(Foundations&Phil\Dowie-amazon Book Review) Dec. 19, 2001

There are over 50,000 foundations in the U.S. today. With $448 billion in assets (1999), foundations are an unbelievably huge philanthropic industry compared to almost 40 years ago, when the federal government launched its War on Poverty. Foundations' assets then were well under $30 billion.

Mark Dowie, author of American Foundations: An Investigative History (MIT Press, 2001), does not blanche in analyzing this industry, despite its diversity and differences in grant making and style of operating. Dowie sets an ambitious agenda. He reviews foundation funding of education, science, health, environment, food, energy, art, civil society, democracy and imagination! He is an accomplished writer with16 journalist awards and five books to his credit.
Perhaps consumer activist and Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader suggests best why this book should be read by those involved with the foundation world either as a staff member, trustee, grantseeker or academician. Dowie, says Nader, "is a scholar and a muckraker," who analyzes "foundations' past achievements and failures and then critically [takes] the institutions to task for directing their grants so often away from ?root causes.' Dowie shakes up the complacency, myopia, and insulation of [the] giant foundations by naming names and places."

Dowie clearly raises the most important questions about foundations' performance, and offers thoughtful, usually balanced answers that certainly pull no punches. As the longtime director of a national watchdog nonprofit organization charged with monitoring and redirecting foundations' grantmaking toward the disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the USA, I believe this study is both highly readable and extremely informative.

Education receives the largest share of foundation grants. Dowie observes that "Foundation trustees...seem to favor the spawning of an elite intellectual force over the principle of equal educational opportunity...The great preponderance of educational grants...have found their way to institutions of higher education where scientists and other experts are educated." Recently, however, more foundation money has been poured into reform of primary and secondary education, especially inner city schools. This money was stimulated by Walter Annenberg's $500 million challenge grant in 1993. Dowie applauds this trend. Nevertheless, he raises the question: Can such money ever change the entrenched public education monopoly to enable it to do significantly better educating poor and poorly prepared students? Maybe the foundations should "also be funding community organizations that demand more of public schools..."

"American foundations' second largest area of grantmaking is health." Dowie concludes that "foundations' enthusiasm for high-tech diagnostic systems, pharmacology, and the disease model of medicine has not only inhibited the development of preventative and holistic approaches but has also retarded public health and fostered the evolution of an essentially unjust health care system...Until quite recently the public health effects of environmental pollution have been virtually ignored by the large foundations."

More generally, beyond specific subject areas, Dowie identifies proactive philanthropy for criticism: "...when proactive philanthropy is pursued without the participation of the people most affected by it" serious problems result.

The 50-year Green Revolution is often touted as one of the foundation world's greatest achievements. Dowie acknowledges its success in significantly raising food production per acre in the developing world. But he goes on to challenge its social, economic and environmental consequences for the peasant-farmers and the urban poor. Unfettered scientific experimentalism in increasing crop yields, supported by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, with little heed to culture, economics and sustainability, meant the rich got richer and the poor poorer, with 800 million people still hungry in the world.

The Energy Foundation was created in 1991 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, MacArthur and the Rockefeller Foundations "to assist the nation's transition to a sustainable energy future by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy." This was a major proactive foundation initiative to do what the environmental movement was not perceived to be doing. Dowie records the positive accomplishments of the Energy Foundation, but worries that "concentrating so much leverage in one funding body could create serious power problems, as well as an orthodoxy, that, if misguided, would be difficult to challenge." And, in the end, he identifies how the Energy Foundation gave its largest grants to environmental legal organizations which were "agents of capitulation...deferring to free market arguments," while "throwing mere crumbs to energy visionaries, renewable activists, and consumer advocates."

Dowie's investigation into American foundations is not all negative. The author identifies several individual philanthropists as possible harbingers of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." In fact, the author seems mesmerized by the big money and big ideas of these individuals.

He singles out Irene Diamond, Ted Turner, Walter Annenberg and George Soros as "venturesome" philanthropists -- because they "imagined, respectively, worlds without AIDS, without strife, without ignorance, and without tyrants, then made massive and immediate financial efforts to make those worlds real"

The author acknowledges that it is an uphill battle for these individuals to be creators of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." He observes, "If historical precedent were to hold, foundations would [take] courses [that] would be safe and uncontroversial."

On the war of political ideas and foundations, Dowie writes, "During the last twenty years of the twentieth century, it was conservatives who prevailed.., financed the Reagan revolution, and provisioned the Republican recapture of Congress. A dozen or so medium-sized, uncharacteristically patient foundations can take a good deal of credit for the rise and endurance of America's conservative revolution...More recently, following this bold twenty-five-year foray into public policy by right-wing foundations, the Left has stepped timidly into the fray with a few programs in economic and political justice. Will mainstream foundations, too, learn from the conservative foundations' triumph of leveraged influence? Or will they continue their minimal, unimaginative funding of safe and soft institutions proposing weak, incremental solutions to urgent and undeniable crises?"

"Brilliant and constructive as some of their work has been," writes Dowie, "much of it has also been fruitless, uninspired, and designed to do little more than perpetuate the economic and social systems that allow foundations to exist."

He explicitly faults foundations for not doing enough for social movements which they have aided: "With the single exception of civil rights, foundation interests in America's signature social movements ? for women's rights, peace, environment, environmental justice, students, gay liberation, and particularly labor ? [have] been parsimonious, hesitant, late, and at times counterproductive...In any case, all foundation support for social movements...remains small potatoes any way it's measured."

In summation, Dowie argues that "Those empowered to make grants should not assume that they have the wisdom to solve such serious problems simply because they control the money." As a student of philanthropy and seeker of foundation largesse for the past 30 years, I can only say, "Amen!"

There are over 50,000 foundations in the U.S. today. With $448 billion in assets (1999), foundations are an unbelievably huge philanthropic industry compared to almost 40 years ago, when the federal government launched its War on Poverty. Foundations' assets then were well under $30 billion.

Mark Dowie, author of American Foundations: An Investigative History (MIT Press, 2001), does not blanche in analyzing this industry, despite its diversity and differences in grant making and style of operating. Dowie sets an ambitious agenda. He reviews foundation funding of education, science, health, environment, food, energy, art, civil society, democracy and imagination! He is an accomplished writer with16 journalist awards and five books to his credit.
Perhaps consumer activist and Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader suggests best why this book should be read by those involved with the foundation world either as a staff member, trustee, grantseeker or academician. Dowie, says Nader, "is a scholar and a muckraker," who analyzes "foundations' past achievements and failures and then critically [takes] the institutions to task for directing their grants so often away from ?root causes.' Dowie shakes up the complacency, myopia, and insulation of [the] giant foundations by naming names and places."

Dowie clearly raises the most important questions about foundations' performance, and offers thoughtful, usually balanced answers that certainly pull no punches. As the longtime director of a national watchdog nonprofit organization charged with monitoring and redirecting foundations' grantmaking toward the disadvantaged and disenfranchised in the USA, I believe this study is both highly readable and extremely informative.

Education receives the largest share of foundation grants. Dowie observes that "Foundation trustees...seem to favor the spawning of an elite intellectual force over the principle of equal educational opportunity...The great preponderance of educational grants...have found their way to institutions of higher education where scientists and other experts are educated." Recently, however, more foundation money has been poured into reform of primary and secondary education, especially inner city schools. This money was stimulated by Walter Annenberg's $500 million challenge grant in 1993. Dowie applauds this trend. Nevertheless, he raises the question: Can such money ever change the entrenched public education monopoly to enable it to do significantly better educating poor and poorly prepared students? Maybe the foundations should "also be funding community organizations that demand more of public schools..."

"American foundations' second largest area of grantmaking is health." Dowie concludes that "foundations' enthusiasm for high-tech diagnostic systems, pharmacology, and the disease model of medicine has not only inhibited the development of preventative and holistic approaches but has also retarded public health and fostered the evolution of an essentially unjust health care system...Until quite recently the public health effects of environmental pollution have been virtually ignored by the large foundations."

More generally, beyond specific subject areas, Dowie identifies proactive philanthropy for criticism: "...when proactive philanthropy is pursued without the participation of the people most affected by it" serious problems result.

The 50-year Green Revolution is often touted as one of the foundation world's greatest achievements. Dowie acknowledges its success in significantly raising food production per acre in the developing world. But he goes on to challenge its social, economic and environmental consequences for the peasant-farmers and the urban poor. Unfettered scientific experimentalism in increasing crop yields, supported by the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, with little heed to culture, economics and sustainability, meant the rich got richer and the poor poorer, with 800 million people still hungry in the world.

The Energy Foundation was created in 1991 by the Pew Charitable Trusts, MacArthur and the Rockefeller Foundations "to assist the nation's transition to a sustainable energy future by promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy." This was a major proactive foundation initiative to do what the environmental movement was not perceived to be doing. Dowie records the positive accomplishments of the Energy Foundation, but worries that "concentrating so much leverage in one funding body could create serious power problems, as well as an orthodoxy, that, if misguided, would be difficult to challenge." And, in the end, he identifies how the Energy Foundation gave its largest grants to environmental legal organizations which were "agents of capitulation...deferring to free market arguments," while "throwing mere crumbs to energy visionaries, renewable activists, and consumer advocates."

Dowie's investigation into American foundations is not all negative. The author identifies several individual philanthropists as possible harbingers of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." In fact, the author seems mesmerized by the big money and big ideas of these individuals.

He singles out Irene Diamond, Ted Turner, Walter Annenberg and George Soros as "venturesome" philanthropists -- because they "imagined, respectively, worlds without AIDS, without strife, without ignorance, and without tyrants, then made massive and immediate financial efforts to make those worlds real"

The author acknowledges that it is an uphill battle for these individuals to be creators of "a new and imaginative era of philanthropy." He observes, "If historical precedent were to hold, foundations would [take] courses [that] would be safe and uncontroversial."

On the war of political ideas and foundations, Dowie writes, "During the last twenty years of the twentieth century, it was conservatives who prevailed.., financed the Reagan revolution, and provisioned the Republican recapture of Congress. A dozen or so medium-sized, uncharacteristically patient foundations can take a good deal of credit for the rise and endurance of America's conservative revolution...More recently, following this bold twenty-five-year foray into public policy by right-wing foundations, the Left has stepped timidly into the fray with a few programs in economic and political justice. Will mainstream foundations, too, learn from the conservative foundations' triumph of leveraged influence? Or will they continue their minimal, unimaginative funding of safe and soft institutions proposing weak, incremental solutions to urgent and undeniable crises?"

"Brilliant and constructive as some of their work has been," writes Dowie, "much of it has also been fruitless, uninspired, and designed to do little more than perpetuate the economic and social systems that allow foundations to exist."

He explicitly faults foundations for not doing enough for social movements which they have aided: "With the single exception of civil rights, foundation interests in America's signature social movements ? for women's rights, peace, environment, environmental justice, students, gay liberation, and particularly labor ? [have] been parsimonious, hesitant, late, and at times counterproductive...In any case, all foundation support for social movements...remains small potatoes any way it's measured."

In summation, Dowie argues that "Those empowered to make grants should not assume that they have the wisdom to solve such serious problems simply because they control the money." As a student of philanthropy and seeker of foundation largesse for the past 30 years, I can only say, "Amen!"

You simply cannot understand the social and political order in the United States without reading this book. Dowie is at the top of his game here, and that says a lot since he is arguably America's best left-leaning investigative journalist. Some people slow down in their 60s, but Dowie is picking up his pace. He has the wisdom and perspective and gonads to speak it like it is, picking apart the influence of wealthy foundations in helping, and mostly hurting, the cause for social, political and economic democracy and environmental sustainability. Too bad he left out an analysis of foundations and their impact on the worsening state of US media, but maybe that's the next book. This is a great follow-up to Losing Ground, his brilliant critique of the failures of US environmentalism.

Having worked in the heavy industrial electrical/mechanical field for the past 26 years, I have worked at many facilities similiar to those illustrated in this book. I love them! You can say what you'd like regarding their environmental impact, but I can tell you, these are great places to work. The process is usually very interesting, and the customer most always demands a quality job. So...there's some polution, but not one of you reading this review can say that your purchasing habits, and style of life has not contributed to the very images that you would now turn your nose up at. Sure, the EPA would love to have you believe that they are cleaning up the world, when the fact is, they are only driving real industry out of the USA, only to produce the same if not more 'polution' over the borders. And with our governments blessing. 'Still buying the same products, are you not? Look and see where they were made next time! It makes me sad to see these big industrial sites closed down. I love the book, because I can show my kids, and my grandkids the types of places that used to exist in this country_The type of places that has enabled us to go around as the police department of the world, and enforce what WE deem as right on every continent of the earth. It would have made a nice closing statement though, if you would have included an arial shot of the Pulp & Paper Mill that produced the pages of this book. I am assuming that is, that they were made in the USA.

WE have a Donor by Mark Dowie is an excellent easy breezy non technical read for the the general pulbic. The very people who will make the decisions to donate or not. Information to help make an informed decision regarding organ donation. There are thousands out here needing transplants with others too afraid to sign the donor card because of inaccurate information or Gossip being spread. Some people are afraid the physicians will not do enough to save their lives because an organ is needed. I actually heard a person say this. Hog Wash! The physicias will always do everything possible to save a person's life. After being on dialysis for 18 months I received a transplant from a brain dead accident victim. It is the "Gift of Life". My younger brother died suddenly this month and his organs were donated to help save others as he wished. I have been on both sides of this issue and believe this to be a perfect read for anyone wanting information on organ donation.

I think Mark Dowie did a great job showing some problems of today. Even though I feel this book was meant to be read in the mid-1990s, Dowie's points are still valid. Dowie also showed how different groups that call themselves *environmentalists* have different areas of concern (not all are out to save the "cute fuzzy animals," but have other important concerns/issues).

Although this book is now 7 years old, it seems more relevant today than when Dowie wrote it. I keep hoping for a new, revised, edition. The elections of 2000 and 2002 have shown that the mainstream environmental organizations in the U.S. have lost most of their strength in the political arena. Despite major attempts to influence elections. . .the Senatorial race in Colorado for example. . .their efforts were either not effective or salient to the electorate. The Green Party seems to have filtered off those voters who are primarily concerned with environmental issues and most indications are that those voters are not impressed with the mainstream environmental establishment in the U.S. The Green Parties of Europe seem to be making a resurgence, but progress in the U.S. is not evident.

Dowie's main critique is of the established, major environmental organizations; those groups who enjoyed so much growth during the Reagan era as a reaction to James Watt and others in the Reagan Cabinet. While Gale Norton is from the same mold as Watt, and Christy Todd Whitman is not far removed, they do not seem to be provoking the same degree of unrest among America's electorate. Arguable the Administration of George "5-4" W. Bush is even worse than Reagan Administration in Environmental Policy, and seem to be drifting even further since the 2002 elections. However the major environmental organizations do not seem to be able to focus attention, or perhaps interest, on this issue. The reason for that may be changing social and cultural norms, but it also may be due to the perception that these organizations are not relevant.

Dowie's book may be a bit out-of-date, but it is well worth the read. I think Dowie was right in 1995 and his ideas still ring true today.

I havn't read much about the history of environmentalism so when I saw this at a used bookstore I decided to pick it up. It gave a very good overview about how environmentalism progressed throughout the 20th century and the different groups involved. At the end the author gives his theory about where the environmental movement is heading in the future. Overall I would recommend it to anyone interested in environmental politics and the movement in general.

As a public relations major, I must say that I did not really appreciate the attack Stauber and Rampton have launched against PR. However, I understand their positions as journalists and "Toxic Sludge" is, after all, an impeccably researched and well-written book. An easy read for those who are interested.

This is a valuable and profoundly depressing book. When I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. It describes EXACT situations I've faced personally working for the past 19 years as an local citizen environmentalist in a heavily polluted industrial region of Northeast Wisconsin. The book helped me to realize I wasn't just paranoid or "sensitive." It helped me recognize and cope with the deliberate dirty tricks, orchestrated sabotage, character assassination and obstructionism of linked corporate polluters. Most of my work has centered on counteracting the total BS coming from hundreds of high-paid PR flacks who work for these corporations. These people spend millions on local TV and newspaper ads, editorial board meetings, speaker bureaus, lobbyists at the local, state and federal level, school programs and curriculum guides, political campaign contributions, community & university goodwill grants, grants to nature centers, and scientists willing to prostitute themselves to say whatever the corporations want. They've created several "astro-turf" organizations to give the impression of citizen environmental action IN SUPPORT of the corporate goals. They've used their "astro-turf" groups to divert public attention to other issues, away from corporate pollution. I've actually seen corporate play-by-play guidebooks on how their people should discuss their problems in the most favorable light, meanwhile public health is at continued risk, and they know it.

Some previous reviewers claimed the writers were biased or somehow exaggerating, but I thought the book was remarkably calm considering the outrageousness, the evil, that the book discusses. I'm disgusted that the negative reviewers from the PR and journalism fields (especially those teaching our young people!) don't want to admit the seriousness of the corruption outlined in this book. Perhaps we should ask where their paychecks come from, and why they wrote anonymously.

Ironically, I now serve on a citizen advisory committee created by the Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources to set PCB soil criteria for Wisconsin, and this criteria could restrict the landspreading of PCB-contaminated sludges. The sewage treatment plant operators are going ballistic and pulling all kinds of lobbying and legal tricks to prevent the health standard from applying to them or being fully protective of public health --- because they want to keep landspreading toxic sludge on our food croplands. The paper mills have quietly gotten their own exemptions for their sludge, so far. Their PR responses fit this book perfectly, especially the chapter discussing sludge. The criteria battle in the DNR and legislature isn't over, but I predict it will be ugly and full of PR spin-doctoring.

This book is one of the most eye-opening things I have ever read, and given how much I read that is saying a lot! As a person who has worked in PR as a lobbyist (in my case for a state university), I was already somewhat acquainted with, and disgusted by, the general processes used by the industry. This book, however, put a whole new spin on things. The concrete examples of some of the PR fiascos that have been used on the American people were depressingly explicit. Yes, this book is one-sided. It never pretends not to be. It is also a must-read for anyone who views the media. If you read this book, you'll never read a newspaper the same way again. Does the book add to one's cynicism? Yes, but sometimes cynicism is a preservational force. This is one of those times.