “These efforts are not new but have increased in recent years.”
As one foundation leader told the researchers: “Good public policy helps our grants go further, and bad public policy undermines our grant making.” Another foundation CEO stated: “Public policy can have significantly more impact on the issues we care about than our grant dollars alone can.”
Said another: “One cannot be serious about, for example, the health of the environment and ignore the importance of policy action on climate change.”.
The center did not disclose the names of the foundation leaders it quoted so that grant makers would talk more candidly. It also noted that while it surveyed community and private foundations of all sizes, it is possible that organizations that chose to respond were those more likely to support advocacy work.
“The primary way foundations pursue their policy agenda is through grant making,” the report states. “Almost three-fourths of foundations that engage in policy work support grantees’ policy efforts.
However, the report also notes that efforts to influence policy remain a small portion of most foundations’ work.
Feedback from more than 400 nonprofits obtained in other research that was incorporated into the study confirms that grant money for policy work is relatively scarce. “Funds are difficult to raise for this purpose,” one nonprofit leader said, according to the report. All of the research was done long before the pandemic so it doesn’t take into account views that may have shifted over the past few weeks, center officials said.
Internal Resistance
Private foundations do face some limits on their advocacy. For instance, they are prohibited from lobbying directly on legislation unless the bill addresses the way foundations operate. And they cannot support candidates for public office.
But a range of other advocacy activities are open to them. They can support nonprofits that lobby as long as the grants are not designated to influence a specific bill. Foundations can support voter-education projects and weigh in on regulatory proposals by government agencies. And they can respond to technical questions from lawmakers about policy and sign friend-of-the court briefs in legal cases.
Even so, the study found that many foundation leaders run into internal resistance to their policy work. “Foundation leaders face some common challenges, particularly when it comes to building board support,” the report states.
Only 45 percent of leaders said their board was “completely supportive” of policy efforts, 50 percent said the board was “somewhat” supportive, and 5 percent said their board was not supportive.
Thirty percent of foundation leaders said their board understood the kinds of policy activities that were legally permissible for foundations; 53 percent said their board understood the legal limits “somewhat,” and 17 percent said their board did not understand the legalities at all.
And only 41 percent of foundation leaders said their organization’s legal counsel was “fully supportive” of their policy work.
Public-Policy ‘Fire Power’
Several foundation leaders who took part in the survey agreed to talk to the Chronicle about their views on the role of advocacy in grant making.
Crystal Hayling, executive director of the Libra Foundation, said the pandemic is likely to prompt more grant makers to support advocacy groups that promote wage and benefits improvements for low-wage workers.
Hayling makes a distinction between grassroots advocacy and other kinds of public-policy support provided by grant makers.
Many foundations support “think tank policy creation,” which can include data analysis of social trends and the publication of background papers intended to influence public policy makers. That’s important, Hayling says, but Libra’s approach to public advocacy is centered on supporting smaller groups.
“Grassroots organizations are “not only where you get the new and innovative policy solutions, but it’s also where you get the fire power to move policy,” she said.
Board More Wary Than Staff
Advocacy has been a key element of grant-making strategy at the Heinz Endowments for more than a decade, said Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh-based foundation. (The Heinz Endowments is a financial supporter of the Chronicle.)
At foundations nationwide, Oliphant said board members may be more wary of dipping into advocacy support than staff members who work directly with grantees.
Board members, he said, tend to have a “broader perspective” on issues and may not be keen on courting controversy by supporting a particular side on an issue. Board members may also not want to draw attention to activities that seem overtly political out of fear of breaking federal rules, or possibly being seen as violating them.
Often foundation leaders are comfortable with what Oliphant called “ground level” approaches, including supporting research to educate policy makers. But other approaches, like paying for public polling or supporting media campaigns, may skirt too close to breaking the law.
“Foundations can’t lobby on specific legislation, and that scares a lot of organizations,” Oliphant said. “There’s a lot of squeamishness about whether it is appropriate and where the lines are drawn.”
Another grant maker, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, believes coming out of the coronavirus pandemic on firm economic footing will require a concerted public-policy push to help entrepreneurs who are “on the front lines to preserve and restore our economy.”
Kauffman is supporting a group of 150 organizations that are part of the “Start Us Up” coalition. The group is pushing for a number of state and federal policy changes designed to ensure that entrepreneurs have access to capital and a minimum of regulations to negotiate when they open a business.
The coalition is calling on state and local governments to work with philanthropic organizations to pool business start-up funds and calling on the federal government to put occupational and licensing fees on pause until the economy starts to recover and to create an entrepreneurial “E-Corps” that will work especially hard to help low-income and marginalized people create businesses.
To help develop advocacy strategies, the foundation made grants totaling nearly $1.5 million to nine entrepreneurship advocates that will work to put the needs of business start-ups on the minds of policy makers at all levels of government.
Education and Health
Other findings from the study:
- The two most common areas where foundations sought to influence public policy were education (39 percent) and health (24 percent).
- 27 percent of foundation leaders said it was extremely important to provide general operating support for grantees’ policy efforts.
- 54 percent said their foundations’ grant agreements prohibit or limit grantees from using grant funds to influence legislation.
- Most foundation leaders said advocacy work was a small component of their overall grant making. The intensity of that work often depends on “windows of opportunity” to make change. “When you see a window open in policy, you run through it,” said one leader.
- Policy work doesn’t deter donors at community foundations. Thirty percent of community-foundation leaders said they gained more donors than they lost as a result of their policy work, while 70 percent said they neither gained nor lost a substantial number of donors due to policy work.
- Foundation leaders reported achieving policy success in the areas of redistricting, increased state funding for early-childhood education, marriage equality, broadened health-care coverage, and a state-level crackdown in predatory lending.
‘This Work Is Hard’
Despite their enthusiasm for policy work, half of foundation leaders reported mixed success. “This work is hard,” said one foundation leader. “It’s really important to acknowledge that. It can be wearing, and success is unpredictable. Even when you think you’ve won, you can still lose four years later. But the lesson from that isn’t to give up.”
And, of course, advocacy work is often controversial. “Everyone has a foundation that they love and one that they hate,” said one CEO. The study notes that progressives complain about the impact of conservative foundations on school vouchers and the charter-school movement, for example, while conservatives bemoan liberal foundations’ support for the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality.
