Elitism, pluralism, or resource dependency: patterns of environmental philanthropy among private foundations in California

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 nongovernmental 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.