A New Level of Principled Foundation Grantmaking

For those foundation leaders who want their decision making to be insulated from public scrutiny, this is a moment of growing anxiety. There are signs that foundations will need to do more to demonstrate their public good value. For foundations in California, this anxiety reached an apotheosis in 2008 when legislation was introduced—California AB 624—that would have made it easier to find out how much or how little foundations were supporting the interests of the underserved.

Foundations effectively succeeded in killing the bill when they pledged $30 million to support minority-led organizations. Now there’s a new website, Inside Philanthropy, that makes available the kind of information that is usually only known to foundation ‘insiders’. In an effort to make foundation workings more transparent, the website will include articles illuminating foundations' hidden funding agendas and processes (not just what’s available on their websites) and share stories from foundation grant seekers who will rate foundations. Think Yelp reviews by fundraisers on foundations.