The Roles Foundations Are Playing in the Evidence-Based Policy Movement

• DOI: 10.1177/0002716218768801
• Author: Robert C. Granger
• Date: 01 July 2018
• Published date: 01 July 2018
• Subject Matter: The Contributions of Institutions

ANNALS, AAPSS, 678, July 2018 145

DOI: 10.1177/0002716218768801

The Roles

Foundations

Are Playing in

the Evidence-

Based Policy

Movement

By

ROBERT C. GRANGER

768801ANN The Annals of the American AcademyRole of Foundations in the Evidence-Based Policy Movement

research-article2018

Foundations are actively engaged in supporting

evidence- based policymaking through collaborative

funding, supporting, and creating intermediary organi-

zations; building the infrastructure needed to support

evidence-based policymaking; and improving the rele-

vance of research for practice and policy. For a variety

of reasons, they are shifting from a focus on the federal

government and the identification of effective brand

name innovations to an emphasis on supporting local

actors to design and test solutions using local data. This

article provides examples of foundation work, describes

and discusses how and why it is evolving, and uses his-

torical examples to place the change in context.

Keywords: foundations; evidence-based policy; social

policy; science policy; foundation strategy;

foundation roles

Private foundations play a significant role in

supporting the evidence-based policy and

practice movement. In this article, I draw from

my experience as president of the William T.

Grant Foundation from 2003 to 2013 and from

recent interviews with senior staff and advisors

in eight additional foundations involved in this

work.1 The limited sample means that the story

I tell is not complete, but I hope that the foun-

dations I do not mention will find their work

and experiences represented here.

Foundations rarely plan to support grantees

in perpetuity. Rather, they most often expect to

seed new ideas, approaches, institutions, and

fields that will eventually be sustained through

other means. Because those other means often

Correspondence: robertcgranger@gmail.com

Robert C. Granger’s current interest is in making

research and evaluation activities more useful to prac-

titioners. He retired as president of the William T.

Grant Foundation in 2013 and has served as a senior

vice president at MDRC and executive vice president of

Bank Street College of Education. He currently consults

with the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and chairs

its Evaluation Advisory Committee.