[lbo-talk] Funding From Foundations

Wojtek Sokolowski sokol at jhu.edu
Fri Mar 17 06:51:07 PST 2006



> Hi all -
>
> I'm looking for articles or books which analyze of the role
> of foundation funding in the support(and also the limits) of
> social organizing/activism in the US.
>
> Any suggestions appreciated,
>
> Greg Boozell
> gboozell at juno.com

I suggest looking into data instead of "articles or books" which are often hot air by apologists or detractors who are interested in making a political point and are not bothered with facts.

A good data source on US philanthropy is Giving USA http://givingusa.org/gusa/index.cfm or better yet, National Center for Charitable Statistics http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/FAQ/index.php?category=31 (an Urban Institute outfit) that can provide you with tax data (Form 990 PF) on all US foundations. Also check the IRS website for data: http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/charitablestats/article/0,,id=97155,00.html Which has very good compilations and is the source of the NCCS data.

If you want comparative data on the role of private philanthropy in overall nonprofit finance (hint: it is minuscule), I suggest our web site

http://www.jhu.edu/~cnp/

For the UK foundations, Charities Aid Foundation http://www.cafonline.org/ is a good resource. In Canada, check out Imagine Canada http://www.imaginecanada.ca/. For EU, check the European Foundation Centre http://www.efc.be/.

The bottom line is, you should do your own digging instead of relying on "over the counter" publications, which for the most part are conservative propaganda, albeit radical lefties also contributed a non-trivial amount of bs to it.

Wojtek



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