Criterios de evaluación y Estándares de aprendizaje

There is a tendency in the literature to equate analysis of the foundation-grantee relationship with analysis of the outcome or the impact of foundations on grantees (Jenkins, 1998, 2001). On the one hand, foundations support capacity building at the organization and field levels

(Aksartova, 2003; Bartley, 2007), and are instrumental for the effectiveness of ENGOs’ task performance, such as advocacy (Schmid, Bar, & Nirel, 2008). On the other hand, it has been argued that grantees may also pay the price of a foundation’s coercive influence on their

organizational structure, mission, goals, ideology, or strategies. This occurs through a process of transformation that leads to cooptation, channeling, or organizationalstarvation (Brulle & Jenkins,

2005; Carmin & Balser, 2002; Gregory & Howard, 2009; Jenkins, 1998; McCarthy, 2004) as detailed below, and as described in Figure 3.1.

3.4.1. Cooptation and The Social Control Thesis

Cooptation is the mechanism by which the direct involvement of foundations (or other donors alike) transforms the organizations’ decision-making process, leading to goal displacement, moderation of tactics, and reduced militancy. Cooptation entails three claims (Jenkins, 1998, p. 212):

First, that the aim of the foundation is social control, which accounts for their funding of professionalized projects that are not militant and have moderate goals. Second (and related), […] that the timing of the funding is spurred by increases in the militancy and radicalism of the movements [...]. Third and most important, that the resulting professionalization siphons movement activists from grassroots organizing, thereby diverting them from their original goals and demobilizing the movements.

From a political economy perspective, cooptation is aligned with the neo-Marxist social control thesis. This thesis maintains that rather than altruism, foundations’ motivation is interest- driven and aims to reproduce the existing social and economic (i.e., capitalist) orders, the privileges of the elites to which foundations belong, and the power relationships through which foundation founders made their fortunes (Arnove, 1980; Colwell, 1980, 1993; Dowie, 2001; Karl & Katz, 1987; Roelofs, 2003, 2007).

As elite institutions, even seemingly liberal foundations may exert control over grassroots ENGOs that are not part of the elite and do not identify with the capitalist system. Foundations “have bolstered elite cultural domination through the use of consensual (in this case charitable) institutional arrangements, rather than simply coercive ones” (Barker, 2008, p. 17). Sperber (2003) argued that foundation involvement led to ENGOs’ “alienation from their grassroots constituencies and local activism” (p. 2).

3.4.2. Channeling in A Pluralist Society

Channeling is a subtler outcome of foundation philanthropy, posited by Craig Jenkins and his colleagues (Brulle & Jenkins, 2005; Jenkins, 1998, 2001; Jenkins & Eckert, 1986; Jenkins & Halcli, 1999). The channeling thesis contends that donors’ major impact vis-à-vis the grantees is

moderation of social movement activity. The resources that SMOs receive may channel and control the types of strategies (repertoires of action) they employ (Carmin & Balser, 2002; Jenkins & Perrow, 1977; McCarthy, Britt, & Wolfson, 1991).

Foundation funding often results in a decline in direct action strategies and contentious politics and the rise of “professionalized advocacy” (litigation, lobbying, public education) as the key organizational strategy (Jenkins, 2001, p. 61; Jenkins, 1998). Unlike the cooptation

mechanism, foundation funding transforms grantees’ strategies of operation, rather than its goals. Similar social change goals can still be realized but with different, less disruptive strategies. The channeling happens over time and is a function of the level of foundation funding.

From a political economy perspective, the channeling thesisis manifestation of a pluralist society (Jenkins, 1998, 2001; Delfin & Tang, 2008), in which diverse interest groups compete and cooperate with one another in pursuit of their visions of the ‘good society’ (Dahl, 1961; Walker, 1991). The role of foundations in the pluralist model is to help professionalize, mobilize, and ensure diverse representation of various interest groups, especially those who cannot represent themselves independently. It is debated, however, if foundations have really achieved that role. Jenkins (1998, 2001) argued that by their disinclination to support grassroots groups and their preference for professionalized groups, foundations have contributed little to increased plurality in society.

There are shortcomings to both the cooptation and channeling theses. The cooptation thesis was criticized for placing too much weight on foundation funding in relation to other sources of funding, and for making an (implicit) assumption that where foundations’ support is highest, so too is their impact the most significant. Bartley (2007) argued that these theories create too rigid categorical distinctions between, for example, grassroots and professionalized NGOs, where in reality the “lines between moderate ‘institutional’ politics and disruptive ‘extra-institutional’ politics are often blurry or commonly traversed” (Bartley, 2007, p. 232).

3.4.3. Starvation

Another interesting thesis of foundation influence on its grantees is that of the starvation vicious cycle (Gregory & Howard, 2009). According to this thesis, because of funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much it costs to run a nonprofit (first step), the amount of support is always smaller than required. Nonprofits feel pressure to conform to these unrealistic

expectations (second step). Nonprofits respond to this pressure in two ways (third step): They spend too little on overhead, and they underreport their expenditures on tax forms and in fundraising materials. This under-spending and underreporting in turn perpetuates funders’ unrealistic expectations. Over time, funders expect grantees to do more and more with less and less – a cycle that slowly starves nonprofit organizations.

The tendency to focus on the outcomes is in line with the resource dependence theory that argues that the more an organization depends on external donors, the more influence the donor has, while the more diverse the revenue sources are, the more flexibility an organization can enjoy in its decision-making (Foster & Meinhard, 2005; Froelich, 1999; Grønbjerg, 1993).

Accordingly, organizational behavior is a reflection of the NGO’s management of its dependence on external resources and the ensuing demands posed by a donor controlling these resources. How low or high resource dependent an NGO is, may determine the effectiveness of its

organizational characteristics, behavior, and task performance. Therefore, the expectation is that an NGO characterized with high resource concentration, and with high foundation dependence, will comply more with donor interests or preferences. Figure 3.1 summarizes this line of

Figure 3.1: External donor (foundations) influence on organizational structure and performance