Strategic philanthropy and local public policy: Lessons from Chicago school reform, 1987-1993

This dissertation extends our understanding of local strategic philanthropy--the intentional intervention of local foundations in local public policy. Local strategic philanthropy is in as much flux as its context and targets. Basic doubts about largely governmental and federal approaches to public challenges are pervasive. Governance devolution and fiscal austerity have been the dominate public policy trends of the 1980s and 1990s. Coupled with these trends is growing pressure for greater philanthropic involvement in solving local public problems. How these changes have influenced, and are likely to influence, the work of foundations in cities is not well known.;Urban public education reform, as it evolved during the 1980s and 1990s, offers fertile scenarios for investigating the involvement of foundations in local public policy. Chicago, Cleveland, Philadelphia and San Diego, for example, have seen historic increases in foundation activity regarding public education.;This study deals with Chicago foundations and the 1988 Chicago School Reform Act, a state law mandating decentralization of school governance. Several scholars have described the law as the most radical state legislative act of the century regarding urban education While the Reform Act's effect is being scrutinized by many researchers and commentators, the role of foundations has gone unexamined--despite the fact that they awarded over ;Comparative case studies examine three of the most active foundations in the reform movement: the Chicago Community Trust, the Joyce Foundation and the Woods Fund of Chicago. The time frame captures the Reform Act's development and passage (1987-1988) and first five years of implementation (1989-1993). Research methods entail grant data analysis, archival research, interviews and participant-observation (I worked for the Joyce Foundation from 1986-1992).;The specific task of this study is to analyze the ideas and approaches of the three foundations regarding Chicago school reform. The study "goes inside" to connect the foundations' internal thinking to their external behavior (grants and staff work). Besides surfacing and organizing a comprehensive set of original data, the dissertation contributes a framework for local strategic philanthropy.