Response:
Funding Conventional Wisdom
This article is part of What Are Foundations For?, a forum on philanthropic institutions and their role in democracy.
Diane RavitchFor many decades foundations played the role that Rob Reich describes. Twenty years ago I would have agreed about their unique capacity to take chances with new ideas, tolerate the risk of failure while promoting innovation, and create pilot projects that spur the government to take action. In the area of education, where I work, they served as incubators, trying diverse new ways to improve schools.
But something happened about a dozen years ago that changed the situation. The traditional sources of funding for education innovation—the Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations, and a few others—receded into the background, dwarfed by three new behemoths: the Gates, Eli and Edythe Broad, and Walton Family Foundations.
Each of these “venture philanthropists” has billions of dollars. All of them fund similar projects. There is no diversity, merely a consensus position. They don’t respond to someone’s good idea. They have their own ideas, and they either find someone to