Examining the Local Antecedents of Institutional Logics of Justice Philanthropy in U.S. Community Foundations

• In Event: Justice Philanthropy during Poly-Crises

Abstract

Over the last decade, foundations have faced increased pressure to promote equity and social change in organizational practices and grant outcomes (Villanueva, 2018; Walker, 2019). These pressures heightened with the convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 racial justice protests following the murder of George Floyd. By July 2021, one hundred and sixty-five foundations had committed more than $10.8 billion for racial equity (Candid, n.d.). These field pressures mirror diverse calls within academia to pay more attention to the intersection of race, class, and power in organizations (Ray, 2019; Rojas, 2019). However, there is great skepticism regarding whether foundations can make lasting changes that will transform philanthropic practice and grantmaking (Beer et al., 2021) and whether this new logic will replace the more traditional donor services and philanthropic stewardship logics.
Drawing upon concepts from organizational institutionalism (Ocasio & Gai, 2020; Thornton et al., 2012), this paper examines the local factors associated with logic complexity in the community foundation industry. Institutional logics are defined as “…socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material practices, including assumptions, values and beliefs, by which individuals and organizations provide meaning to their daily activity, organize time and space, and reproduce their lives and experiences.” (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 2). Logics emerge from societal institutional orders (family, profession, state, religion, market, corporation, community, religion) and are enacted and reshaped and customized within organizations, industries, and fields.

Based upon archival research, we have identified four logics: philanthropic stewardship, donor services, public-private governance, and social change. Our archival research suggested that although industry leaders and academics have described the social change logic as new, this logic has animated the values and practices of a small number of individual community foundations sporadically for the past 110 years. Understanding when and why this logic has ebbed and flowed may provide insights into the challenges that the industry faces in the values and practices of this logic becoming institutionalized within the broader industry.

Drawing upon our archival research and existing empirical research on logic complexity, we have identified four local contextual factors that guide our empirical analysis: exogenous shocks, cultural and cognitive context, the power of local organizational fields, and historical imprinting. We test this model in the context of a sample of U.S. community foundations. Drawing upon secondary mission statement data, we use a configurational approach to describe the complexity of logics within individual community foundations. We draw upon other sources of secondary data including U.S. Census data to create measures of contextual factors. We use OLS regression models to examine the relationships between these contextual factors and the strength of the social change logic. This research extends existing research on the contextual factors associated with logics and provides insights into when organizations may institutionalize a social change logic.

Beer, T., Patrizi, P., & Coffman, J. (2021). Holding Foundations Accountable for Equity Commitments. The Foundation Review, 13(2). https://doi.org/10.9707/1944-5660.1565
Ocasio, W., & Gai, S. L. (2020). Institutions: Everywhere But Not Everything. Journal of Management Inquiry, 29(3), 262–271. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492619899331
Ray, V. (2019). A Theory of Racialized Organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335
Rojas, F. (2019). Race and Organization Theory: Reflections and Open Questions. In Race, Organizations, and the Organizing Process (Vol. 60, pp. 15–23). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20190000060002
Thornton, P. H., Ocasio, W., & Lounsbury, M. (2012). The institutional logics perspective: A new approach to culture, structure and process. OUP Oxford.
Villanueva, E. (2018). Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
Walker, G. (2019). From Generosity to Justice: A New Gospel of Wealth. The Ford Foundation. https://www.fordfoundation.org/just-matters/ford-forum/the-future-of-philanthropy/from-generosity-to-justice/

Authors

• Laurie Paarlberg, Indiana University School of Philanthropy

• Megan LePere-Schloop, Glenn College - Ohio State University

• Jamie Levine Daniel, New York University

• Marlene Walk, University of Freiburg