Doctoral Dissertation Research: Social Evaluations in Organizational Philanthropy

博士论文研究：组织慈善事业的社会评价

• 批准号: 1637182
• 负责人: Brayden King
• 金额: $ 1.16万
• 依托单位: Northwestern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1637182&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Social; Evaluations

SES-1637182Brayden KingVontrese PamphileNorthwestern UniversityHow do philanthropic foundations determine which nonprofits should receive their funds? The value of a nonprofit is multifaceted and difficult to assess, yet foundations have limited resources and must decide how to allocate funds. This study examines how grantmakers (i.e., those responsible for donations) assess the merit of nonprofits at two very different kinds of private foundations: corporate and independent. Understanding how grantmakers come to see nonprofits as worthy of funds is important, as foundations are vehicles through which the most affluent Americans influence how society approaches social problems. This project will yield information about how private foundations in the United States approach a broad swath of societally relevant outcomes. The results will have practical implications for understanding patterns of resource allocation within the nonprofit sector, as the project will reveal how different types of foundations conceptualize social problems, and specific nonprofits tackling those problems, as worth funding. Moreover, results will be relevant to ongoing policy debates about the role of private philanthropy generally and corporate philanthropy in particular. Findings from this research will be translated into publically assessable outlets including policy briefs, op-ed columns, the popular press, and practitioner conferences.Empirically, a total of 80 interviews will be conducted with grantmakers employed by 40 different corporate foundations and 40 different independent foundations. Ethnographic observations of one corporate foundation and one independent foundation are used to provide a greater understanding of the context and for triangulation purposes. Theoretically, the project bridges insights from organizational theory and the sociology of evaluation. Specifically, the project examines the nature of competing organizational goals in shaping the evaluation process. The project explores whether and why uncertainty associated with competing goals leads evaluators to rely on cues outside their organization, such as the behavior of high-status peers. Additionally, the project explores whether and why unified goals orient evaluators toward reliance on internal cues such as fit with foundation mission and history. The project further develops the sociology of evaluation by detailing the mechanisms by which organizational context and structure influence how evaluators assess the merit of different entities. This approach recognizes that evaluative practices, like other organizational practices, are shaped by the fields in which they are embedded. The findings also have implications for organizational studies and for nonprofit scholarship more generally.

SES-1637182布雷登·金·冯特雷斯·帕姆菲尔西北大学慈善基金会如何确定哪些非营利组织应该收到他们的资金？非营利组织的价值是多方面的，难以评估，但基金会的资源有限，必须决定如何分配资金。这项研究探讨了赠款者（即，负责捐赠的人）在两种截然不同的私人基金会中评估非营利组织的价值：公司基金会和独立基金会。了解资助者如何看待非营利组织值得资助是很重要的，因为基金会是最富有的美国人影响社会如何处理社会问题的工具。该项目将提供有关美国私人基金会如何处理广泛的社会相关成果的信息。研究结果将对理解非营利组织内部的资源分配模式产生实际影响，因为该项目将揭示不同类型的基金会如何将社会问题概念化，以及特定的非营利组织如何解决这些问题，作为值得资助的问题。此外，研究结果将与目前关于私人慈善事业、特别是公司慈善事业的作用的政策辩论有关。本研究的结果将被转化为可评估的媒体，包括政策简报、专栏、大众媒体和从业者会议。从经验上讲，将对40个不同的企业基金会和40个不同的独立基金会的资助者进行共80次访谈。对一个公司基金会和一个独立基金会的人种学观察被用来提供对背景的更好理解和三角测量的目的。从理论上讲，该项目从组织理论和社会学的评价桥梁的见解。具体而言，该项目审查了在形成评价过程方面相互竞争的组织目标的性质。该项目探讨了与竞争目标相关的不确定性是否以及为什么会导致评估人员依赖组织外部的线索，例如高地位同事的行为。此外，该项目还探讨了统一目标是否以及为什么会使评估者依赖内部线索，如与基础使命和历史的契合。该项目进一步发展评价社会学，详细说明组织背景和结构影响评价人员如何评价不同实体的优点的机制。这一方法认识到，评价做法与其他组织做法一样，是由其所处的领域决定的。这些发现也对组织研究和更广泛的非营利奖学金产生了影响。