Erica Kohl‐Arenas, The Self‐Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to Alleviate Poverty (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2015). 260 pp. $26.55 (paper), ISBN: 978052028344. Megan Tompkins‐Stange, Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education Reform, and the Politics of Influence (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press, 2016). 216 pp. $31.00 (paper), ISBN: 9781612509129.

• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Author: Kristi Andrasik
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12902

160 Public Administration Review • January | February 2018

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 78, Iss. 1, pp. 160–164. © 2018 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12902.

The influence of money in politics is certainly

not a new topic. However, if we reframe

“money” as “philanthropy” and substitute

“politics” with “policy” we discover before us a topic

which has been largely absent from mainstream public

discourse, and only sparingly addressed by academia.

Then along came 2016. Mildly put, 2016 queued up

quite the list of economic, social, and political topics

ripe for the next several years’ worth of popular and

scholarly deep-dives—and it would seem philanthropy

is on that list.

The 2016 U.S. presidential campaign brought a

new public light to philanthropic foundations. Both

candidates were questioned about the work of the

foundations that bear their last names, sparking some

philanthropists to worry the image of foundations

may be unfairly tarnished (Berman 2016 ). At

the same time, those with their ear to the ground

heard the academic landscape begin to crackle

with the sparks of new research on philanthropy.

David Callahan, the founder and editor of “Inside

Philanthropy,” hailed the arrival of the July 2016

issue of PS: Political Science & Politics which included

a special collection of articles assembled under

the theme “Why Political Scientists Should Study

Organized Philanthropy” (Callahan 2016 ). He also

points out the roster of recently published books set

to illuminate the philanthropy–policy connection, not

to mention Callahan’s own book, The Givers: Money,

Power, and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age , which

just hit the presses in April 2017 (Callahan 2016 ).

Yet, Callahan expresses limited faith in the long-

term academic appetite for boundary-pushing

philanthropic research, citing two primary reasons.

First, highlighting a tradition of minimal public

discourse and awareness surrounding philanthropy,

Callahan asserts that grad students enter academia

knowing little about the sector, and are therefore

not inclined to research that which “can seem like

an obscure and sleepy niche sector compared to the

bigger, glitzier precincts of American power and

influence” (Callahan 2016 , 20). Fortunately, in

addition to more public discourse about philanthropy,

2016 also brought us two intriguing reads in the form

of Megan E. Tompkins-Stange’s Policy Patrons, and

Erica Kohl-Arenas’s The Self-Help Myth .

Any book based on in-depth interviews with

people who deal in wealth and power as a matter of

profession is likely to spark some interest. What if

the vast majority of those interviews could only be

obtained under the promise of anonymity? What if

those anonymous interviews reveal the behind-the-

scenes ways that concentrated pockets of money and

power have been used to (sometimes unintentionally,

sometimes intentionally) stifle grassroots activism,

circumvent democratic engagement in policy reform,

or even fortify the same systemic inequities it was set

out to alleviate? Tompkins-Stange’s and Kohl-Arenas’s

books reveal a sector which appears to be rather

squarely situated in the “glitzier precincts of American

power and influence” after all.

The second reason for Callahan’s doubts is the

risk of endangering philanthropic research grants.

This risk is so concerning, it led politics professor

Daniel W. Drezner to suggest “Perhaps the best

solution is for the most senior scholars to focus on

this problem. Those who are close to retirement can

afford to do this kind of research without any fears

of repercussions” (Drezner 2016 , 9). While I cannot

say if Tompkins-Stange or Kohl-Arenas feared such

repercussions—given the level of inside information

they gathered—I suspect these two scholars, who are

both still early in their careers, knew the risks. Joining

the short but important and growing list of academics

Reviewed by: Kristi Andrasik

Cleveland State University

Kristi Andrasik is pursuing a doctorate

in urban policy at Cleveland State University.

A licensed independent social worker with

a background in community-based services,

she is focusing her research on issues of

social equity at the intersection of lived

experience, service delivery, philanthropy,

and public policy. She currently works as a

Program Officer for community-responsive

grantmaking at the Cleveland Foundation,

serves on several Ohio policy and equity

philanthropy committees, and is an Ohio

LGBTQ Funding Ambassador.

E-mail: k.m.andrasik@vikes.csuohio.edu

Book Reviews

Galia Cohen, Editor

Erica Kohl-Arenas , The Self-Help Myth: How Philanthropy Fails to

Alleviate Poverty ( Berkeley, CA: University of California Press , 2015 ).

260 pp. $26.55 (paper), ISBN: 978052028344 .

Megan Tompkins-Stange , Policy Patrons: Philanthropy, Education

Reform, and the Politics of Influence ( Cambridge: Harvard Education

Press , 2016 ). 216 pp. $31.00 (paper), ISBN: 9781612509129 .