What’s a Public-Private Partnership, Anyway?

• In Event: 490 - Thematic Session. Inequality and Philanthropy

Abstract

Philanthropy has often worked with nonprofit organizations in an attempt to shape public policy, both by encouraging new approaches to service delivery and supporting policy advocacy efforts. These traditional approaches carry at least the appearance of an arms’-length relationship with government officials, and often have been characterized by active opposition or hostility. More recently, however, philanthropic dollars have flowed to nonprofits that envision and enact close relationships with government decision makers in order to develop and implement policy change. Cast as a more efficient approach in an era of tight government budgets, when private resources can make new policies possible, these “public-private partnerships” raise questions about democratic accountability at the same time that they confront real procedural barriers inside both the legislative and executive branches at all levels of government.

Author

• Nicole P. Marwell, City University of New York-Baruch College