Analyzing three recent reports on grantmaking trends that use the Foundation (Center\u27s grants database, at picture emerges of how three human service fields-aging, substance abuse, and crime and justice fared in terms of foundation grantmaking during the turbulent period from 1983 to 1987 when federal support was reduced. Despite a sizeable increase in foundation dollars to each field which outpaced overall foundation giving, the authors caution that this increase may not indicate greater foundation commitment to human services

Chernesky, Roslyn H.

Gutheil, Irene A.

English

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The Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareVolume 21Issue 2 June Article 9May 1994Foundation Grantmaking in the 1980s: How ThreeHuman Service Fields FaredRoslyn H. CherneskyFordham UniversityIrene A. GutheilFordham UniversityFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jsswPart of the Social Work CommonsThis Research Note is brought to you for free and open access by the SocialWork at ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contactmaira.bundza@wmich.edu.Recommended CitationChernesky, Roslyn H. and Gutheil, Irene A. (1994) "Foundation Grantmaking in the 1980s: How Three Human Service Fields Fared,"The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 21 : Iss. 2 , Article 9.Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol21/iss2/9Foundation Grantmaking in the 1980s:How Three Human Service Fields FaredROSLYN H. CHERNESKYANDIRENE A. GUTHEILFordham UniversityGraduate School of Social ServiceAnalyzing three recent reports on grantmaking trends that use theFoundation (Center's grants database, at picture emerges of how threehuman service fields-aging, substance abuse, and crime and justice-fared in terms of foundation grantmaking during the turbulent periodfrom 1983 to 1987 when federal support was reduced. Despite a size-able increase in foundation dollars to each field which outpaced overallfoundation giving, the authors caution that this increase may not indicategreater foundation commitment to human services.In the past ten years, human service agencies have showna heightened interest in obtaining foundation grants for theirprograms even though foundation support is relatively smallcompared to revenues from government and individual contri-butions. Foundation dollars from the nation's independent,community, and corporate grantmakers accounted for onlyabout ten percent of all philanthropic giving in 1989 (Renz,1991). The impact of foundation giving on the human services,however, goes far beyond the amount of dollars actually allo-cated. Grants are often essential to starting new projects andcontinuing existing programs. Demonstration and researchinitiatives frequently depend upon foundation dollars in theirearly stages of development. Foundation support can legitimizecontroversial programs, promote less traditional or alternativeagencies, and focus national attention on emerging concerns.Foundation grants can help agencies build a base for future fi-nancial support or for a shift in agency goals. Moreover, as hap-pened during the 1980s, when the reduction in federal supportdiminished agencies' capacities to provide services, foundation154 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfarefunding can be used to help offset gaps left by cuts in federalfunding.How well did the human services do during the turbulent1980s when federal support was drastically reduced, and therewas greater need and hope for greater foundation support?This paper examines how three human service fields-aging,substance abuse, and crime and justice-fared from the perspec-tive of foundation giving during the period from 1983 to 1987.Looking at the grantmaking trends in each field and comparingtrends across fields provide not only a snapshot of how founda-tions allocated funds in three critical human service areas but abarometer of what human service agencies may anticipate fromfuture grantmaking.MethodologyThis paper uses data from three separate reports on grant-making trends recently published by the Foundation Center aspart of its benchmark studies series (Renz, 1989, Greenberg,et.al., 1991, Jacobs & Somers, 1991). Each study analyzes theallocation of foundation resources within the field from 1983to 1987 using the Foundation Center's grants database. TheFoundation Center's grants database includes grants of $5,000or more, numbering around 40,000 a year. These grants arepublished in the Foundation Center's Grants Index which iscompiled from grant reporting forms submitted voluntarily byfoundations. Despite some limitations, the Index is the mostcomplete source of information about foundation giving.The Aging study is based on 4,869 grants in aging totaling$293.2 million from 1983-1987. The Alcohol and Drug Abusestudy is based on 1,814 grants totaling $87 million over thefive years. The Crime and Justice study is based on 3,794 grantstotaling $150.9 million in the same period. All data in this papercome from the three reports. Because comparable data are notavailable from other human service fields, the analysis is limitedto these three.FindingsThese three human service fields together garnered just overhalf a billion dollars in foundation monies for more than 10,000Foundation Grantmaking 155grants during the five years under study. Table 1. illustrates thefive year trend in increased foundation giving in all three fields.Funding for aging increased from $39 million in 1983 to $68million in 1987, up 75%. Aging's share of overall foundationfunding in this period ranged from just over 2 to 3.4%. Thenumber of grants in aging rose by 44% from 762 in 1983 to1096 in 1987. Foundation support for alcohol and drug abuseprograms more than doubled from almost $10 million in 1983to $26 million in 1987. As a share of all foundation funding,alcohol and drug abuse giving doubled during the period, upto one percent in 1987. The number of grants awarded annuallynearly doubled from 258 in 1983 to 490 in 1987. Funding forcrime and justice doubled from nearly $21 million in 1983 to$43 million in 1987. The overall share of foundation supportfor crime and justice projects reached 1.7% in 1987, a small risefrom 1983. The number of grants rose by 56% from 578 in 1983to 903 in 1987.Although alcohol and drug abuse programs received thegreatest percentage increase in foundation dollars over the fiveyears, even with this sizeable increase, as well as a doublingof its share of overall foundation allocations, the field neverobtained more than one percent of total foundation giving.Crime and justice dollars doubled in the five year period, butits share of overall foundation giving hovered around 1.5% andTable 1.Grantmaking Trends: 1983-1987Aging Alcohol & Drug Abuse Crime & JusticeGrant Share' Grant Grant Share1 Grant Grant Share' Grant$ % # $ % # $ % #1983 38.96 2.2 762 9.71 .5 258 20.72 1.2 5781984 53.58 3.3 919 9.39 .6 289 20.49 1.2 5861985 55.92 2.8 978 17.77 .9 368 29.61 1.5 8891986 76.47 3.4 1114 23.84 1.1 409 37.01 1.7 8381987 68.23 2.6 1096 26.36 1.0 490 43.09 1.7 9031 Percent of overall foundation giving.Note: Dollar figures in millions.156 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfarenever reached 2%. While the percentage of foundation dollarsto the field of aging did not increase as dramatically as the othertwo fields, it was the only field that increased its proportion oftotal foundation giving to climb over 3% in 1986, a proportionnever realized again. Nevertheless, the field of aging remainedfar ahead, leading the three in the amount of dollars receivedand in the share of overall foundation giving.To further understand foundation giving between 1983 and1987, we examined how grants and dollars were allocated-what kinds of organizations received grants, and what typesof activities grants supported. We also looked at the distribu-tion of dollars and grants in each of the field's major programcategories. Table 2. presents the distribution of grant dollars bytype of support. Foundations supported very different activitiesin the three fields during this period. Program developmentgarnered over half of foundation funding in aging (53%), farmore than the 30% allocated for the development of alcoholand drug abuse programs and the 16% for crime and justice pro-grams. Grants to maintain agency operations or organizationalinfrastructure as well as grants to maintain services or staffingof ongoing programs comprised almost half of the grant dollars(47%) given to the field of crime and justice. In contrast, only24% of funding for alcohol and drug abuse and 27% in agingwas given for these continuing and general operating costs.Unlike the other two fields, the largest percentage of foundationdollars for alcohol and drug abuse, one third, went to capitalsupport which includes funds for buildings, purchase of landor equipment.Direct service agencies are the primary recipients in all threefields. Hospitals and medical facilities received a fifth of foun-dation dollars in the field of aging and one-third in alcohol anddrug abuse, confirming the strong link between health and bothof the fields.Colleges, universities, and graduate schools obtained a size-able amount of foundation dollars only in the field of aging(24%) reflecting strong foundation interest in supporting spe-cialized graduate training in gerontology and geriatrics throughfellowships, and the establishment of university-based agingresearch and policy centers.Foundation Grantmaking 157Table 2.Type of Support1 Alloctated Foundation Dollars: 1983-1987Aging Alcohol & Drug Abuse Crime & JusticeCapital 17.1% 32.5% 9.7%General/Ongoing 26.6% 23.9% 46.5%Program Development 53.1% 29.5% 16.2%Research 17.2% 11.5% 6.4%Other2  13.9% 18.2% 21.0%7 Due to double coding of multipurpose grants, each category is analyzed asa percentage of the total grant dollars to that field for that period. Percentagesdo not add up to 100%.2The major portion of this category is endowment.In the field of aging, health programs ranging from acutecare to education of health personnel received the largest shareof funding, 55%. Welfare, including community based programssuch as transportation, home care, and senior centers, socialservices, ranked second. Together, health and welfare claimed84% of foundation dollars in aging. Intervention programs suchas counseling or residential and treatment programs receivedthe largest share of funding for alcohol and drug abuse duringthis period. Prevention, the fastest growing area in the field,was second. Together, the two accounted for 85% of founda-tion giving. The three top program priorities among crime andjustice grants were domestic violence, crime prevention, andrehabilitation. These three garnered 51% of foundation support.Summary and ConclusionsDuring the mid-1980s, when human service agencies werefeeling the impact of Reaganomics and were threatened by aloss of federal support, foundations demonstrated a commit-ment to support programs in the three fields examined here-aging, substance abuse, and crime and justice. Foundations didso despite the fact that they were increasingly hard pressedduring these years to respond to society's growing needs andstepped up requests for additional monies by agencies serving158 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfarea range of purposes. Funding for each of these three fields faroutpaced overall foundation funding of 44% during this period.Increased foundation commitment to the human services in the1980s contrasts with foundation support given to other fieldssuch as cultural activities, education, health, science and socialscience which showed an average increase of only 18% from1983 to 1987. Even with this considerable dollar increase to thethree human service fields, there was little increase in their shareof overall foundation giving. The human services' slice of thefoundation pie remained so small as to grow from only 4 to 5%during the time of great need.Foundation dollars in these three fields were dedicated pri-marily to programs that serve clients directly. Despite thegeneral impression that foundations do not support existingprograms, such a generalization is not entirely borne out bythe data. Although it has been reported that general operatingsupport from foundations diminished in the late eighties inkeeping with a shift begun in the mid-seventies toward moretargeted grantmaking (Seltzer & Cunningham, 1990), founda-tions continued to fund ongoing programs especially in thefield of crime and justice. There are several possible reasons forthis apparent commitment of grantmakers to ongoing programs.First, it may reflect foundation responsiveness to agency appealsin the face of impending federal budget cuts. Second, not allfoundations see their role as underwriting new programs orfunding demonstration projects that will influence public policy.Third, some foundation giving is based on ongoing relation-ships with agencies or their specific programs.The picture emerging from this analysis may inspire opti-mism. We would like to point out, however, some possible areasof concern. During the 1980s there was tremendous growthin the number of new foundations. It is this growth that un-doubtedly accounts for the growth in overall foundation givingduring this period and is unlikely to occur again in the 1990s.The three human services reviewed here did not receive muchmore support from those foundations which supported themprior to 1983. Rather, the fields gained as beneficiaries of newfoundations. Had the human services counted on their priorsupporters for assistance when federal support was withdrawn,Foundation Grantmaking 159it is unlikely the three fields would have garnered as muchadditional foundation monies.The increase in foundation dollars given in each field is lessdramatic than it first appears. When the amount allocated isadjusted for inflation, each field's increase is not as great. Be-cause the number of grants also rose each year, and at a greaterpace than the rise in dollars, the growth in each field was dueprimarily to the funding of a larger number of grants. Therefore,there was little real dollar increase to individual programs.In addition, this analysis of grantmaking trends did notfocus upon the year to year fluctuations and thus ignores anom-alies in any one year. Total dollar amounts, numbers of grants,percentage of overall giving, and average grant size fluctuated.Each field experienced uneven growth in funding characterizedby a surge in funds in one year along with gradual increasesin other years. Although inconsistent funding patterns may notsignal an increase or decrease in overall foundation commitmentto any of the fields, it does suggest that in any one year somefields will do better while others will do worse.Finally, the increase in human services funding observedhere does not necessarily mean that those agencies experienc-ing federal cuts received foundation monies. It is possible thatfoundation support during the 1980s went to new and differentprograms and agencies. Grants may reflect more of foundationinterests and priorities than agency needs. Because there is noway of knowing how many more agencies appealed for foun-dation support and how many more proposals were submittedin this period than previous years, we do not even know ifproportionately more requests were funded during these hardtimes. We do know that foundations never intended to offsetreductions in federal spending, and although they appear tohave responded, their increased support during the 1980s didnot compensate for federal reductions (Salamon & Abramson,1988).Foundations will continue to be viewed as a critical sourceof support In the 1990s by human service agencies despite therelatively few dollars they have to give. However, the economicclimate is likely to affect foundation assets and thus limit theamount they will allocate. New foundations are not expected;160 Journal of Sociology & Social Welfaresome foundations are actually winding down. Human servicefields will again be competing with one another for a smallshare of foundation support. They will also be competing withthe other fields that have traditionally been favored by grant-makers as they too are faced with decreased public support andgovernment dollars. It is likely that human services will retaina similar proportion of overall foundation funding. Continuedfluctuations in foundation support characterized by good andbad years for different human service fields are likely. As longas the proportion of foundation funding to the human servicesremains relatively constant, any growth of the field around newproblems or populations in need, is likely to affect how foun-dation dollars to human services will be distributed each year.ReferencesGreenberg, B. R., Gutheil, I. A., Parker, L. M. and Chernesky, R. H. (1991).Aging: The Burden Study of Foundation Grantmaking Trends. New York: TheFoundation Center.Jacobs, N. F. and Sommers, I. B. (1991). Crime & Justice: The Burden Study ofFoundation Grantmaking Trends, New York: The Foundation Center.Renz, L. (1989). Alcohol & Drug Abuse Funding: An Analysis of Foundation Grants.New York: The Foundation Center.Renz, L. (1991). Foundation Giving: Yearbook of Facts and Figures on Private,Corporate and Foundations. New York: The Foundation Center.Salamon, L. M. and Abramson, A. J. (1988). Nonprofit Organizations and the FY1989 Federal Budget. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.Seltzer, M. and Cunningham, M. (1990). General Support vs. Project Support: A75-Year-Old Debate Revisited. A Report Prepared for The Ford Foundation.New York: The Conservation Company.

Foundation Grantmaking in the 1980s: How Three Human Service Fields Fared

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Foundation Grantmaking in the 1980s: How Three Human Service Fields Fared

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