IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v39y2007i9p2167-2186.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Elitism, Pluralism, or Resource Dependency: Patterns of Environmental Philanthropy among Private Foundations in California

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco G Delfin Jr

    (National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines, 1101)

  • Shui-Yan Tang

    (School of Policy, Planning, and Development, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626, USA)

Abstract

We map the distribution of environmental grants provided by selected California foundations in 2000 and the degree of dependency of the grantees on foundation support to test theoretical claims about foundations' role in contemporary environmentalism. Contrary to assertions by critics of elitism, there is no consistent favoritism of the so-called ‘mainstream’, ‘flagship’, national environmental organizations as recipients of foundations' grants. Instead, donors support a variety of causes with varying levels of funding based on recipients' perceived expertise and needs—a finding consistent with pluralist and resource-dependency arguments. On the receiving end, we find that the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have greater reliance on foundation money are those which are younger, have fewer paying members, and are not involved in local-level or toxics issues. Overall, we find that no single theory can adequately explain the trends in giving and in dependency. Future research building on these findings can proceed along two directions: a theoretical path in search of a more universal theory of foundation giving; or an empirical path focusing on clarifying different types of NGO grantees, the longitudinal patterns of environmental giving, and the impact of foundation funding on NGO grantees.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco G Delfin Jr & Shui-Yan Tang, 2007. "Elitism, Pluralism, or Resource Dependency: Patterns of Environmental Philanthropy among Private Foundations in California," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 39(9), pages 2167-2186, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:9:p:2167-2186
    DOI: 10.1068/a38275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1068/a38275
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1068/a38275?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Thomas Krikser & Bettina Matzdorf, 2015. "Environmental Foundations in Germany," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(2), pages 21582440155, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:39:y:2007:i:9:p:2167-2186. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.