PADM-GP 4413 Topics in Philanthropy
Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
New York University
Gara LaMarche
Intersession 2015
January 5, 8, 12, 15, 6-9 pm
Course Objectives
This course is a concentrated, selective version of my standard Spring
course (not offered in 2014) which aims to introduce students to the critical role
played by U.S. foundations on public policy issues and in American society
generally.
The manner in which the U.S. tax laws encourage charitable giving has
had a significant impact on civil society and social welfare. Philanthropy has not
only been critical to the establishment of leading educational and cultural
institutions and medical research and discovery, but also to numerous public
policy advances such as public television, urban renewal, school vouchers and the
modern human rights and women’s rights movements.
The course will touch on some of that history by way of a short
introduction to institutionalized philanthropy, with particular emphasis on the
foundations emerging in the first half of the 20th century from great American
fortunes like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford. But the principal focus will be the
public policy activities of contemporary foundations.
Proceeding from the legal and historical environment, classes will
examine selected key public policy approaches and strategies, including research,
organizing and communications. One class will be devoted to a more intensive
case study of a particular philanthropy-supported policy initiative, the 2009-10
campaign for U.S. health care reform.
Purchased readings
Olivier Zunz, Philanthropy in America, Princeton University Press, 2012
Course requirements and grading
All students are required to:
1. Complete readings in advance of class sessions.
2. Attend class regularly and participate in discussions.
3. Write one ten page essay, focusing on one of four topics to be distributed
by the instructor at the first session and due two weeks after the final
session.
Course Schedule and Readings
Note: Assigned readings follow session description in this small font. URLs provided for most;
for the balance, handouts will be given out at the first class. Optional readings are marked with
an asterisk.
I.
January 5: Introduction and Overview. Legal and regulatory
framework. Historical Antecedents, from the Progressive Era to the
1960’s. Why some foundations support public policy initiatives –
and why they don’t. Come prepared to talk about yourself and
your expectations of the class, and I will do the same. I’ll provide an
overview of what the class will cover, and we’ll explore why support
of public policy advocacy is viewed by many foundations as a
critical tool for advancing their mission, as well as why many
foundations are skittish about it. We’ll also discuss the great
fortunes, including Carnegie and Rockefeller, and the template set
by the foundations they spawned one hundred years ago; the
Russell Sage, New York, Rosenwald and Ford Foundations; the
support provided by foundations such as Field and Taconic for the
social movements of the 1950s and ‘60s.

Philanthropy in America, Zunz, Chapters 1, 3 and 6.

The Cost of Caution: Advocacy, Public Policy and America’s Foundations, National Press
Club Forum, April 21, 2005 http://cpnl.georgetown.edu/doc_pool/IF03CostofCaution.pdf

Words to Give By: Leading Voices in Advocacy Funding, Alliance for Justice,
http://www.afj.org/assets/resources/nap/words_to_give_by.pdf*
“Taking Risks That Matter”, Centennial Publication of The New York Foundation, 2007,
http://www.nyf.org/taking-risks-100*
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Carnegie Reporter, Special Centennial Edition, Part 2, Spring 2011,
http://carnegie.org/publications/carnegie-reporter/single/view/issue/item/387/
“Rosenwald’s Shadow?”, Stephanie Deutsch, Philanthropy, Fall 2011,
http://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/donor_intent/rosenwalds_shadow
“Freedom Funders: Foundations and the Civil Rights Movement, 1955-65,” Sean Dobson,
National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy, 2014
http://www.ncrp.org/files/publications/Freedom_Funders_and_the_Civil_Rights_MovementFINAL.pdf
“Field Foundation, Civil Rights Pioneer, to Die at 49; Survivors Will be Legion,” Kathleen
Teltsch, The New York Times, February 19, 1989,
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/19/us/field-foundation-civil-rights-pioneer-to-die-at-49survivors-will-be-legion.html?pagewanted=all
“Richard Boone and the Field Foundation: Beacons of Leadership for Social Justice
Philanthropy,” Gara LaMarche, Atlantic Currents, April 13, 2009,
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/currents/richard-boone-and-field-foundationbeacons-leadership-social-justice-philanthropy
II.
January 8: Strategies for public policy change: research, policy,
communications campaigns, litigation, organizing, movementbuilding
How foundation support for research and policy analysis builds a
case for action; how investments in communications campaigns
(including public opinion research and framing) builds on that.
Likely to cover immigration reform, financial reform, and women’s
economic issues and feature brainstorming and role-playing about
how foundations might deal with fresh campaigns for racial justice
in the wake of the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases.
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Zunz, Chapters 7 and 8
“Social Movements and Philanthropy: How Foundations Can Support Movement
Building,” Barbara Masters and Torie Osborn, The Foundation Review,
http://evaluationinnovation.org/sites/default/files/Masters%20Movement%20Building%20.
pdf
“Why Movements Matter,” Vivien Labaton and Gara LaMarche, The American Prospect,
May 11, 2011, http://prospect.org/article/why-movements-matter
“Leveraging Limited Dollars: How Grantmakers Achieve Tangible Results by Funding
Policy and Community Engagement,” National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy,
January 2012, http://www.ncrp.org/files/publications/LeveragingLimitedDollars.pdf
III. January 12: Case study: The Atlantic Philanthropies and health care
reform
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 was by most accounts the most
significant piece of social welfare legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s great
society programs like Medicare and Medicaid. We will examine the role
that foundations played in the lead-up to the legislation, the battle over it,
and the aftermath, with particular attention to the Atlantic Philanthropies,
which made a grant to $26.5 million to Health Care for America Now, at
the time the largest advocacy grant ever made by a foundation.

Excerpts from Remedy and Reaction: The Peculiar American Struggle Over Health Care
Reform, Paul Starr, Yale University Press, 2011, and Fighting for Our Health, Richard
Kirsch, The Rockefeller Institute Press, 2012 (to be distributed)

“The Key Role of Advocacy Funding in the U.S. Health Care Reform Debate,” Gara
LaMarche, Grantmakers in Health Conference, Orlando, Florida, March 11, 2010,
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/learning/speech-key-role-advocacy-funding-ushealth-reform-debate-gara-lamarche
HCAN Evaluation: Executive Summary, prepared for the Atlantic Philanthropies by
Grassroots Solutions, 2010, http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/learning/evaluationexecutive-summary-findings-and-lessons-hcan-campaign
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IV. January 15: Emerging critiques of foundation policy initiatives
With greater foundation engagement in policy comes greater scrutiny and
criticism: of the Gates Foundation as so big and opinionated that it
dominates the fields of education reform and public health and drowns out
other voices and approaches; of many “mainstream” funders for being too
timid; of “venture philanthropists” for adopting business practices ill-suited
to the non-profit world and insisting on crude metrics that don’t capture
the nuances of how change takes place. We’ll survey these critiques and
examine a few of them in detail.

“The Gated Community,” Edward Skloot, Alliance Magazine, September 2011,
http://www.alliancemagazine.org/node/3834
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“Metrics Mania: The Growing Corporatization of U.S. Philanthropy,” Alison R. Bernstein,
Thought and Action, Fall 2011, http://www.nea.org/home/50022.htm*
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“Got Dough? Public School Reform in the Age of Venture Philanthropy,” Joanne Barkan,
Dissent Magazine, Winter 2011, http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=3781
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Transcript of “Living With the Gates Foundation,” Hudson Institute, December 6, 2011,
http://www.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=hudson_upcoming_events&id=899*
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“Should Philanthropies Operate Like Businesses?” Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204554204577024313200627678.html
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“Is Philanthropy Good for Democracy?” Gara LaMarche, The Atlantic, October 30, 2014,
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/is-philanthropy-good-fordemocracy/381996/

“What Does It Mean to Say that Philanthropy is ‘Effective’? The Philanthropists’ New
Clothes, Stanley N. Katz, American Philosophical Annual Meeting, April 23, 2004,
http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/490201.pdf*
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Conversation with Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Gates Foundation, Philanthropy New York,
May 12, 2011,
http://fora.tv/2011/05/12/A_Conversation_with_Jeff_Raikes_and_Gara_LaMarche*
Note: Most of my speeches and writings on philanthropic topics, including the ones
recommended in the syllabus, can be found at:
http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/news/news?filter=speeches or on my personal blog,
http://www.garala.typepad.com/
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEkPQai2-5psKL72JpKi4bqEAR7t00A96&feature=plcp