The Construction Of Actor Network In The Process Of Foundation Funding

In recent years,"public charity" has gradually become a new direction of social work professional research and talent training.With the professional development of China’s philanthropic foundations,"separating fundraising and use" has emerged as a new trend,and the foundations have gradually begun to explore the "fundraising model" shift.If funding from philanthropic foundations became an important revenue source for social organizations,it would help reduce their dependency on government purchases as their single revenue source and promote independent innovation in social services.Then,who are the main actors involved in the process of funding social organizations by philanthropic foundations?How do the actors interact with each other for a stable community?What are the possible problems and conflicts that may arise in this process and how to deal with them?Based on the above,this study takes the "Blue Sky Love Project" of the S-city Charity Foundation as an example,and adopts a case study method to collect qualitative data through individual interviews,focus group interviews,observation method,and documentation method.Guided by Latour’s Actor Network Theory,this study is dedicated to presenting the process of foundations funding social organizations,focusing on three levels:"formation of actor networks","problems and conflicts in actor network construction",and "conflict resolution and network evolution",to conduct the research,to analyze the construction paths of foundation funding models,and to draw lessons and insights.The study found that:1.The foundation’s grantmaking process builds an actor network in which the foundation(funder),evaluator,implementer,and donor are connected in four phases to become a stable community.In the problematization phase,the S-city Charity Foundation takes the lead as the core actor,allowing other actors to identify their key issues of interest;in the interessment phase,the foundation persuades them to participate in the"Blue Sky Love Project"—a necessary way to realize the interests of all parties;and in the enrolment and mobilization phases,the foundation forms alliances with multiple actors and uses web-based information technology to break down the barriers of time and space and closely connect the network of actors.2.The problems and conflicts in constructing the actor network can be summarized as the impact of COVID-19(external impact),the lack of professionalism(inherent flaw shortcomings),and the fact that the actor network is not yet fully open(poor networking).In response,the actors have adopted various strategies to respond to the conflicts,with the foundation using "good steel for the blade",the evaluator side "innovating with the situation",and the implementor side "refining" through the "big wave",for updating the actor network.3.Social workers are an important thread in the interaction of actors,promoting the development and evolution of actor networks.One of the major findings of this study is that the funding process of foundations constructs actor networks.The other one is that the main factors of social work bring the actor networks closer together.Therefore,it should be encouraged for social to make a difference and to devote themselves to the field of public charity,with the integration and development of social work and public charity being encouraged as well.