AN EVALUATION OF A FOUNDATION'S GRANT PROGRAM

TO LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

By

Dora Marcus

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of Administration and
Higher Education

1980

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ABSTRACT

AN EVALUATION OF A FOUNDATION'S

GRANT PROGRAM TO LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES

By

Dora Marcus

Recognizing the paucity of evaluation data on founda-
tion grant programs and the impact of grants, this case
study investigated grant administration and decision-
making of a major private foundation, the Northwest Area
Foundation. Specifically, we studied the grant review
process of the Foundation's Independent College Program
as it affected 22 college and university grant recipients
from 1975-1979.

After reviewing the historical relationship between
higher education and private philanthropy, we employed a
qualitative study design to scrutinize grant selection and
evaluation. Our four primary data sources included Founda-
tion administrative records, declined and awarded grant
proposals, Foundation project documentation, and the author's
personal experience and records as the Independent College

Program evaluator.

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Dora Marcus

Three separate analyses were executed on grant selec-
tion and evaluation: a content analysis of Foundation
documentation of the grant review process, a comparison of
declined and awarded proposals of the same funding periods,
and a comparative evaluation of failed and successful
projects.

The first analysis of Foundation documentation re-
vealed more strengths than weaknesses in the grant review
process. Primary findings showed the Independent Col-
lege Program grew from a sound data base, that the Founda-
tion took unusual precautions to guard against conflic"
of interest in grant decisions, it showed early and con-
tinuous leadership in providing applicants with proposal
information and guidelines, it exhibited a strong evalua-
tion capacity and commitment, it responded to evaluator
advice by modifying grant review policies and procedures,
and it used multiple sources of information upon which
to base grant proposal judgments, i.e., site visits,
Advisory Committee's assessment, special selection criteria,
pre-grant negotiations, Board of Directors' review and
staff investigations.

The grant review documentation also revealed that
the Foundation deviated from its funding principle adopted
in 1973 by later endorsing an open funding policy that

contradicted its educational program's avowed goals.

Foundation documentation also uncovered contradictions

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Dora Marcus

in the use of certain declared and undeclared proposal
selection criteria.

The second analysis comparing declined and awarded
proposals in the same funding periods confirmed the strengths
of the Foundation's overall selection procedure, despite
the defects cited above. Using Norton Kiritz's nationally
recognized criteria of proposal assessment, Foundation-
awarded proposals scored consistently higher in every
proposal component over Foundation-declined proposals.
Several independent measures of proposal quality produced
results in the same direction, indicating the grant PGVIL
process, and the decisions by the Foundation staff and
Advisory Committee, consistently singled out the more
meritorious proposals for funding.

In the third analysis, we applied Edward Suchman's
evaluation methodology to judge quality of grant project
outcomes. For our sample of educational grantees, we
coded project effort, performance, efficiency, and process.
The findings revealed that well over half of our sample
managed to achieve their desired purposes, judged by
Suchman and Foundation criteria, although the 1975 grants
proved decidedly more effective than 1976. The evalua-
tion analysis revealed the centrality of carefully
specified applicant guidelines, project evaluation cri-
teria, and a clearly defined funding focus.

The cumulative project outcomes of the Foundation's

Dora Marcus

Independent College Program indicated it at least par-
tially satisfied its professed objectives. However,

since the Foundation strayed from its overall goals for

the Program by adopting an open funding policy in 1976,

it diluted its instructional outcomes and weakened the
achievement of the grant program's ultimate goal. Separate
recommendations for Foundation grant management and the

operation of higher education grant projects are offered.

11

C) Copyright by
DORA MARCUS

1980

Affectionately dedicated

to PHILIP and LAURA

iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My greatest thanks go to Professor Paul Dressel, my
adviser and dissertation committee chairman, not only for
providing me with the impetus and opportunity to study
foundation evaluation, but for his expert direction through-
out my entire doctoral program. His ideas and evaluation
knowledge, so generously shared, contributed significantly
to the refinement of this research and made the study a
valuable and absorbing experience. I am also indebted
to Professors Gwen Norrell, Vandel Johnson, and Richard
Featherstone for serving on my guidance committee.

It would be no exaggeration to say that this study
would not have been possible without the full cooperation
I received from the staff of the Northwest Area Foundation.
They allowed me complete access to Foundation records and
documents and displayed an uncommon openness to organiza-
tional evaluation. I would especially like to thank Martha
Butt, Paul Olson, John Taylor, and Trudy Byrum in this
regard.

I feel a special appreciation to Peri-Anne Warstler
for her unusual talent in rapidly expediting a manuscript

with uncomplaining patience. I also extend special thanks

to Ruth Frye for her coordination of my efforts and her

iv

watchful helpfulness throughout my program.

Finally, I cannot overstate my gratitude to my hus-
band and daughter, who not only persevered with me
throughout the research and writing, but sustained my

morale as well with constant encouragement and humor.

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

 

CHAPTER I - RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY. . l
The Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Purpose of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Research Site. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Review of the Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

CHAPTER II - BACKGROUND FOR THE STUDY. . . . . . . . 15

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 15
History of the Relationship Between Higher
Education and Private Philanthropy . . . . . . 18
Individual Philanthropy. . . . . . . 18
The Rise of Philanthropic Foundations. . . . 19
Unequal Educational Funding. . . . . . . . . 2A
Politics in Grant- -Getting. . . . . . 26
Use of University Development Officers . . . 27
Foundation Dependence Upon Universities. . . 31
University Autonomy and Foundation Control . 3A
Educational Innovation Versus Sustenance . . “3
Educational Innovation Versus Playing-
It- Safe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A7
Grant- Related Problems of Foundation
Sponsorship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . A9
Confusion of Higher Education Purposes . A9
Added Financial Burden for Higher
Education. . . . . SO
Dislocation of University Faculty. . . . 52
Cumbersome Foundation Procedures . . . . 53
Public Policy Orientation of Foundations . . 55
Foundation Sponsorship of Higher Education
Today. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
CHAPTER III - METHODOLOGY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6O
Qualitative Study Design . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

vi

 

Chapter

The sample 0 O O O O O O O 0 O O O 0 0 O O 0
Data Collection. . . . . . . .
Evaluation Approaches Guiding Study. . . . . .

CHAPTER IV - THE GRANT REVIEW PROCESS:
DESCRIPTION AND DOCUMENTATION . . .

Introduction . . . . . .
Evolution of the Independent College Program .
Selection of the ICP Advisory Committee. .
Grant Deliberations and Proposal Guidelines:
1975 Round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Proposal Selection Criteria. . . . . . . . . .
Productivity Grant Declinations. . . . .
Negotiations and Site Visits . . . . .
Productivity Grant Awards. . . . .
Grant Finalization and Evaluation. . .
Continuation of the Independent College
Program. 1976 Round . .

1976 Proposal Guidelines and Selection Criteria.

1976 Grant Awards and Declinations . . . . .
Effectiveness of the Grant Selection Process
Judged From Foundation Documents . . . . .
Strengths of the Selection Process . . .
Defects in the Selection Process . . . .
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

CHAPTER V - THE GRANT SELECTION PROCESS.
COMPARISON OF AWARDED AND DECLINED
PROPOSALS. . . . . . . .

Introduction . . . .
Proposal Comparison Procedure.
Evaluation Instrument. . . . .
Limitations of the Instrument and Bias
in the Data. . . . . . . .
Proposal Evaluation Findings .
Major Flaws of Declined Proposals.
Contrast Between Extreme Cases
Proposal Comparison Conclusions. .
Sub- -Ana1ysis Using Advisory Committee .and
Author' 5 Criteria. . . . . . .
Sub- -Ana1ysis Conclusions .

CHAPTER VI — THE GRANT EVALUATION PROCESS AND
COLLEGE OUTCOMES. . . . .

Introduction . .

Background on Foundation Evaluation of
Grantees . .

vii

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66
67

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73

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77
78
79

79
81

83
8A
85
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101
112

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117
120
122
123
125
127
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132
132

13A

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Page

Suchman' 3 Categories of Effect as
Evaluation Framework . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Inter—Project Evaluation Procedure . . . . . . . 139
Limitations of Procedure and Data. . . . . . . . 1A2
Flexibility in Project Ratings . . . . . . . . . 1A5
Results of the Inter-Project Comparisons . . . . 1A6
Characteristics of Failed Projects . . . . . . 151
Internal Barriers to Project Effectiveness . 152
External Barriers to Project Effectiveness . 156
Characteristics of Successful Projects . . . . . 158
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

CHAPTER VII - SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Summary of Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Comparison of Foundation Behavior with

Historical Generalizations . . . . . . . . . . 170
Conclusions and Recommendations Based on

the Findings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

APPENDICES
APPENDIX A - Proposal Checklist and Evaluation
Form. . . . . 191
APPENDIX B - 1975 and 1976 Proposal Selection
Criteria Used by the Advisory
Committee . . . . . . . 196
APPENDIX C - Proposal Selection Criteria Used
by Author . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

FOUNDATION DOCUMENTS BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . 212

viii

LIST OF TABLES

Table Page
1 Proposal Quality Judged by Proposal
Cheeklisto O I O I O O O O O O O O O 0 O O 121

2 Proposal Quality Judged by Advisory
Committee and Author's Criteria. . . . . . 128

3 Ratings of 1975 Projects on Suchman's
Categories of Effect . . . . . . . . . . . 1A7

A Rating of 1976 Projects on Suchman's
Categories of Effect . . . . . . . . . . . 150

ix

CHAPTER I

RATIONALE FOR THE STUDY

The Problem

 

Both supporters and detractors of American philan—
thropic practices agree that freedom from external pres-
sures enjoyed by private foundations gives them opportuni-
ties and influence out of proportion to their resources.
Although foundation grants represent only a small fraction
of private giving in the United States, and a minor por—
tion of the American economy, foundations play, and are
capable of playing, a special and significant role. In

fact:

. . unlike a business enterprise, (a founda-
tion) is not subject to the discipline of
the market-place, nor, like public agencies,
of the ballot box . . . . It enjoys less
constraints by the usual forms of account-
ability to society than does perhaps any
other type of institution.1

But foundations cannot escape the egalitarian temper of

 

1Pifer, Alan, quoted in Goulden, Joseph C. The Money
Givers. New York, Random House, 1971, p. 12.

our times that encourages critical assessment of estab-
lished American institutions, their operating policies and
procedures. Most studies of foundation behavior focus upon
fiscal, ethical, and public reporting responsibilities;
rarely, have the actual funding decisions, those pertaining
to grant selection and evaluation, been scrutinized closely.

In 1970, an investigation of foundation policies by The
Commission on Foundations and Private PhilanthrOpy concluded
that the majority of foundations need to reassess their own
grant-making and follow-up procedures. Most foundations,
claimed the Commission, seem to find the process of conceiv-
ing and making grants more worthy of their time and re-
sources than evaluating their success or failure.

The Commission based these conclusions upon finding

that showed:

.‘. . Al per cent of all foundations . . .
never take any steps to monitor their grantees
or follow-up their grants . . . . Over half

of the foundations never make field visits

or use any other device for periodic personal
checks on grantee activities; 72 per cent never
require periodic reports as a requirement for
payment of installments of the grants; 91 per
cent never require independent auditing of

the grantee's expenditures.

 

2Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy.
Foundations, Private Giving, and Public Policy. Report
and Recommendations. Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
1970, p. 91.

As late as 1978, foundation writers still attributed
the public and private distrust of foundations to their
reluctance to monitor grant activities or work toward
improving performance. A recent survey of Chicago cor-
porate giving programs suggests little has changed since
the Commission Report. It found that less than one-third
of the grant-makers reported regular evaluations or follow-
up of grantees; 92 per cent infrequently or never conducted
on-site visits (Donors Forum, 1978).

The scant attention private foundations have given to
the internal administration of the grant-making process
prompts this study. With the absence of strong external
constraintscd‘governmental regulation or public account—
ability, foundations must regulate their own efforts to
improve and monitor granting practices.

Yet, many factors account for foundations' historical
disinclination to critically examine their grant behavior.
First, foundation executives frequently complain about the
continual pressure to make new grants and launch new pro-
jects, leaving little time to seriously review and evaluate
past activities. And, to keep up with yearly funding
cycles, foundation staff seldom have sufficient time to
formulate careful judgments on the merits of new proposals
and the continuing capabilities of the grantees to carry
them out. So, often, the immediacies of administration

take precedence over grant monitoring and evaluation.

The traditional aura of privacy around foundations
acts as another force discouraging appraisal of grant

behavior. Donald Young writes:

Emphasis on privacy argues against the
use of social science analysis in founda-
tion programs and projects, and imposes
no need for evaluation of accomplishment.

Isolation, and little communication among foundations,
assure independent appraisals of proposals, but, at the
same time, preclude learning from each other's mistakes
and successes.

A third factor causing foundations to neglect assess-
ment of funding practices grows out of the classical hands-
off view between the grantor and grantee, especially be-
tween higher education and foundations. Almost universally,
foundation writers before 1960 expressed great timidity
about following up on grant holders' activities, and exag-
gerated the needed independence of the grantee. Project
autonomy became confused with project accountability,
foundation control with foundation counsel. Essentially,
monitoring and evaluation were viewed as undue interference

into the grantee's internal affairs.

 

3Young, Donald R. "Support for Social Research."
In F. Emerson Andrews, Ed. Foundations: 20 Viewpoints.
New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1965, p. A6.

 

In the 19603, public exposure and criticism pressed

foundations to justify their policies and learn how their

grants contributed to social welfare. Foundation observers,

like Merrimon Cuninggim, went so far as to say:

. . . it never made good philanthropic sense
for a foundation to send off a check and
then forget about it . . . . In their own
programs of follow-up, foundations must do
better than this; they must take an affirma-
tive attitude toward surveillance, so that
first the foundation, and later the larger
society, may lfiarn something useful from the

grants . .

Similarly, John Nason (1977) writes about learning from

past decisions and making better future choices through

evaluation.

A final reason for the relative disregard for evalua-

tion by grant officials stems from the difficulties in-

herent in measuring
the subjectivity of
(1970) claims, as a
tions come from the
teria for measuring

Referring to grants

an on—going and flexible program, and
program variables. Arnold Zurcher
trustee, the most exasperating frustra-
inability to discover objective cri-
the product of a foundation's grants.

to educational institutions especially,

 

“Cuninggim, Merrimon. Private Money and Public Service:
The Role of Foundations in America. New York, McGraw Hill,

1972, p. 237.

Zurcher explains that the social values inherent in them
do not lend themselves readily to quantification and statis-
tical measurement.

warren Weaver, officer and trustee of several major
foundations, found from his personal experience that, often,

grant results are simply unprovable.

. . . there just are no measurable indices

of success that are not open to the ques-
tion: What would have happened if the
grant had not been made?5

Whatever the methodological or administrative diffi-
culties, foundations need to improve and tighten up grant
selection and evaluation practices. All foundation wy" ’5
agree that giving away money effectively is a complicated

business. They concur with F. Emerson Andrews that,

. . . the efficiency of a foundation is
measured by the benefits resulting from
its grants, ngt by the number of dollars
given . . . .

Furthermore, one test of foundation utility lies in its

record of positive achievement, which depends, in part,

 

5Weaver, Warren. U.S. Philanthropic Foundations.
New York, Harper and Row, 1967, p. 223.

6Andrews, F. Emerson, Ed. Philanthropic Foundations.
New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 1956, p. 129.

on its grant selection and evaluation procedures.

Specific evaluation of the actual grant reviewgprocess,

 

and its social consequences, have been urged by various
foundation administrators, such as Nils Wessell, past

president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation:

A foundation should be prepared to evaluate
not only the grant itself, but the grant-
making process. Once . . . the entire
process becomes open to examination, it is
quite reasonable to ask, not only whether
the grant itself met its objectives, but,
whether, in the light of the full know—
ledge then available, the grant-making
process itself was wisely and prudently
conducted. Were the institutions, and

the persons within those institutions,
wisely chosen? Cound the foundation have
anticipated difficulties that arose during
the conduct of the supported activity?

was the task truly worth undertaking?7

Orville Brim, Jr., concurs that foundation executives
need process information that relates administrative pur-

pose or management to foundation program consequences

 

 

(1973). Process information on grant procedures can
strengthen the basis upon which foundations make their
disbursements. Furthermore, evaluation of individually
funded projects themselves can supply the necessary record

of foundation accomplishments.

 

7Wessell, Nils Y. "Sloan Foundation Innovates."
Foundation News, May/June, 1970 (Vol. 11, No. 3), p. 106.

 

 

Purpose of the Study

This research investigates a major foundation's grant
program of higher education projects, and gauges its effects
upon the success or failure of individual grant experiences.
Since all awarded grants are, in some sense, already cer—
tifications of worth, our examination begins with those
antecedent judgments and decisions about funding itself,
and devolves into an assessment of whether they result in
desirable grant outcomes. In short, we depict the pattern
of means to ends -- of proposal review and selection to
project consequences.

We explore the question of the effects of foundation
funds upon grant recipients, and whether the foundation
studied here succeeds in administering its funds in ways
that strengthen its grant-holders and their ability to ac-

complish the purposes for which the grants were made.

Research Site

Of the multiple fields of private philanthropy, the
field of education receives, by far, the largest contribu—
tions from private foundations. Foundation administrators,
studied by Zurcher and Dustan (1972), select education
as the most favored substantive program area. Grant-
giving statistics show about one-third going to educa-

tion, particularly colleges and universities (Rudy, 1970).

This study investigates the grant-making behavior in
education of a major American foundation, the Northwest
Area Foundation (NWAF), serving philanthropic needs of
eight states in the northwest quadrant. Its broad program-

matic focus traverses such diverse fields as:

. . . arts and humanities, education, en-
vironmental and physical sciences, human
services, medical scienc s and health,
and the social sciences.

We follow The Foundation Directory and define a oriv‘~

 

foundation as:

a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization,
with funds and programs managed by its own
trustees or directors, and established to
maintain or aid social, educational, charit-
able, religious, or other activities serving
the common welfare, primarily through the
making of grants.

Traditionally, the Northwest Area Foundation has com-
mitted a major portion of its annual distribution to educa-
tion. We will devote exclusive attention in this study to

Productivity Grants made to liberal arts colleges and

 

8Northwest Area Foundation Annual Report. Saint Paul,
Minnesota, 1979, p. 5.

9The Foundation Directory. Edition 6. New York,
Columbia University Press, 1977, p. ix.

 

10

universities, incorporated in the Foundation's Independent
College Program.
At the program's inauguration in 1973, its special

purposes were described as:

. . . ways of assisting independent col-
leges to control escalating costs while
maintaining educational quality.10

We study here the foundation's record in precisely this
area of educational grant selection and evaluation over

a four year period, from 1975-1979.

Review of the Literature

A review of the basic foundation literature revealed
a moderate number of general texts on private and cor—
porate philanthropy. Alan Jones' (1972) thorough search
in the 1960s found nearly three-fourths of these sources
were simply reportorial, i.e., descriptive, historical, or
biographical. The remaining books and articles, including
many journalistic accounts, pressed specific viewpoints,

either critical or supportive of foundation work.

 

10Northwest Area Foundation. An Approach to Keeping
Independent Colleges Independent. Saint Paul, Minnesota,
Independent College Program, 1973-1975, p. 8.

11

Our search for foundation literature on grant selec-
tion and evaluation produced a meager number of references.
In Jones' literature survey, he located no books at all on
the assessment of foundations or its programs. A later
bibliography compiled by the Council on Foundations in 197A
listed scattered articles, reports and chapters on evalua-
tion, but, again, very few books.

Most current writings in the general field of philan-
thropy do mention the need for assessment of foundation
grant behavior, and more recent general texts on founda-
tion management routinely plead the case. Orville Brim,
Jr., (1973), in an article aptly titled, "Do We Know What
We Are Doing?" asserts that hardly a half dozen published
reports exist on any substantial efforts at evaluation of
foundation activities. Our literature review brought us to
the same conclusion.

There exist a few studies of merit, like Suchman and
Rieker's study (1969) of the Maurice Falk Foundation Medi-
cal Fund, the Struckoff study (1970) of the New Haven Founda-
tion, and a few other internal foundation evaluations, not
publicly distributed. Brim cites serious scholarly un-
published reports of funding programs from the Rockefeller
Foundation, Ford Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation,
and John and Mary R. Markle Foundation. Russell Sage
has conducted various evaluation experiments, both short

and long-term, one based entirely on an intensive examination

12

of foundation documents and records.

Brim (1973), more than any other foundation writer,
makes the most persuasive case for the need to link
evaluation knowledge to foundation decision-making. His
argument builds on the fragile position foundations hold
in American society, their vulnerabilities brought on by
their unique tax status, their new competition for fund-
ing areas with the federal government, and their political
detractors and social critics.

Knowledge gained from evaluation, states Brim, should
have more than personal interest to foundation adminis-
trators, for it may help sustain foundations in American
life. He sees a very important role for evaluation re-
search on foundation behavior, informing the policies
and techniques, and providing insights from inter-project
comparisons.

At a more local and personal level, Brim argues there
exists no pool of shared knowledge among foundation ex-
ecutives on many of the most crucial day-to-day aspects
of their jobs, no codified information available about

grants and their outcomes.

The fact is that . . . tens of thousands
of decisions about what areas to go into,
how the site should be selected, which
persons should receive money to do the
work, when it is time to change, and how
a project should be administered, are
based on such information and personal

13

predilection as the administrator may 11
have accumulated at that stage of life.

Other foundation authors voice similar complaints.
Zurcher and Dustan's research (1972) revealed the greatest
frustration felt by foundation administrators was caused
by the failure of a foundation to evaluate performance and
measure what it does.

With the idea that foundations develop the skill
of constant self-improvement, increasingly, other writers,
such as de Bolman (1970), Mahoney (1976) and Whiting (1970)
strongly urge the regular use of well conceived assess-
ment techniques. Whiting, for example, argues that since
foundations have sponsored change in organizations be
by large sums of money, they need to exercise the respon-
sibility that flows from such activities through some
public accountability. He goes so far as to say he con-
siders it wasteful and irresponsible for a foundation to
make a grant and then stand back and not monitor its
progress toward declared goals (Whiting, 1970). Mahoney
urges foundations to focus beyond the needs of daily
management and view evaluation as an internal planning

and programming tool designed to improve grant-making

 

11Brim, Orville G., Jr. "Do We Know What We Are Doing?"
In Fritz F. Heimann, Ed. The Future of Foundations. New
Jersey, Prentice-Hall, 1973, p. 218.

1A

decisions.

In summary, many decisions about funding rely on little
or inferior information about the consequences of action.
Generally, the way in which a foundation makes decisions
remains a mystery and lends no understanding to the total
enterprise itself. Through this inquiry into a founda-
tion's grant-making behavior, we provide basic knowledge
about internal foundation administration and its impact
upon higher educational institutions.

As background to our evaluation of the Northwest
Area Foundation's educational funding program, we present
in Chapter II a descriptive account of the historical and
current relationship between private foundations and higher
education institutions. Chapter III describes the method-
ology employed in our study, and Chapters IV and V present
our analysis of the grant review process and findings on
proposal selection. In Chapter VI, we describe the grant
evaluation process and our assessments of college out-
comes. Our conclusions and recommendations for future

study comprise the final chapter.

CHAPTER II

BACKGROUND FOR THE STUDY

Introduction

 

For the past eighty years of foundation philanthropy,
its relationship with higher education has changed signif-
icantly, from its former dominance in the founding of the
early colonial colleges, to its diminished status in
educational budgets of today. Whatever the pattern, his-
torical perspectives on this relationship and on the
primary areas of discord and harmony between the two
parties provide an inter—organizational context in which
to consider the impact of a foundation's grant program
upon liberal arts colleges.

Since the emergence of the first U.S. private founda—
tions at the beginning of the twentieth century, university
and college officials have publicly praised professional
philanthrOpy, while consistently criticizing it on several
counts: inequitable distribution of grants among their
institutions; political maneuvering in grant-getting;
attempts to control academic programs; and an exaggerated

concern for funding innovation, yet fear of controversial

15

16

subjects.

Further, private foundations through the years have
been accused of using their funds to dictate study areas,
thereby weakening the purposes and priorities of higher
education. According to these critics, foundations are
to blame too for diluting the academic instructional
force, by making faculty highly mobile and independent,
and for imposing financial burdens on educational institu-
tions as by—products of short-term grants.

For private philanthropy, the relationship between
financial sponsorship and institutional autonomy appears
less troublesome today than it did earlier in this century,
when foundations were charged with infringements into the
legitimate sphere of higher education. But, even now,
project autonomy at times becomes confused with academic
freedom, and the same charges, less strenuously stated,
of inequity, interference, politics, and conservatism
follow the foundations from one decade to another.

The classic "hands-off" view of the relationship
between the grantor and the grantee explains the minimal
grant appraisal efforts present in foundation administra-
tion, and the uneven evaluation expectations among
foundations today. Especially in higher education grants,
foundations have shown an historical reluctance to "in-
trude" into scholarly endeavors.

The original conception of the foundation grant as

17

a gift requiring no reciprocal counteraction or mutual
return, assumed little, if any interaction between the
donor and donee. Foundations rarely displayed expecta-
tions of tangible results, and colleges and universities,12
on their part, recognized few obligations of account-
ability. But, as Paul Dressel (in press) has observed
recently, maintaining institutional autonomy depends upon
responsible and successful performance and public evi-
dence of accountability. In short, these kinds of his-
torical misunderstandings and conflicts reveal assumptions
in past interactions between foundations and higher educa-

tion that continue to effect their contemporary relation-

ship.

 

12Because of the cumbersome phrase "colleges and uni-
versities," throughout this discussion our references to
universities are intended to apply to colleges as well.
In later chapters where we examine the grant selection
process and evaluate project outcomes, the majority in
our sample are colleges, so we will revert to that use.

18

Historypof the Relationship Between Higher Education and
Private Philanthropy

Individual Philanthrgpy

Over a span of some 350 years, private philanthropy
through individual donors shaped early American higher
education, as the primary and on—going source of its
development and stability. Predating the rise of private
foundations, came the dramatic philanthropic creations of
single private colleges by wealthy benefactors. With
few exceptions, the original colonial colleges were largely
the product of voluntary giving, beginning with the found-
ing of Harvard College in 1636.

Early private philanthropy promoted the diffusion
and diversity of these colleges, and provided the financial
support for their nourishment and expansion as the nation
grew. College benefactors were prompted by desires to
establish and sustain these institutions and support
traditional educational goals, not to effect changes
in education philosophy or programs (Curti and Nash,
1965). Donors of this era regarded the actual existence
of the colleges as more significant than the particular
curricula they dispensed. The achievements of colonial
college philanthropy, then, rest not in the departures
it pioneered, but in the base it created for later expan-

sion.

19

In the 86 years between the Revolutionary War and
the passage of the Morrill Act, individual philanthropy
financed a fifty—fold increase in the number of American
colleges, including women's institutions. It was only
after the Civil War that the conception of the modern
university grew, and the use of gifts by donors for their
own educational approaches. During the latter half of
the nineteenth century and into the twentieth, philan—
thropic donors pressed for a redirection of the classical
curriculum toward more utilitarian training for the
emerging class of merchants and entrepreneurs. The great
fortunes of this new elite were put to use in reorienting

the educational preparation of the nation's college students.

The Rise of Philanthropic Foundations

General patterns of private giving moved from rela-
tively small-scale donations to a period of lavish gifts
in the hundreds of millions. Historians of organized
philanthropy document the rise of philanthropic founda-
tions in the United States only after the rapid indus-
trializationtfluu3took place in the later half of the
nineteenth century, resulting in vast accumulations of
personal wealth. Foundations as distinctive American
institutions, then, are a relatively new development,

evolving from the early 19008 to the present day.

20

For the effective distribution of such massive funds,
individual donors obviously needed the aid of autonomous
agencies. The private foundation, then, created for this
purpose, steadily increased its numbers and grew diverse
in type. With its growth came the realization that col-
leges and universities represented social institutions
well suited for the translation of private wealth into
educational and cultural advantages. Foundation aid to
education reflected the American belief in study and
learning, and a faith that they could be marshalled ef—
fectively for the betterment of society.

But philanthropic giving through foundations differed
significantly from previous patterns of giving to American
higher education. First, it did not seek to establish
new institutions, but to strengthen existing ones. In-
creasingly, after 1920, foundation giving shifted from
palliative and charitable motives to preventive and con-
structive ones, with benefactors viewing their wealth as
a way to initiate societal and educational reforms that
they themselves proposed. In addition, foundation giving
moved from support for instruction to research and dis-
covery, and from general endowment to concentrated funding
for specific projects (Brubacher and Rudy, 1968).

Again and again,private philanthropy found its natural
ally in the college or university. Because of the many

commonalities in viewpoint and ideals between these two

21

new social institutions, early American foundations and
colleges developed a mutually dependent and beneficial
relationship. writing in 1930, Frederick Keppel pointed
to the similarities between the two institutions in
structure and personnel. He observed that the responsi-
bilities of the trustees in both organizations control

finances and the direction of activities. In addition,

in both, important decisions are based
on group rather than individual judg-
ment and derive their significance from
this fact . . . permanent foundation
executives have had their training in
universities . . . (and) whenever a
foundation needs temporary help, it
turns uniformly to the university.

Ernest V. Hollis (1938), an authority on university—
foundation relations, observed that the values emanating
from both organizations, as well as the administrative
devices directing both, are strikingly parallel. More
contemporary accounts by Morison (196A), Raffel (1965),
Kunen (1969), and Zurcher (1972), emphasize the parallel
backgrounds of foundation and university personnel, their
mutual dependence and desire to conform to the prevailing
sentiments of the time.

With the rise of the major American foundations of

 

l3Keppel, Frederick P. The Foundation: Its Place in
American Life. New York, MacmilIan Co., 1930, pp. 10-11.

22

Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Russell Sage, foundation
spending on higher education became an expected and tra-
ditional category of expenditures, and often the largest
recipient of all funding areas. The private foundation
literature cites countless examples of educational ac-
complishments directly traceable to philanthropic support:
in medical education, in pension systems and salary im-
provements for faculty, in systematized college financial
records, in general education surveys, student aid, and
in higher education for Blacks and women.

Through conditions philanthropists imposed upon their
donations, these major foundations were instrumental in
defining the American college and exacting standards
non-existent before. Our current distinction between
secondary and college level instruction, as well as the
elevation of the quality of the undergraduate curriculum
and admissions standards, originated from guidelines
established by early educational philanthropy (Rudolph,
1977).

Foundations, then, like individual philanthropy before
them, were no longer content with using their endowments
to preserve and strengthen traditional educational pat-
terns. By judicious placement of their donations and
grants, they promulgated specific educational reforms.

Nevertheless, the startling growth of private founda-

tions after 19A0 was not enough to carry the major burden

23

of expenses for higher education, as it once did. Even
the giant foundations found themselves unable to keep

pace with accelerated educational costs. For example,
annual appropriations to higher educational institutions
moved from 15th in the early days of Carnegie philanthropy
to lAOth by 19A0 (Curti and Nash, 1965).

For most foundations, the possibility of acting as
a dominant force in American higher education dissolved
with their loss of financial power over these institutions.
Very few private foundations could give on the colossal
scale of the Ford Foundation, as in its $210 million to
630 private liberal arts institutions as income invest-
ments to raise faculty salaries. Since most foundations
could only provide a small percentage of the colleges'
financial needs, they turned to more narrow, specialized
funding of pilot projects.

In those instances where foundations continued to
assist private liberal arts colleges, they often insisted
that the colleges strive to serve a region and a clientele
that no other college served, and that they pursue a
unique institutional mission (Danforth News and Notes,
1969).

Over the decades, colleges and universities have
gained inestimable advantages from their relationship
with private foundations, but, simultaneously, have

experienced definite liabilities and frustrations.

2A

Curti and Nash (1965) write that while foundations were
the chief support of early higher education, they also
permitted a proliferation of inferior colleges of low
academic quality, by scattering their resources too
thinly and indiscriminately. Our next section elaborates
some of the most frequent conflicts that disturb the

foundation-higher education relationship.

Unequal Educational Funding

Over the years, foundation critics have pointed to
the inequitable distribution of grants among higher educa-
tion institutions and among the academic disciplines them-
selves (Hollis, 19A0; Flexner, 1952; Goulden, 1971; 32
1973). According to these critics, foundations unfairly
favor prestigious educational institutions, those that
already have ample endowments, so the concentration of
funds reach only a few colleges and universities. To
support their argument, they cite Hollis's findings that
up until 19A0, 73 per cent of all foundation giving to
higher education went to 20 universities and that over 800
American colleges did not receive a cent (19A0).

A Council for Financial Aid to Education study (The
Committee on Private Philanthropy, 1977) confirms the
unbalanced nature of funding, citing more than three-

fourths of all reported gifts go to private institutions.

25

Data from 1972-1973 show private colleges receiving 78
per cent compared to 22 per cent for their public counter-
parts. And, among private institutions, the major ones
receive over half of the total gifts.

A recent survey undertaken by American College Testing
(1975) reports that for the four years analyzed between
1963-1970, most large foundation grants went to a small
number of colleges and universities. Of the 295 colleges
in the sample, five received more than 28 per cent of the
funds and 25 received over 60 per cent.

Russell Kirk (1961) asserts that foundation grants
favor science over the humanities each year by overwhelm-
ing percentages, and John Robottom (1976) documents the
paucity of philanthropic funds allocated to community col-
1eges. Furthermore, foundations' current preference for
funding research efforts over instruction works to the
great disadvantage of liberal arts undergraduate colleges
competing with research universities.

Foundation officials do not dispute unequal funding
of educational institutions. They justify this distribu-
tion by claiming that funding cannot be uniform since the
quality of scholarship and productivity of higher educa-
tion institutions are not uniform. The best researchers
and scholars congregate at the more prestigious institu-
tions, where there is an abundance of facilities and

resources, and a successful record of past performance.

26

Concentrating funds in these strategic institutions, say
foundation officials, increases the probability that grant

achievements will be forthcoming.

Politics in Grant-Getting

Aside from the distinct advantage or disadvantage of
what institution you represent as an aspiring grant appli-
cant, it also counts who you know (Landau, 1975). Personal
contacts with foundation officials and trustees, rather
than the grant proposal's merit, sometimes increase
chances of obtaining funds. Three studies document the
importance of foundation contacts in grant-getting.

The first, by a vice-president of one of the most
prominent fund-raising firms, analyzed ten successful
grant applications; he found that only two were carried
out without trustee-to-trustee contacts between the founda-
tion and the colleges (Goulden, 1971).

A "proposal-success" study undertaken at San Diego
State University of both faculty who had been awarded
and declined grants found successful proposers had made
many more agency contacts than had unsuccessful ones, but
that the contacts were less personal and more proposal-
related in tailoring requests to foundation suggestions
(Sladek, 1977).

The third study of the role of personal contacts in

27

winning grants was undertaken at The University of Michigan
(Jones, 1972). The results showed that of 38 awarded
grants from private foundations, all but four involved

some personal bond between the university recipient and

the foundation. In most cases, personal friendships or
mutual memberships as consultants or trustees brought the

two parties together originally.

Use of University Development Officers

Related to the politics of grant getting is the current
practice of employing university public relations or
development officers in negotiations with private founda-
tions. In the early colonial colleges, private philan-
thropy was so crucial to their existence that its solicita-
tion was usually entrusted only to the highest administra-
tive level. It was not until 1918 that Harvard became the
first academic institution to employ a professional fund-
raiser (Curti and Nash, 1965); today, many colleges and
universities hire private firms to build and conduct
special financial campaigns.

Use of development officers as liaisons between higher
education institutions and private foundations receives
criticisms from officials at both institutions. Some
university critics disdain the entrance of businesslike
salesmanship and financial promotion in an academic en-

vironment. One of the most vocal critics, Jacques

28

Barzun (1968), decries this relationship of intellect
to money, and its influence in making the college president
a fund solicitor as well. He summarizes the characteris-

tics of a university president as

. . demoted from educational leadership

. . a public relations man, a fundraiser,
a bureaucratic troubleshooter, . . . ab-
sentee landlord, and traveling salesman.1u

Other critics write that the college president's success
is often measured by the money he attracts (Demerath,
1967).

Barzun, the academic, is joined by Warren Weaver
(1967) and other philanthropoids in viewing development
staff with suspicion and distaste, as "salesmen for their
institutions." Weaver concedes that the coordination of
a university program of financial support is sufficiently
extensive and complex to warrant a separate office and
specially trained personnel. What disturbs him is the
use of these officers interposed as university representa—
tives to foundations, in place of the faculty grant
originators.

John Russell (1977), for years assistant to the presi-

dent of the Carnegie Corporation, goes further and

 

l“Barzun, Jacques. The American University. New York,
Harper and Row Publishers, 1968, p. 112.

 

29

admonishes development personnel to stay on their campuses
and out of foundation offices; instead, he advises them

to erect a comprehensive information system and program
of financial support of use to their presidents. Others
are offended by the manipulative attitude toward donors
and foundation officials conveyed by university fund-
raisers, detracting from the dignity of higher educa-

tion administration.

The common practice of submitting grant applications
dreamed up to fit particular foundation guidelines, and
shoddy money-raising behavior, have produced, in some
institutions, a code of ethics on educational fund-raising.
Colleges and universities have found that unethical conduct
by development personnel has other negative consequences;
since proposals are often fashioned around the predilec-
tions of the donors, and designed not to offend or provoke,
this frequently eliminates innovative ideas or risky
ventures, and discourages imaginative grant writing.

lkmeuniversity fund-raising literature elaborately
advises development officers on how to shed this reputa-
tion and most effectively approach private foundations.
The most current materials emphasize preparation and
research rather than the cultivation of personal friend-
ships and manipulation of contacts (Landau, 1975).

Foundations also instruct development officers to

carefully screen the many funding sources available and

30

then identify and match their institution's educational
programs to foundation interests and objectives. Knowledge
of the current grant patterns, claim the foundation offic-
ials, will greatly enhance the professional fund-raisers'
approach to foundation support (Broce, 196A).

University development and fund-raising activities
tend to be centralized, and under the close direction of
the president. Less often, the development office is de-
centralized under each major dean or school. However it
is structured, foundations complain that colleges and uni-
versities have no clear policy on forwarding proposals.

Some institutions insist upon a formal approach with
clearance from central administration and negotiations
carried out by development personnel. Others encourage an
informal approach, permitting inquiries directly from fac-
ulty members. Both approaches sometimes occur within
the same institution, causing misunderstandings and con-
fusions.

University administrators admit they lack clearly
established procedures for deciding how much responsi-
bility to give development officers and whether they should
represent the university's side in negotiations with founda—
tions. Even less clear to them is the role of the grant
originator himself, and at what point he should enter
into the negotiations -- at the beginning, after the pre—

liminaries are over, or not at all. Whatever is decided,

31

both sides agree that clear and consistent institutional
policy should direct the behavior of both foundation and

university officials.

Foundation Dependence Upon Universities

Despite foundation reservations about how universities
go about applying for funds, historically, foundations have
demonstrated a strong dependence upon higher education
programs, knowledge, and scholarship. From the earliest
days of foundation philanthropy, until the present, educa-
tion consistently remains the largest single area of founda-
tion giving. We described earlier that foundation adminis-
tration often derives its staff, trustees, and special
advisers, and much of its ideas and program legitimacy,
from university and college campuses.

McGeorge Bundy expressed foundation dependency this

way:

The oldest and strongest of the ties that
connect (the Ford) Foundation to other parts
of society are those that bind us to the

world of education. We depend upon learned
men for advice and special study on nearly
every subject we take up. More deeply still,
we have supposed, from our very beginning,
that the health and strength of American
education was in and of itself of central 15
importance to the national we11——being (1968).

 

15Bundy, McGeorge. The Ford Foundation. Annual Report
1968, p. xvii.

 

32
And, Burton Raffel (1965) pOinted out,

. . . to whom would the foundations turn,
in administration and in program, if the
universities were not there? 5

Frederick Keppel's observation made in 1930 needs little
modification today:

The foundations have learned by experience
that one of the most satisfactory ways of
disposing of their burdens of responsibility
is to lay them upon the universities as op-
erating agencies .17

Both higher education and private foundations are en—
gaged in similar objectives of advancing human knowledge
and understanding. But the current degree of dependence
between them varies by size and type of institution and
is often far from reciprocal. In spite of the rapid
growth of private foundations after 19A0, the large uni-
versities have grown even faster, and came to rely heavily
on legislative appropriations and federal grants. Small
liberal arts colleges find themselves heavily dependent

upon foundation support, but universities today View

 

l6Raffel, Burton. "A Critique of American Foundations."
Foundation News, May 1965 (Vol. 6, No. 3), p. A7.

l7Keppel, pp. cit., 1930, p. 11.

33

foundation money only as an enticement, not a necessary
or significant portion of their budgets.

The relative independence, then, of the universities,
contrasts with the real dependence of small colleges,
to produce inconsistent grant-making behavior among founda-
tion officials. Depending upon the particular grant ap-
plicant at hand, the authority of the program officer's
role diminishes or increases, thereby affecting the
equality with which all grant applicants are treated.
To complicate the relationship even further, psychologists

believe,

. . . the root of much of the resentment
of the academic, scientific, and scholarly
community toward the foundation officer
lies in the nature of his position, which
requires him to be their judge and evalua—
tor. When he rejects a prOposal, it is
interpreted as an adverse ruling on both
the applicant's ideas and his capabilities.
And since foundations have to decline more
than 90 per cent of all proposals, the
foundation officer constantly increases
the number of disappointed and resentful
applicants (Nielsen, 1972).18

 

18Nielsen, waldemar, The BigpFoundations. New York,
Columbia University Press, 1972, p. 32A.

3A

University Autonomy and Foundation Control

Just as foundations have been perceived as overly
dependent upon higher education, ironically, they have
been charged also with exerting undue influence over
university personnel and programs. Especially before 1965,
writers of both the left and right expressed unanimous con-
cern over the "foundation scheme to entrap colleges"
(Candler, 1909); the use of foundation money to control
the choice of research topics (Laski, 1968; Millett, 1952);
foundation power exerted over the entire educational/
social system (wormser, 1958); and the intensification and
imposition of foundation bureaucracy at the expense of
university scholarship (Whyte, 1956).

In the early part of the twentieth century, success-
ful attempts by the General Education Board and the Car-
negie Corporation to raise the academic standards of the
nation's colleges brought accusations of "standardizing
higher education." Candler (1909), writing in this heyday
of American philanthropy, made wild allegations that
these foundations used "dangerous donations and degrading
doles" in a vast scheme for capturing control of American
colleges. Equally vehement were the charges by Rene
Wormser (1958) that foundations aided John Dewey in destroy-
ing the American educational system, and sucCeeded in bring-
ing most campus research under the influence of socialist

foundation trustees.

35

In the early period of foundation philanthropy, the
United States lacked any clearly constituted authority
empowered to establish and enforce educational standards.
The major foundations took it upon themselves to exercise
that coordinating influence. One author likened it to
foundations discharging functions performed in other
countries by the Ministry of Education (Morison, 196A).
Despite the critics of this precedent, writers agree that
these early foundation efforts resulted in higher cur-
riculum and student admission standards, improved academic
bookkeeping, desirable new teacher pension and insurance
plans, and developmental support for graduate and pro-
fessional education.

Until recently, the question of university autonomy
has been shaped by the classical relationship between
foundations and educational grantees, that is, once the
grants were made, foundations kept hands off. This implied
that any later contacts between the donor and the recip—
ient involved improper control, and that giving money and
giving orders were necessarily entangled. As we discuss
later, this traditional "hands off" policy of founda-
tions transforms, with time, into the desirability of
"hands on."

Dangers to university autonomy were feared not only
from direct foundation interference in university affairs,

but from compliant and eager faculty themselves who allowed

36

the temptation of money to shape their proposals. And
university administrators were rumored to deliberately
change the direction of a program or blow up an idea into
a project in order to comply with a foundation's latest
area of interest, only to move on to other activities when
foundation support evaporated.

Harold Laski (1968) accused foundations of promoting

the "executive professor,"

one who possessed skill at
getting grants, rather than one who had command over his
academic discipline. He argued that foundations didn't
consciously attempt to control universities, but that it
happened anyway just because vast funds were within reach.
Other university-based critics (Kirk, 1961; wormser, 1958)
charged that foundation grant procedures caused university
research to be brought down to a common level, oriented
towardtfluapractical and utilitarian, instead of the
scholarly and theoretical.

Another version of this complaint objects to founda-
tions taking the initiative and deciding themselves what
projects are worthy of support, forcing academic grant
writers to adjust their proposals to those interests, or
be denied. Freedom of investigation, from a faculty point
of view, involves funding grantees for what they want to
do within the foundation's categories of giving, instead

of what the foundations want the university grantees to

do. Some go even farther and agree with Jacques Barzun

37

(1959) that foundations should fund ideas, as he puts it,
"without strings, promises, or hopes." (The new John D.
MacArthur Foundation (News and Comments, 1979) exemplifies
Barzun's ideal philanthropy; they offer to fund scholars
for a minimum of six years in any projects, and without
obligation or pressure to produce anything.)

Historically, a continual tension has existed between
foundations and higher education around this question of
which institution should determine the nature of the
sponsored projects -— the academic community or the
philanthropic. As foundations gained experience and ma-
turity through years of grant-making activity, they no
longer perceived of themselves as passive selectors and
agencies transferring funds to the public, but as insti-
tutions with the responsibility of transforming educational
abstractions into societal realities.

Large sums of money came to be known as available
for the support of certain policies but not others. To
foundation officials, this method of operation coincided
well with the emerging role of their institution in
society. But to university people, it looked very much
like the arbitrary exercise of power by foundation
bureaucrats.

From the earlier conception of granting money pp
a university, the private foundation moved to a concep-

tion of granting money through a university. This shifted

38

the passivity to the university that became thought of
as ". . . merely an agency for enabling the foundation
to influence the whole of the culture" (Hollis, 19A0).

Rarely, have charges of foundation interference over
higher education programs been investigated formally.
Commonly heard criticisms in the 1950s and early 19608
of controlling behavior by foundations have been replaced
by fears of federal government intervention.

One research study (Jones, 1972) of the relationship
between philanthropic foundations and The University of
Michigan, looked specifically into charges that private
funds were wrestling control over internal educational
programs. From Jones' financial analysis of The Uni-
versity of Michigan's grant history, and his extensive
interviews with grant recipients, he rejects these allega-
tions as extremely improbable. The fact that private
funds averaged only 2.75 per cent of the total institu-
tional budget over a A5 year span supports his conclusions.

Jones grants that autonomy could be an important issue
for those colleges receiving almost 50 per cent of their
budgets from private foundations. His investigation did
support the claim that foundations gave greater support
to research than to instruction, that grants were un-
equally distributed among the various disciplines and col—
leges within the university, and that personal friendships

and foundation contacts greatly increased the chances of

39

funding. In most cases, Jones reports no further con-
tacts were made between the university and the foundation
once the grants were received, making influence attempts
by foundations difficult at best, and project evaluation
impossible.

Basil Whiting (1970), writing about the grantor-
grantee relationship, was never as convinced as his pre-
decessors of the "hands off" policy required of founda-
tions. He argued that, obviously, freedom of action is
necessary for intellectual progress, but that prevailing
attitudes regarding all foundation grants as the same and
requiring the same treatment are misguided. Many grants,
Whiting claims, are essentially agreements to certain
settled purposes and the performance of certain services,
hence, the issue is not the grantee's freedoms, but his
overall effectiveness.

Whiting tries to reconcile the need to respect academic
freedom with the need to monitor grant projects. As a
foundation officer himself, he takes the position that it
would be grossly irresponsible to stand back and watch
a grant project fail, when advice or additional assistance
could mean success. Just as foundations came to believe
they should less passively dole out money without ideas,
they also came around to the notion that they could
actively judge a grantee's efficiency and fidelity to pur-

pose without unduly interfering with his freedoms or

A0

internal institutional operations. This foundation activism
showed itself in the 19703 in grants to demonstrate ideas,
provide services, train people, and experiment with new
solutions.

When the foundations redefined their societal res-
ponsibilities to include advancing social progress and
justice, they simultaneously committed themselves, unknow-
ingly at first, to the evaluation of those projects.
Foundations desired to see certain actions accomplished,
and they could only ensure these accomplishments and the
quality of their execution if they were kept aware of hcw
the grantees were going about them. Whiting concludes
that when a foundation supports action, it inescapably
assumes responsibilities that overlap those of the
grantee (Whiting, 1970).

As the private foundation portion of the higher
education budget decreased over the years, so did the
concern about the possible invasion of university autonomy
by philanthropy. Foundation support in the 1980s repre-
sents a mere fraction of what it once was seventy years
ago. Small struggling liberal arts colleges, however,
may find their dependence increasing, yet not in any
position to be critical of their benefactors.

Another criticism of the influence of private founda-
tions is their perceived threat to the traditional de-

centralization of university structure. Just as

A1

centripetal forces centralize authority within the uni-
versity, W. Allen Wallis (196A) argues that matching
centrifugal forces operate to diffuse to outsiders the
authority formerly within. Once the university assumes
responsibility for various societal tasks, observes Wallis,
it inevitably reduces its autonomy and decentralization.
Due to external obligations, organizational arrangements
produce outside client loyalty, divided assignments, and
new delegations of authority.

So the argument goes that foundation grants increase
the mobility of faculty supported from outside, relieving
them of instructional activities and other internal
academic responsibilities. A mobile faculty tempts
university administrators to locate its important decisions
and controls more centrally. Controlling influences then
pass to the less changing and more predictable administra-
tive center of the university, creating a greater concen-
tration of authority.

Occasionally, foundation sponsors operate in a way
that supersedes university administrators, by dealing with
individual faculty or departments as entrepreneurs,
responsible more to them than to the universities. In
these instances, administrators object to their limited
"broker" role processing pay-outs and tracking grant
disbursements. Divided loyalties and conflicts of in-

terest undoubtedly arise when university faculty members

A2

have external sources of financial support. In addition,
departmental boundaries become confused when foundations
require that grantees focus upon a problem or social issue
rather than upon their traditional disciplinary fields.

Some large grants to individual departments bestow
independence and power that may disrupt expected rela-
tionships with other departments or colleges. In Jones'
study (1972) of The University of Michigan, a dramatic
case of long-standing foundation interference in affairs
of the Astronomy Department is as startling as it is rare.
The few documented cases of this direct interference
resulting from foundation grants show it to be the excep-
tion rather than the rule.

In recent years, theoretical fears of losing academic
autonomy from foundation practices have shifted to prac—
tical realities in relation to federal authorities.
Furthermore, government influence was likely to be more
disruptive than philanthropic, since federal grants, from
the beginning, emphasized public service, addressed public
needs, and more probably detracted from higher education's
central purposes of teaching and basic research. Even
though other social institutions exist that could assume
some of these public responsibilities, universities have
not shown the ability to be selective in accepting only
those sponsored activities compatible with their basic

purposes.

“3

Educational Innovation Versus Sustenance

Many of the same foundation critics who feared the
loss of university autonomy at the hands of private philan-
thropy, surface again on the issue of proper funding areas.
The question was and still is: Should the foundations
fund innovation or essentials in higher education? Should
the university or foundation decide where and to what
problems funds should be applied?

A chief tenet permeating the foundation literature
calls for the use of "venture capital" in risk-taking
educational experiments. Historically, the insistent
emphasis on innovative funding has been used as a basic
reason for the existence of foundations, and often stands
as its contemporary rationale.

Standard justifications, such as the need for pluralism
and diversity among educational institutions, have been
challenged by the foundation-government relationship. The
original raison d'etre of philanthropy rested on the premise
that there were spheres of activities in which the fed-
eral government had little or no active role, e.g., higher
education. Now the federal government has become very
active in all of the traditional areas of foundation
activity, including higher education, and their expendi-
tures in these areas are considerably larger than founda-
tions can ever hope to contribute.

This leaves private foundations with less contemporary

AA

relevance, some say an almost anachronistic existence.

But because foundations are less constrained by internal
and external demands than federal agencies and other social
institutions, this leaves them in a more flexible position
to engage in experimental and innovative ventures, and to
enter into controversial funding areas more readily than
others.

Foundation observers have argued over the years that
the unique capabilities and characteristics of private
foundations provide them with a distinctive and functional
claim to existence. It also obliges them to use this
institutional uniqueness in the service of experimental
and risky programs. At the same time, both university
and philanthropy-based critics disparage the foundations'
-recurrent emphasis upon innovation and change, since it
reduces attention and funding to regular educational
commitments. Keppel (1936) showed early concern for the
pattern of foundation funding that supported new under-
takings, often at the expense of the "essential and un-
sensational parts" of university operations.

Accusing foundations of working under the principle
of "compulsory newness," Barzun (1959) claims that by
funding the wrong areas, foundations neglect central
academic concerns and fail to buttress existing scholarly
pursuits. Other university critics (Calkins, 1963; Goheen,

1972) are disturbed by what they see as an exaggerated

A5

fascination by foundations with novelty and piecemeal
reform.

By continually inducing higher education to do some-
thing new or different, Calkins worries that the basic

financial structure of education can be undermined.

The danger is that necessary institu—
tions started by one generation may not
be supported and strengthened by the
next, but, instead may be drawn away
from their basic purposes into undue
preoccupation with novelty, reform,

and the latest fad for human improve-
ment.

Goheen insists that the foundation's change—driven
focus ignores the multiple ways open to philanthropy to
sustain and improve academic standards of excellence, the
quality of curricular programs, and educational efficiency
and stability. These critics view the foundations'
pursuit of innovation as one-sided, simplistic, and neg-
lectful of the broad middle ground between risk-taking
and more conventional giving.

The recurring theme at a national symposium of founda-
tions and universities in 1962 stressed the necessity

of reintroducing some balance into the principles of

 

19Ca1kins, Robert P. "Foundations and Education:
Facts and Opinions." Foundation News, November, 1963
(V01. A, NO. 6), p. 5.

 

A6

foundation funding. Innovation for innovation's sake
must be reduced, claimed the participants, accompanied by
an increased trust in the judgments of universities. In
1977, small colleges insisted that foundations reorder
funding priorities to include the basic need of institu-
tional sustenance. Instead of nurturing growth, they
asserted the evolving role of philanthropy should guarantee
the stability and quality of diverse educational institu-
tions.

The question of how to best use venture capital returns
us to the fundamental controversy over control: Should
the foundations pepye the purposes of higher education,
or should they try to define them? Emotions run high on
this subject. As an anonymous university critic wrote in

Foundation News:

If foundations judge universities to be
incompetent, they should spend their funds
elsewhere. But if they think universi-
ties are competent, then the universities
should be left to run their own houses.20

The foundation, like the university, has its own sense
of public responsibility and service. Thus, it may

propose projects that don't always coincide with higher

 

20"Foundations and Universities: A Small Symposium."
Foundation News, May, 1963 (Vol. A, No. 3), P. 10.

A7

education's current definition of basic purposes. Since
foundation resources are small in relation to the demands
made upon them by higher education, foundation administra-
tors frequently prefer to fund limited experimental under-
takings. Foundations insist they do not have the kind of
budgets that would permit broad support for on—going aca-
demic operations. That kind of general purpose support
has characterized corporate foundation giving, committed
to sustaining a system of diversified higher education

(Curti and Nash, 1965).

Educational Innovation Versus Playing—It-Safe

While one set of foundation critics chastized private
philanthropy for funding less essential experimental pro-
jects, another criticized foundations for not taking
enough chances with controversial subjects or risky ven-
tures. Private philanthropy has been commonly charac-
terized as funding safe, conventional educational projects
and institutions, rarely gambling on truly innovative
enterprises, despite its claims. The insulation of phil—
anthropy permits risks, including those projects whose
benefits may emerge far in the future, if at all. How-
ever, these "timid billions," as one critic called them,
have abdicated their risk-taking role, for their concern

with self-preservation and traditionalism (Embree, 19A9).

A8

In the early 19SOs,the Ford Foundation declared its
intention to abide by "the principle of ferment," i.e.,
to select innovations that would surely agitate change
and thought, even if generally disapproved by the public.
This foundation support would call attention to neglected
societal problems and would prompt other agencies into
action. So saying, Ford sponsored experimental projects
on television instruction and teaching machines. Yet,
later, they were accused of pushing these new techniques
onto higher education institutions that were unconvinced
of their usefulness, and disinterested in their application.

More contemporary grants contradicted Ford's prin-
ciple of risk-taking, as in a $210 million dollar grant
in 1965 to 630 liberal arts institutions. This time the
foundation carefully avoided any introduction of change in
those recipient campuses, which only brought out the
"playing-it-safe" critics once again. Even in the most
current foundation literature, studies like that of Stanley
Katz and Barry Karl (1979) conclude that Chicago philan-
thropic giving patterns are essentially traditional, un-
innovative, and unrelated to the obvious needs of citizens.

Throughout their history, it looked as though private
foundations would meet criticism in any direction they
might take. If they funded "safe" projects, they were
labeled conservative and unventuresome. Some of those

safe projects, when they proposed general purpose support,

A9

quieted certain critics. But others charged that the
only distinctive feature of foundations was their unique
opportunity to innovate, so if they rejected this func-
tion, they may just as well go out of business.

On the other hand, if foundations fund innovative
projects, critics blame them for neglecting educational
essentials and for producing a whole array of connected
budgetary, personnel and procedural problems for higher

education.

Grant-Related Problems of Foundation Sponsorship

Confusion of Higher Education Purposes

In 1936, Frederick Keppel charged that foundations un-
wittingly destroyed the general balance of higher educa-
tion institutions by their large grants. Echoing this
charge, modern day critics insist that funding benefits
are often overwhelmed by the residual hardships. Barzun
and others objected to the confusion of aims and workings
of higher education brought on by foundation activities,
to the weakening of focus and dilution of educational ob-
jectives caused by the lure of money. Jones (1972) cited
examples of foundations approaching The University of
Michigan with ideas they were prepared to finance, the
difficulties in turning them down, and the marginal

relevance these ideas held to internal institutional

fl)

.4.

.
a_~

‘u‘

“r:

“"0

b

-.
0...

50

goals.

Projects of no intrinsic interest to higher education
only assist the social purposes of the foundations, say
university officials. They create new academic programm-
ing, projects, and facilities that must sustain commit-
ment and personnel later when the grants terminate. For
their continuation, they sometimes drain needed resources

from traditional university expenses.

Added Financial Burden for Higher Education

University administrators are quick to point out the
variety of financial burdens imposed by short—term founda—
tion grants, in overhead costs, salaries, equipment and
building maintenance. Back in 1930, Flexner maintained
that by indiscriminately accepting foundation support,
universities "became poorer and weaker, rather than richer
and better," and that ". . . the asset of today becomes
a liability tomorrow."

The foundations counter that they are not paying a
university the total bill to do something they want
them to do, but paying part of the cost of something
the university itself wants to do. Requiring the uni-
versity to share the costs by either paying overhead or
matching funds provides some measure of protection against

losing academic autonomy, since the university presumably

51

would not put up its share unless it was fully behind

the project. If the university shows reluctance to assume
its responsibility for part of the costs, say the founda-
tions, then the university's commitment is put into ques-
tion.

The infinite financial needs of higher education,
estimated as a total yearly expenditure of $A2 billion,
forced private foundations,in recent years, to become in-
creasingly selective in the activities they sponsored.
With what Earl Cheit (1973) calls the "new depression in
higher education," colleges and universities, for their
turn, will have to pay greater attention to management
and expenditure control. They no longer have the luxury
of time, personnel, and resources to embark on projects
that have only tangential relevance to institutional priori—
ties.

The increased selectivity, then, works both ways --
the foundations, hoping to spark a limited but significant
innovation, and the universities, hoping to attract
foundation funds to special but essential purposes.

Just as a high proportion of federal money going to
higher education is not "aid" but rather a purchase of
services by the government, so have the foundations re-
defined the foundation—grantee relationship as more con-
tractual than gratuitous. Most foundations now consider

the award of a grant not as a gift, as it once was

52

thought, but as an agreement between two mutual parties,
joined in partnership to accomplish a common goal. Be-
cause, historically, philanthropic donations were con-
sidered unilateral transfers and not exchanges between
two parties, higher education officials never expected

to make financial outlays of their own. And, foundations,
for their part, resisted the notion that they could re-
quire something in return from universities, even in the
form of project results. This historical relationship
delayed long the idea of external review, accountability,
and evaluation.

Adopting what economist Kenneth Boulding (1962)
called the rule of exclusion, foundations have attempted
to maximize their behavior and decide what they will not
fund, and what they will expect of those they do. Over
time, foundations have moved from a position of altruism
to one of utility, with the expectation of reciprocal
transfers of resources. But the universities have not
caught up with current foundation thinking. The most
common and vigorous complaints still heard today concern
the payment of overhead and resistance to the notion of

project evaluation.

Dislocation of University Faculty

A frequently voiced criticism of foundation funding

of higher education projects points to an inevitable

53

strain on teaching resources, caused by increased faculty
attention to research. Because of outside sponsorship,
grant-getters frequently find themselves relieved of teach-
ing responsibilities or reassigned and promoted to ad—
ministrative positions.

The dominant and successful professors become those
who attract grants, an output almost as significant as
the publications they spawn. Once the grants are awarded,
say university administrators, individual faculty commit
too great a portion of their time to grantor activities,
at the expense of their university commitments.

The project approach used by the federal government,
and to a lesser extent by foundations, has concentrated
attention upon research rather than instruction. This
allows faculty to act as entrepreneurs responsible to
outside agencies, to move to other universities taking
their grant money with them, and to divide their loyalties
between two employers. This redistribution and disloca-
tion of university faculty, and its effects on under-
graduate teaching, are the subjects of countless articles

on the drawbacks of federal and foundation funding.

Cumbersome'Foundation‘Procedures

In the past, universities have expressed dissatisfac-
tions with the administration of foundation grants,

especially with ambiguities around submission of proposals,

no

.1

u)

5A

financial reporting, and grant renewal. They called for
streamlining procedures and standardizing the pre- and
post-award administration of foundation grant-making
(Committee on the Administration of Non-Federal Support,
197“).

Higher education had become impatient with the burden-
some time and effort it took to generate grants, the end—
less meetings and paper work, the interim progress and
financial reports, the arrangements necessary to contract
consultants, solicit faculty cooperation, and produce
evaluation reports.

Now that these same institutions have been exposed to
federal reporting requirements, they look more kindly on
the relatively simple demands made by foundation grants.
In a survey of 1,251 higher education institutions, more
administrators felt federal support had become less flex-
ible in the last eight years, and that private philan-
thropy had become more flexible. Given a choice, private
funding was preferred, in most cases. Federal sources
were viewed as imposing rigid constraints and guidelines
and overwhelming bureaucratic procedures. On the other
hand, private sources were considered more responsive,
personal, less bureaucratic and demanding, and willing to
give attention to special cases (Commission on Private

Philanthropy and Public Needs, 1977).

55

Public Poiicy Orientation of Foundations

Societal expectations that private foundations an-
ticipate areas of social change and finance institutional
adaptations to this change have compelled philanthro-
poids to divert their educational objectives toward those
of public policy and social action. In earlier years,
private philanthropy disclaimed any serious or pervasive
role in public policy development. Gradually, however,
foundations have set aside traditional notions of charity
for their new identity as independent, nonprofit, "third
sector" policy makers.

The current focus of foundation activities, conferences,
and writings concentrates upon this public policy role,
and reveals foundations'decreased reliance upon higher
education to help define it. The topic of the Annual
Conference of the Council of Foundations in 1978 centered
upon foundation participation in policy formation, and,
in the same year, the Rockefeller Foundation phased out
Education as one of its independent funding areas and
adopted others more policy-oriented, e.g., Conquest of
Hunger, Population and Health, Equal Opportunity, and
International Relations.

Foundation News, the central journal of private
philanthropy, enjoys quoting historians like Barry Karl
and Robert Bremmer on the point that one of the most

primary responsibilities of private foundations is

56

defining public policy questions on a long-range basis
(Foundations and Public Policy, 1978). Some foundations
have come to resemble applied social science research
agencies, with a sharply defined problem focus, designs
for research efforts, and a desire to direct public opinion.
The old belief that education would cure all social ills
has been replaced with the foundation's new surge of pride
in itself, its belief in its new policy identity, and its
active engagement in long-term public policy activities.
Some foundation officials have come to feel they
represent a great national resource of information and
advice that have operated on the sidelines too long.
Direct challenges hurled by Congressional officials like
Senator Hartke to either demonstrate their uniqueness
or go out of business, have hurried foundations into the
public arena (For Foundation Administrators, 1976).
Above all, foundations are eager to disprove waldemar

Nielsen's (1972) conclusion that

. . . if the justification for foundations
in the United States rests on the financial
transfer role which most of them serve,
they could probably be replaced with only
minor damage to voluntarism . . .21

Currently, foundations wish to be viewed not as agents

 

21Nielsen, 9_p_. cit., 1972, p. 1:05.

 

57

of continuity and status quo but as agents of change.
One important way they reacted to governmental interven-
tion into their funding territories was to increase con-
centration on the production of knowledge for government
follow—up sponsorship. Another contemporary reaction
challenges "third sector" colleagues to fund projects
government cannot do and which independent agencies are
in a position to do well, namely, the examination of the

limits and defects of government itself.

Foundation Sponsorship of Higher Education Today

The Foundation Center estimates there currently
exists 21,500 United States foundations. Their grants
in the 1970s totalled several billion dollars, but
represented only four per cent of the country's total
annual expenditures for education. The last two decades
have surfaced many new and worthy claimants for foundation
funds, but, somehow, yearly giving for educational pur-
poses still leads all others, averaging $592 million.
After education, the Foundation Directory (1977) lists,
in descending order of size of expenditures: health,
science, welfare, humanities, international activities,
and religion.

The financial demands of higher education continue
to soar, while the sheer magnitude of federal programs

greatly diminishes the current relationship between

58

universities and private foundations. Compared to
philanthropic grants to education of $592 million in 1977,
government and states contributed $2A billion. Private
giving has receded to the point where it is now well

under ten per cent of the higher education operating
budget (Commission on Priyate Philanthropy and Public
Needs, 1977). The needs of higher education, once almost
entirely met with private sources, are now almost entirely
met with public funds. The complexities and conflicts

in the government-higher education relationship dominate
many educational volumes, are the subject of study at 22
colleges and universities and of a special Sloan Foundation

Commission.

Summary

We have traced the linkages between private philan-
thrOpy and higher education from the foundation heyday
of the early twentieth century to the present day. From
the establishment and nurturance of early American col-
leges, foundations moved to the investigation of root
causes through research, and, later, to the more con-
temporary idea of social action based on knowledge.
Inevitably, the size of philanthropic gifts to higher
education, and the size and number of the institutions
themselves, significantly changed the relationship between

donor and recipient.

59

Ironically, many of the academic fears of bureaucratic
intrusions from foundation grant-making have not materi-
alized, but have entered, to some extent, into higher
education's relations with federal funding agencies.
Research universities have found themselves far more de-
pendent upon government grants than small liberal arts
colleges.

Conversely, Jenny and Allan (1977) demonstrate that
philanthropy remains twice as important to private educa-
tional institutions than to public. As financial condi-
tions in higher education become more severe, private
institutions will need additional resources of almost any
kind. College administrators contend that reduction in
philanthropy would result in operating deficits and losses
in educational quality. The Committee on Private Philan-
thropy (1977) argues that withdrawal of support of private
institutions will seriously jeopardize their survival,
and that, inevitably, funding priorities will have to be
reordered away from innovation and toward the basic needs
of institutional sustenance.

Our sample of educational institutions sponsored by
the Northwest Area Foundation falls into this category
of private liberal arts colleges and universities. In
Chapter III, we describe the methodology we employed to
evaluate their grant activities and the Foundation funding

program supporting them.

CHAPTER III

METHODOLOGY

Qualitative Study Design

This investigation employs the intensive case study

to evaluate the granting practices of a major American

foundation to liberal arts colleges. The methodology

we adOpted was one characterized by Weiss and Rein as:

(a)
(b)
(C)

process-oriented qualitative research;
historical research; and

case study or comparative research.

. . . the first characterization empha-
sizes the type of data which are col-
lected, the second emphasizes the method's
concern with the development of events
through time, while the third emphasizes
the utilization of a single case or small
set of cases as a basis for generalization
to a larger class.22

 

22Weiss, Robert S. and Rein, Martin. "The Evaluation
of Broad-Aim Programs: Difficulties in Experimental Design
and an Alternative." In weiss, Carol H. Evaluating Action

Programs.

Boston, Allyn and Bacon, Inc., 1972, p. 2A3.

60

61

The foundation literature was categorized earlier as
primarily descriptive, historical and biographical, es-
sentially devoid of theoretical direction. This fact,
together with the paucity of evaluation data on founda-
tion programs, call for an exploratory research design
that can furnish a wealth of information on program fea-
tures not now available and rarely studied systematically.
The interpretive and descriptive nature of a case study
analysis often reveals uncommon insights and richness in
detail by focusing upon internal pivotal processes and
illuminating the organizational context in which decisions
occur. It permits study in depth of the relations among
parts of a social system and between the parts and the
whole.

Besides its usefulness for internal program improve-
ments, our foundation case study furnishes preliminary
evaluation data that can be used to establish a baseline
for a future staging design, when the next round of educa-
tional grants terminate. Sequentially acquired grant
information could be gathered on a continuous basis,
and grant holders compared at different time periods.

Presumably, consequences of foundation-supported
projects are numerous and multi-dimensional; qualitative
study makes it possible to appraise varied outcomes, the
extent to which programs realize their initial objectives,

initiate adaptive strategies, and experience unintended

62

side effects.

Case study research does not have a set of clearly
delineated dependent and independent variables, and does
not create laws and conclusions that apply beyond the
subject matter described. Rather, it provides clues for
subsequent research and often precedes more quantitative
investigations. This case study should result in alterna-
tives to foundation management practices in grant selec—
tion and evaluation, whose usefulness can be tested in
future research.

A weakness of interpretive designs, like the case
study or ex post facto analysis, derives from the absence
of an explicit comparison group. A critical examination
of a broad funding approach like the Foundation's Inde-
pendent College Program, and the educational grants under
its sponsorship, unfortunately, preclude use of a rigorous
experimental design.

Weiss and Rein discuss the underlying difficulties in
the development of absolute criteria to judge these kinds

of programs.

It is not that the aims of the programs are
unformulated . . . but rather that they may
be specified in many different ways .
The administrators of a broad-aim program
are apt not to know in advance exactly how
the system change they hope to achieve will
manifest itself.2

 

23Ibid., p. 237.

63

Because of this, even if firm objectives are enumerated
before the changes are introduced, program administrators
will, nevertheless, direct increased program energies to
those areas that show early promise of success, whether
or not they were part of the initial aim.

Any attempt, then, to evaluate the success of these
kinds of fluid and flexible programs by careful experi—
mental design, requiring no alterations mid-program, be-
comes highly unworkable and untrustworthy. Both experi-
mental and quasi-experimental approaches call for static
and controlled conditions. In the case of a foundation
grant program, the situation is chiefly uncontrolled.
Freedom from certain accountability constraints permits
foundation administrators to modify, influence, or even
terminate programs mid-stream when not living up to their
original purposes, and often project directors, inten-
tionally or unintentionally, stray from early intentions.

An ideal experimental design of a foundation grant
program would demand that normally rejected proposals
be funded on a random basis, and approved projects turned
down in their place. However, foundation selection of
grant applicants, is based, ostensibly, upon merit and
promise, and anything but randomly assigned.

Also, in experimental studies, negative results are
not very helpful. Yet, a recognized and expedient

strategy of foundation administration is one that pays

6A

strict attention to negative aspects of an applicant's
track record as a guide to future grants. Obviously,
program failures may be constructive for they narrow the
field of funding directions and applicants.

When we considered a survey design requiring question-
naires on grantee opinions, we realized the responses
would lack information on the internal workings of the
grant review process. Also, it would put college grantees
in an awkward position at best to ask them to judge the
merits and demerits of their foundation sponsors. As
Joseph Kiger puts it: "Those who live in lively anticipa-
tion of foundation favors are understandably loath to give
forthright, unbiased, constructive criticism."2u Responses
from rejected applicants present even greater challenges
to objectivity.

In short, there exists no neat and definitive scien-
tific method for evaluating a foundation's on-going grant
activity. After reviewing various research approaches,
the intensive case study appeared the most feasible and
appropriate to the characteristics of the subject under
examination. The Foundation's excellent program and
administrative records provided necessary information from

all major parties participating in the grant review process.

 

2“Kiger, Joseph C. Operating Principles of the Larger
Foundations. New York, Russell Sage Foundation, 195A, p. 106.

65

The Sample

Our sample of higher education grant recipients in-
cludes 12 1975 Productivity Project grantees and 10 1976
grantees, totaling 22 colleges and universities listed

below:

1975 Grantees

 

Augustana College
Carleton College

Coe and Cornell Colleges
Concordia College
Gustavus Adolphus College
Hamline University

Lewis and Clark College
Luther College

Macalester College
University of Puget Sound
College of St. Catherine

1976 Grantees

Drake University
Graceland College
College of Idaho
Morningside College
Mount Mercy College
Reed College

College of St. Benedict
St. John's University
St. Olaf College

St. Scholastica College

wartburg College

The Independent College Program, under which these
grants fall, represents a departure from the usual Founda-

tion policy of making grants only for experimentation and

demonstration. The Board of Directors authorized their

staff:

. . to assist private colleges within
the Foundation's eight— state region to
preserve educational quality standards
of colleges while controlling the rapidly
accelerating costs.

 

25Northwest Area Foundation Annual Report.
Minnesota, 1978, p. 25.

Saint Paul,

66

College recipients for both years were awarded three-year

grants.

Data Collection

Data pertaining to our review of the Foundation grant
process, and individually supported projects, have been

drawn from four primary sources:

(1) Foundation files and records of critical docu-
ments relevant to the review process, i.e., Board of
Director minutes, grant guidelines, Advisory Committee
transactions, staff memos on grant deliberations,
selection and evaluation criteria statements, Founda—
tion annual reports and publications, newsletters,
press releases, site visit reports, requests for
proposals, Foundation correspondence with applicants,
evaluation reports, actions on approved and declined
proposals, grant agreements, and educational program
planning documents;

(2) A sample of declined proposals from the same
granting periods;

(3) Foundation project folders on each of the 22
college and university grantees, including their
original proposals, evaluation plans, progress reports,
Foundation and evaluator correspondence, and Founda-
tion site visit reports;

(A) Personal experience, observations, and research
of the Foundation evaluator.

Using these Foundation and grantee documents, we examined
administrative deliberations on grant-making to liberal
arts colleges, as they affect both proposal selection

and project outcomes, and the influence of one upon the

other.

67

Evaluation Approaches Guiding Study

Two evaluation approaches have influenced the direc-
tion of this study. The first concerns the role of evalua-
tion in program administration as elaborated by the

sociologist, Edward Suchman, in his book, Evaluation

 

Research (1967). As viewed by Suchman, evaluation, as

an aspect of program administration, becomes an essential
part of the entire administrative process, interrelated
with program planning, development and operation.

He examines the relationship of evaluation to knowledge
and action, finds them essentially connected, and concludes
that the primary significance of knowledge lies in its
guidance of action, with action rooted in evaluation.

Use of this approach in an examination of a foundation
grant program provides a setting for testing various ad-
ministrative procedures. "Evaluative hypotheses," says
Suchman, "are largely administrative hypotheses dealing
with the relationship between some programmic activity and
the attainment of some desired action objective."26
It is exactly this relationship between the Foundation's
programmatic activity in awarding grants to liberal arts

colleges and achievement of its goals for that program

that motivates this study.

 

26Suchman, Edward A. Evaluation Research. New York,
Russell Sage Foundation, 1967, p. 133.

 

68

Another attraction of this particular evaluation ap-
proach for our study is its applied aspect, i.e., its main
objective is to increase the effectiveness of internal
program administration. Evaluation techniques can be put
to use to streamline grant-making activities, weed out un-
productive efforts, or make them more efficient. Program
significance, rather than statistical significance, is
stressed; an independent variable is interpreted as having
a "significant effect" upon the dependent variable if the

observed change is judged administratively desirable.

 

Suchman's evaluation scheme is easily adapted to a

single organization setting, using his administrative cri-

teria of input and output: the relationship, in this study,

between foundation proposal selection and grant-making

deliberations as inputs, on the one hand, and educational

outcomes and social impact as outputs, on the other.
Using a progressive task sequence, similar to Such-

man's, we examine in turn:

(1) The central components of the grant review
process;

(2) The grant selection process;
(3) The grant evaluation process; and
(A) The cumulative impact of the above upon college

grant recipients' achievements and Foundation
program objectives.

Process or formative evaluation, as espoused by Daniel

69

Stufflebeam (1973), Michael Scriven (1973), and others,
represents a second evaluation approach influencing the
direction of this research. Advocates of process evalua-
tion claim it provides decision-makers with information
needed for anticipating and overcoming procedural dif-
ficulties, for informed decision—making, and for judging
project outcomes.

In the foundation world, process assessment is rare,
since foundation administrators seldom possess the needed
objectivity, expertise, or time required. Scriven charac-
terizes process investigation as yielding "dynamic hypo-
theses" since ". . . what is being called for is an
analytical description of the process . . . (and) an
interpretation."27

For our case study,we want the resulting detailed
record of the Foundation's review process to provide
information on how grant decisions are made, detect defects
and strengths in the procedural design, and yield corrective
information for its refinement. Chapter IV examines the
central components and operation of the grant review pro-

cess of the Foundation's Independent College Program.

 

27Scriven, Michael. "The Methodology of Evaluation."
In Worthen, Blaine R. and Sanders, James R. Educational
Evaluation: Theory and Practice. Worthington, Ohio,
Charles A. Jones Publishing Co., 1973, p. 70.

CHAPTER IV

THE GRANT REVIEW PROCESS:

DESCRIPTION AND DOCUMENTATION

Introduction

 

Following Suchman's evaluation scheme that matches
administrative input to the resultant output, we examine
here the Northwest Area Foundation's grant review process
and its influence upon the outcomes of grant projects.
Using a variety of Foundation documents and external
sources in piecing together the grant selection history
of the Independent College Program (ICP), we begin by
tracing the evolution and operation of the program over
two of its funding periods. Next, we critically assess
what the Foundation documentation reveals about the ef-
fectiveness of the grant review process itself, its
strengths and weaknesses.

This analysis is preparatory to Chapter V on proposal
selection, where we compare the actual proposals them-
selves -— 22 awarded proposals from our sample colleges
against 22 declined proposals from the same funding
periods. By this analysis, we assess the success of the

review process in selecting quality proposals.

70

71

Evolution of the Independent College Program

In 1972, a comprehensive survey of 70 independent
colleges in an eight-state region reinforced a 1971 recom-
mendation by the Directors of the Hill Family Foundation*
"to seek out ways the . . . Foundation could assist private
liberal arts colleges to control escalating costs while
maintaining educational quality."28 This survey, initiated
by the Foundation staff, studied college enrollments,
finances, and faculty compensation from 1967-1972, as well
as college administrator opinions and attitudes. Res-
pondents agreed that, aside from enrollment and student
financial aid problems, sharply rising instructional costs
constituted the major threat to their institutions'
financial stability, and they suggested the Foundation con-
centrate funding upon ways to improve the productivity
and efficiency of the teaching-learning process. Insti-
tutional stabilization, rather than innovation, became
fundamental to the Independent College Program's concern
for private colleges. This represented a significant shift

in the Foundation's traditional approach of supporting

experimental demonstration projects.

 

*
The Hill Family Foundation was later renamed the North-
west Area Foundation.

28Northwest Area Foundation. "Minutes of the Board of
Directors' Meeting." November, 1971, p. l.

72

The Program moved deliberately away from
developing new pursuits in colleges to
strengthening what they already had going.
The Foundation asked colleges what their _
problems were and then funded their ef-
forts to solve their own problems.2

In early 1973, the Foundation directors unanimously
approved the concept of the Independent College Program
(ICP), the appointment of an Advisory Committee to assist
in the review of college grant proposals, and the install-
ment of the first phase in Enrollment and Admissions.
Later the program came to include a second phase of Pro-
ductivity Grants, approved in April 1973, and a third
phase of Deferred Giving. This study concerns the second
productivity phase of college grants only.

Minutes of the directors' meeting granting approval
to ICP included, in addition, consensus upon a guiding
principle of educational funding for three to five years
following the first phase of 197A grants. The Foundation's

program in higher education should focus on projects

. . . which are directed to assisting inde-
pendent colleges and universities to in—
creasing income and slow down the rapid
increase in expenditures of these insti-
tutions. Grants will not be made to
independent colleges for other types of
programs, except in unusual circumstances,

29Northwest Area Foundation. An Approach to Keeping
Independent Colleges Independent, pp. cit., 1973-1975,

fl

p. 31.

73

during this period of emphasis on
increasing income and productivity.

30

In promoting this educational emphasis, the Foundation
fully recognized its shift away from sponsorship of public
or tax-supported institutions to the private higher educa-
tion sector. News of this new focus prompted a number of
statements of approval from the independent colleges them-
selves, and the Foundation came to be viewed as an insti—
tution with a major commitment to preserving the option of

private education in our society.

Selection of the ICP Advisory Committee

In the Board of Directors' instructions to the Founda-
tion staff, the Advisory Committee was to be composed of
three highly qualified educators, selected by the Board
and staff, with the Executive Director serving as chairman.
This committee would review and recommend to the Board,
through the staff, those college proposals most likely
to satisfy the objectives of the overall program; the
Board would retain its authority to approve or disapprove
each recommended proposal.

This procedure used in 1973 to select the first ICP

 

3ONorthwest Area Foundation. "Minutes of the Board of
Directors' Meeting." February 9, 1973, p. 1.

7A

Advisory Committee remained the procedure that the Founda-
tion used in later years, i.e., the directors and staff
propose an initial list of six or seven committee candi-
dates who submit resumés and undergo individual inter—
views. Of this group, three are invited back to serve
on the committee for a period of three years.31
Four individuals were selected in this manner, with
the Foundation's Executive Director as the fifth member
and chairman. The committee functioned by meeting for
intensive joint sessions with the Foundation staff around
funding periods, screening college applications, and

making recommendations for grant approvals or declinations

to the Foundation Board.

Grant Deliberations and Proposal Guidelines: 1975 Round

The ICP got underway in its first phase in December
1973 when the Board of Directors approved a total of 16
Enrollment and Admissions Productivity Grants for one-year
periods,* totaling $596,300. The chronology of events

which led to the second ICP phase of Productivity Grants,

 

31The Advisory Committee selection procedure was de—
rived from Foundation Board minutes, staff memos, and Foun-
dation correspondence with Advisory Committee candidates.

*

This round of one-year grants was described in the
197A Applicant Outline as possibly renewable, if the
institution achieved its goals and there was a need for
continuation of the project.

75

our subject of study, began with a staff mailing in
February 1975 of Productivity Guidelines for application
to all 70 colleges within the Foundation region.

These proposal guidelines requested preliminary pro-
posals on improving the teaching-learning process in higher
education, and very explicitly asserted the Foundation's
expectations that the Productivity Grants "reduce instruc-
tional costs while maintaining or improving acceptable
levels of academic quality."32 Proposals that sought
greater quality per instructional dollar fell outside this
productivity definition; proposals that sought current or
improved educational service from fewep instructional
dollars fell within its intent. The Foundation hoped to
select only those colleges that already possessed quali-
tatively sound academic programs, so that cost reductions
would not threaten already weak curriculum.

This 1975 productivity grant competition under ICP
was open to all private liberal arts colleges located in
the Foundation's eight state region, who have faculties,
to quote from the guidelines, "that will assume a share
of the responsibility for the colleges' financial survival,

and administrators who are willing to make crucial decisions

 

32Hill Family Foundation. "Guidelines and Application
Procedures for the Productivity Program." Independent
College Program, February 7, 1975, p. l.

76

now, before the "depression" of the 19803 takes its
toll . . . ."33 Financial support to these colleges
would be granted for three—year periods, a change from
the 197A one-year Productivity Grants.

The proposal guidelines also informed applicants
of specific questions to address in their preliminary
proposals on goals, means for achieving these goals,
expected project outcomes, anticipated cost reductions,
staffing of projects, timetables, and budgets. They
described a period of revision for those preliminary pro-
posals that met ICP productivity policies in the first
screening. Final proposals then have to be more fully
developed, contain program evaluation plans, and heed
suggestions from the Foundation staff and Advisory Com-
mittee.

In June 1975, after staff investigations of each
proposal, 1A preliminary proposals under the productivity
concept qualified for a second screening. Forty-three
colleges and universities originally applied in this
round of grants; narrowing these initial proposals down
to 1A promising candidates is the essence of the grant

review process.

 

33Ibid., p. 1.

77

Proposal Selection Criteria

 

A Board memo from the Foundation staff officer in

charge of the productivity phase cites a common set of
criteria employed for reviewing each of the remaining 1A
proposals. Other Foundation memos imply these criteria
were mutually agreed upon by the Foundation staff and
the Advisory Committee. The first criterion on reducing
instructional costs was given greatest weight, since it
reflected the primary intention of this phase of ICP.

The six criteria for reviewing proposals included:

(1) The proposed project should have a high prob-
ability of reducing the cost of instruction
without impairing the quality of academic
service.

(2) The proposal's objectives must address real
and compelling needs.

(3) The college must genuinely require Foundation
assistance in order to implement the project.

(A) The project must have a high level of ad-
ministrative leadership and support.

(5) The faculty must exhibit a climate of co-
operation and willingness to change, in terms
of the proposed project.

(6) The college should demonstfiate strength as a
liberal arts institution.3

 

3“Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo to Board
of Directors to Seek Authorization to Fund 12 Produc-
tivity Grants." May, 1975, pp. 2-3.

78

Other criteria that entered into the funding decisions
were variety in demonstration projects, proposals within
the Foundation's budget, and those that planned compre-
hensive revisions of academic programs. According to
Foundation officers, productivity proposals recommended
for funding complied with the criteria listed, while
declined proposals exhibited less agreement with the
criteria and received low ratings from the Advisory Com-

mittee.

Productivity Grant Declinations

In declining 29 of the original group of A3 college
proposals, a Foundation staff memo offered the following
rationales: the proposals either had little probability
of reducing instructional costs, or the size of the re-
quests went beyond the Foundation's budget for this pro-
gram, the costs of the project were greater than the
probable results, the proposals were poorly developed and
written, or the colleges were requesting support for pro—
35

jects they could carry out with their own resources.

Letters of declination were sent to the 29 colleges,

notifying them of the Foundation's decision not to fund.

 

35Ibid., p. 3.

79

Negotiations and Site Visits

After Advisory Committee deliberations eliminated 29
applicants, the Foundation staff made site visits to 10
of the 1A colleges remaining in contention. Foundation
memos described these visits as staff assessments of col—
lege and project leadership and of the feasibility of the
proposed projects. On the site visits, staff provided
applicants with feedback for proposal revisions from the
Foundation Advisory Committee, and encouraged use of out-
side evaluators and consultants. Letters preceding these
visits reinforcedtflMEproductivity criterion by requesting
"special emphasis be given to the expected cost reductions
that will result because of the project."36 Foundation
correspondence also shows that budgetary negotiations,
bringing financial requests more in line with ICP funding
guidelines, frequently occurred before the final grants

were authorized.

Productivity Grant Awards

In May 1975, the staff presented 1A proposals to the
Board of Directors for funding, but not for direct authori-

zation. After further negotiations with the colleges,

 

36Hill Family Foundation. Correspondence with Appli-
cant Colleges. March 19, 1975, p. 1.

80

two more applicants were eliminated from the grant compe-
tition. Later in the month, by unanimous Board approval,
over one million dollars in ICP grants to 12 colleges and
universities were awarded, and letters of announcements
were sent to the grantees. Each college received three-
year grants, from September 1975 through September 1978.
The names of the college grant recipients were listed in
the discussion of the study sample in Chapter III; the
Board had approved every applicant recommended by the
staff and Advisory Committee.

The final funded projects fell into five basic cate-

gories, but all under the productivity rubric:

. . . analysis of curriculum to cut out
low enrollment, non-essential courses and
majors; retraining and/or retiring faculty
who are displaced through the review and
restructuring process; reducing instruc-
tional costs through inter-institutional
cooperation with a neighboring college;
using student initiative for learning
through use of computer-assisted and
personalized systems of instruction; and
using superior upper-division students

in the teaching process to release faculty
for teaching more students.37

 

37Northwest Area Foundation. An Approach to Keeping
Independent Colleges Independent, pp. cit., 1973-1975,
p. 29.

81

Grant Finalization and Evaluation

Even after notifying the colleges they had been
awarded grants, the Foundation undertook a final stage
of grant negotiation, albeit the last. Grant recipients
were requested to meet individually with Foundation of-
ficials over the next several months to discuss the grant
in depth, the evaluation plan, and any further project
modifications suggested by the Advisory Committee. In
letters to the colleges in July 1975, grantees were urged
to submit a statement of specific project goals, the
methodology for attaining these goals, and a timetable
for project implementation. Clearly, this statement
represented the beginnings of an evaluation plan.

In a second requested document, the colleges were to
propose how they would evaluate the impact of the grant
activities on the pppp of instruction and the quality of
the educational process, the two Foundation criteria for
productivity effectiveness. Related to the cost of instruc-
tion, the colleges were invited to make use of the com-
puterized accounting systems developed by the National
Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS).
Several of the 12 colleges subsequently entered into a
cooperative agreement to share cost accounting informa-
tion for institutional comparisons.

The Foundation has a long history of promoting evalua-

tion of their sponsored projects. For the evaluation of

82

the 197A round of Productivity Grants, the Foundation
employed the services of Daniel L. Stufflebeam and his
staff at the Evaluation Center of Western Michigan Uni-
versity. Late in 197A, the Foundation decided, for various
reasons, to hire an internal evaluation expert rather than
rely on an external organization for future grant evalua—
tion. It was the evaluator's responsibility to review col-
lege evaluation plans and guide and monitor 1975 grant

38 The author

projects in their evaluation activities.
replaced this evaluator in 1977, working with the college
recipients primarily from her Michigan State campus
office.39
In the grant finalization stage, after the colleges
conferred with Foundation staff and the evaluator, and
once the documents described above were deemed adequate
for evaluation purposes, a grant agreement was drawn up,
signed by both parties, and grant payments commenced.
In several cases where the evaluation documents were not

sufficient, further revision followed before the grant

agreements were drawn and signed.

 

38Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo From Evalua-
tion Associate on Productivity Evaluation for the Founda-
tion." 1975, p. 1.

39Northwest Area Foundation. Correspondence with 1976
Grant Recipients Announcing the Services of Paul Dressel
and Dora Marcus in Evaluation of Independent College Pro-
jects. April 7, 1977, p. l.

83

The 1975 grant agreement specified the payment schedule,
described Foundation expectations of refined evaluation
plans, progress and financial reports, and reaffirmed
project assessment criteria of lowering instructional

costs while maintaining or improving educational quality.

Continuation of the Independent College Program: 1976
52229

In December 1975, with that year's productivity grant
projects launched, the Board of Directors authorized the
continuation of ICP, for another round of three-year
grants. However, this time, they abandoned the program-
matic emphasis held to earlier in the productivity phase,
and approved instead an unrestricted grant competition.
The 1976 college applicants could submit proposals in any
priority area of their choosing, not precluding, however,
previous priorities of the Foundation.“0

This shift in funding emphasis was permitted by a
Board approved decision to curtail future support of the
productivity phase, as well as the other two phases of
ICP, and move to less perscriptive funding arrangements.

Together with this recommended change, the Advisory Com-

mittee was terminated and arrangements were made for the

 

uoNorthwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo to Inde-

pendent College and University Presidents and Academic
Deans." December 15, 1975, p. 1.

8A

selection of a new and smaller committee.

From a field of seven candidates, two were selected
to serve on the new Advisory Committee, retaining one
hold-over of the previous committee to participate in the

selection process for 1976 ICP grantees.

1976 Proposal Guidelines and Selection Criteria

The sole criterion specified in the 1976 Applicant
Guidelines for judging college proposals was the "degree
of observable improvement (they) promise for either
the student or the institution."ul Forty-one private
colleges in the Foundation's region responded to the
call for proposals.

The following ten criteria, taken from an Advisory
Committee document, were employed to evaluate the Al

applications:

(1) Will the grant change the institution over the
course of the next five years?

(2) Will the grant-supported project sustain itself
beyond the lifetime of the grant, and have a
lasting impact upon the institution?

(3) Does the grant prevent the college from dealing
with real and serious problems?

(A) If the college is so concerned with the problem
addressed in the proposal, what evidence is
there that previous attempts have been made
to solve the problem?

 

ulNorthwest Area Foundation. "Guidelines for Appli-

cation: Independent College Program." 1976, p. 2.

85

(5) The innovative element: Unresolved. Education
is in trouble and needs new models. Is the
application innovative in some respect? If in-
novation is left out of the criteria, other
colleges will simply use the idea to get a
grant. Perhaps it's unrealistic for the Founda-
tion to expect innovation in such basic areas
as admissions, retention, fund raising, etc.

(6) Is the budget reasonable and justifiable?

(7) Is the project integral to the mission of the
college?

(8) Does the grant have broad acceptance by the
affected constituencies?

(9) Is there evidence that the applicant college has
asked the important contextual or environmental
questions which would impinge upon the success
of the project?

(10) Are evaluation plans present?“

1976 Grant Awards and Declinations

The new Advisory Committee screened the A1 applicants
and recorded their brief narrative evaluations and letter
grades on a rating sheet beside the names of each candi-
date, and then shared their ratings. Thirty one proposals
were declined for basic inadequacies in budget, in clarity
and focus, in feasibility, in degree of faculty involve-

ment and in imagination.Ll3 Site visits were made to

 

u2Northwest Area Foundation. "Criteria: Independent
College Program." June, 1976, p. 1; also selection criteria
cited in: Northwest Area Foundation. "College Report on
First Year of Productivity Grants." 1976, p. A.

u3Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo to Board
of Directors Recommending Funding Five Independent Col-
lege Projects and Declining 31 Applications." July,

1976, pp. 5-12.

86

those remaining applicants that received preliminary
approval by the Advisory Committee, to meet with college
administrators and project directors and discuss proposal
and budget modifications.

In the summer of 1976, ten ICP grants were awarded
for a total of approximately one million dollars for three
year periods, from September 1976 through September 1979.
The names of the 1976 college grant recipients were listed
in Chapter III under discussion of the study sample; again,
the Board had approved all the Advisory Committee recom-
mendations.

Post-award negotiations involving refinements of
evaluation plans and clarification of project objectives
occurred in the 1976 round of grants as they did in 1975,
and similar grant conditions were stipulated in agree-
ments signed by both the grantor and grantees. Unlike
1975, the 1976 recipients did not contract the services

of NCHEMS.

Effectiveness of the Grant Selection Process Judged from
Foundation Documents

The preceding section described the essential elements
of the grant review process employed by the Northwest
Area Foundation over the period of our case study, 1975-
1979, as revealed by institutional documentation and the

author's evaluation experience with the Foundation. Our

87

examination now extends beyond this description over

time to what Foundation records tell us about the effec-
tiveness of that process itself, and, in Chapter V, about
the quality of college proposals it produced. In Chapter
VI, we estimate the quality of project outcomes.

Based upon a content analysis of Foundation appli-
cant guidelines, proposal criteria, reports, staff memos,
surveys, Board of Director minutes, and other documents
transmitted during grant selection, we present our conclu-
sions on the deficiencies and strengths of that process.
These conclusions are bound by the limits of our avail-
able data, by our ability to detect connections and inter—
relations among the data components, and by the necessity

to verify statements with the Foundation written record.

Strepgths of the Selection Process

The commendable features of the Foundation's grant
review process for the 1975 and 1976 rounds of grant com-
petition fall into eleven categories. As we discuss each,
we refer the reader to the sources of evidence for these

assertions in the footnotes.

(1) College Needs Assessment: In keeping with cur-
rent evaluation theory that recommends a needs assess-

ment before embarking upon new educational or social

88

programs,uu the Foundation initiated a comprehensive
survey of all the independent liberal arts colleges in
their region before committing resources to a new funding

area.“5 To quote from a Foundation publication:

The answer (from the survey) we received
loud and clear, was that the major threat
to the survival of private education is
an economic one. We were told that the
colleges must find a way to increase in-
come, decrease expenses, and conduct the
busines of education in a more efficient
manner.

Therefore, the college productivity phase of ICP was
established on the basis of institutional data and recom-
mendations of the private colleges themselves as a major
commitment "to help preserve the option of private educa-
tion in our society." This action by the Foundation and
the manner in which it was decided, have been commended

by the private colleges themselves and by Foundation

 

uuBall, Samuel and Anderson, Scarvia B. The Profession

and Practice of Program Evaluation. San Francisco, Jossey
Bass Publishers, 1978, Chapter 1.

 

"5Northwest Area Foundation. Surveyppf Independent
Liberal Arts Colleges in an Eight-State Region. In Forma—
tive, Final Report on the Independent College Productivity
Program. Western Michigan University Evaluation Center,
January, 1975, pp. 2A6-277.

u6Northwest Area Foundation. "College Report on First
Year of Productivity Grants," pp. cit., 1976, p. l.

 

89

evaluators, and have provided focus for ICP's grant review
process. The survey's careful research and the persuasive-
ness of its data also formed the basis for the recommenda—
tion by these evaluators to continue productivity funding

after its first trial in 197A.“7

(2) Foundation Board Structure and Code of Conduct:
Possible conflicts of interest in awarding grants have
long aroused suspicions among hopeful applicants and the
general public itself. In response to this concern, the
Northwest Area Foundation established an unusual two-
board structure, consisting of the Board of Directors (an
operating board) entirely independent from the Board of
Trustees (an ownership board).148

This structure was introduced years ago to circumvent
any conflicts of interest or undue owner influence over
grant selection and other Board allocation decisions.

Few private foundations have adopted these safeguards
into their administrative arrangements.

In addition, the Foundation developed, and recently

revised, a special "code of conduct" for trustees and

staff, requesting full disclosure of outside affiliations

 

u7Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
Formative, Final Report on the Independent College Pro-
ductivity Program. January, 1975, p. 71; p. 155.

uBNason, _p. cit., 1977, p. A8.

90

(both business and non-profit) to prevent improprieties
in funding decisions.“9 This represents another ex-
ample of the Foundation's commitment to openness and ac-

countability.

(3) Proposal Guidelines and Application Procedure:
As early as 1956, the Northwest Area Foundation (then named
the Hill Family Foundation) furnished applicants with
yearly guidelines outlining steps in proposal preparation,
and described Foundation policies on funding. The edi-
tors of Foundation News (1965) found this practice suf-
ficiently unusual and commendable to single out the Founda-
tion,50 and F. Emerson Andrews, the notable authority on
private foundations, published a copy of the Foundation's
guidelines in his book, Philanthropic Foundations.51

Historically, the procedure for submitting foundation
applications has been said to be veiled in mystery, both
for the prospective applicant and for the foundation of-
ficials themselves. The philanthropic literature reveals

that the manner and approach to foundations varied con-

siderably, some funding agencies operating without any

 

ugIbid., pp. 81-82; Willman, Frederick. "Written
Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest." Foundation News,
May/June 1977 (Vol. 18, No. 3), pp. 51-52.

 

50"Foundation Applications: Some Guidelines." Founda-
tion News, January, 1965 (Vol. 6, No. 1), pp. 5—6.

51Andrews, pp, p13,, 1955, p. 183-

91

established application procedures at all. In the 19503,
foundations rarely printed and distributed applicant pro-
posal guidelines. Thus, the early leadership of the Hill

Family Foundation was recognized and widely emulated.

(A) General Information for Grant Appiicants: A
Foundation booklet entitled, "Information for Grant Ap-
plicants," informs colleges of the Foundation's history,
resources, programs and policies, and required information
from grant applicants about their organization, proposed
projects and finances.52 It further describes how the
Foundation's Board of Directors meet once a month to re-
view and act upon proposals, after staff investigation and
recommendations. It explains that the staff's investi-
gative work may take up to three months, and that proposals
are screened initially on whether they fall within the
general policy guidelines, and again on specific criteria
developed for that granting emphasis.

This information booklet cautions the applicants that
only about ten per cent of all proposals are approved.
Formal proposals must always be submitted if official
consideration is desired, but the staff welcomes prelim-

inary inquiries also. Any serious proposal includes a

 

52Northwest Area Foundation. "Information for Grant
Applicants." St. Paul, Minnesota, (no date given).

92

letter of intent by a top college administrator, support-
ing the project and the obligations it entails for his
institution.

The information supplied grant applicants by means
of this booklet and Foundation Annual Reports is probably
not as uncommon today as when the Foundation first initiated
it years ago. Philanthropic writers have praised the
Foundation for its early and constant concern with inform-
ing the public. For example, its general openness and
lack of secretiveness about its operations have been
noted by Joseph Goulden (1971), one who is usually con-
sidered a vehement critic of private philanthropy. He

writes:

In going through more than a thousand annual
reports, some decades old, representing the
output of more than a hundred foundations,
I found only one foundation which candidly
told which of its projects failed and why
-- the Louis w. and Maud Hill Foundation

. . But at other foundations, millions
of dollars can be dissipated without a
trace.53

Very recent findings from a study by the National
Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (1980), a nation-
wide coalition of organizations striving to increase

private philanthropy's accountability and public

 

53Goulden, pp. cit., 1971, pp. 77-78.

93

responsiveness, gave superior ratings to the Northwest
Area. Of the 150 largest U.S. private foundations studied,
Northwest Area received an "excellent" overall score in
voluntarily making foundation information available to the
public. Almost 60 per cent of the foundations in the
sample did not meet acceptable information standards, 36
per cent were found acceptable, and only A per cent (or
eight foundations), of which the Northwest Area scored
second, rated in the highest category of information dis-

closure, including applicant and grant information.

(5) Prpject Evaluation Plans: As evidenced in the
published guidelines in F. Emerson Andrews book, even in
1956 the Foundation requested that proposals include
information on the expected outcomes of a project, the
measures to be employed, and the value and possible use

5" This practice of requiring an evalua-

of these results.
tion plan as a blueprint for process evaluation continues
to this day. Aside from its value in process and summative
evaluation, the plan provides important clues to the review
panel screening initial proposals on the clarity of

project goals, objectives, and strategies for achieving

them.

The Foundation permitted evaluators employed during

 

514Andrews, pp. cit., 1956, p. 183, items 9-13.

9A

the 1975 and 1976 competitions to shape its policy on

the general format, level of rigor and specificity of ac-
ceptable evaluation plans; this openness to evaluator
judgments extended to the determination of evaluation
reporting requirements.*

Again, the Foundation showed leadership in the
philanthropic community by promoting an internal evalua-
tion capacity with evaluators on the staff, using an
Advisory Committee of external educational experts,
contracting external evaluators and evaluation agencies,
requiring self-evaluation from funded projects, and stag-
ing in-service evaluation training for staff and project

directors.

(6) Grant Agreement: Any foundation grant agreement
is, essentially, a statement of certain settled purposes
between two parties, and states a foundation's expecta-
tions of grantee behavior. The stipulations in the
Northwest Area Foundation's grant agreement both in
1975 and 1976 requested varied sources of information
from the grant recipients, i.e., progress reports, financial

reports, evaluation plans, and final evaluation reports.55

 

&
These conclusions are based upon college records and

correspondence of both evaluators employed by the Founda-
tion during that period.

55Northwest Area Foundation. "Grant Agreement and
Summary of Grant Agreement." 1975; "Grant Agreement and
Summary of Grant Agreement." 1976.

95

This information proves invaluable for formulating fund-
ing decisions on proposal renewals, and for judging the
track records of colleges submitting repeated applica-
tions. In other words, the terms of the agreement produced
a cumulative project record crucial for process and product

evaluation.

(7) Evaluation Recommendations to Improve Grant

Selection:

 

(a) The Foundation accepted the evaluation advice of
its contracted evaluators from Western Michigan University
regarding the 197A productivity projects, and extended
grants from one-year to three years in 1975 and 1976.

These evaluators found that one-year grants were
‘satisfactory for the exploration of a problem area, but
created serious problems in continuity, planning, staff
commitment, evaluation, and potential impact.56 They
proposed revising ICP's strategy toward multiple year
grants so that "a series of activities (can be) coordin-
ated toward some institutional productivity goal."57

The Foundation staff affirmed this shortcoming of

 

56Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
"Discussion Materials for the Independent College Pro-
ductivity Program," pp. cit., 1975, p. 5.

57Ibid., p. 21; Western Michigan University Evaluation
Center. Formative, Final Report on the Independent Col-
lege Productivity Program, pp, cit., 1975, p. 33.

95

This information proves invaluable for formulating fund-
ing decisions on proposal renewals, and for judging the
track records of colleges submitting repeated applica-
tions. In other words, the terms of the agreement produced
a cumulative project record crucial for process and product

evaluation.

(7) Evaluation Recommendations to Improve Grant

Selection:

 

(a) The Foundation accepted the evaluation advice of
its contracted evaluators from Western Michigan University
regarding the 197A productivity projects, and extended
grants from one:year to three years in 1975 and 1976.

These evaluators found that one-year grants were
'satisfactory for the exploration of a problem area, but
created serious problems in continuity, planning, staff
commitment, evaluation, and potential impact.56 They
proposed revising ICP's strategy toward multiple year
grants so that "a series of activities (can be) coordin-
ated toward some institutional productivity goal."57

The Foundation staff affirmed this shortcoming of

 

56Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
"Discussion Materials for the Independent College Pro-
ductivity Program," pp, cit., 1975, p. 5.

57Ibid., p. 21; Western Michigan University Evaluation
Center. Formative, Final Report on the Independent Col-
lege ProductivityiProgram, pp, cit., 1975, p. 33.

96

one-year funding and recommended to the Board of Directors
in January 1975 the initiation of three-year grants for
this program.58

(b) The Foundation accepted the evaluation advice
of Western Michigan evaluators to award larger budgets to
a smaller number of colleges in the 1975 round of grants,
to avoid spreading its financial investments too thin
over a large number of projects, as they did in 197A.

The evaluators argued that the 197A levels of funding
were not producing powerful strategies for institutional
change nor likely to result in enduring effects. They
recommended several alternate funding plans, one of which
advised the Foundation to increase program budgets mod-
erately and reduce the number of projects.59 In 1975,

12 colleges received larger concentrations of funds than
the 16 Productivity Grants in 197A, and over a three
year period; and, in 1976, ten colleges were awarded
three-year grants.

(0) The Foundation accepted the evaluation advice

of western Michigan evaluators to develop a consortium

 

58Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo to Board of
Directors Requesting Authorization to Continue Current
Programs." January 28, 1975, p. 3.

59Western Michigan University Evaluation Center. "Dis—
cussion Materials for the Independent College Productivity
Program," pp. pip., 1975, p. 22; Western Michigan University
Evaluation Center. Formative, Final Repert..., pp, 913,,
1975, P- 33-

 

97

of college projects for the pooling of resources, by
initiating a cooperative agreement of colleges using
NCHEMS accounting systems.60 These agreements were in-
cluded in the applicant proposals.

(d) The Foundation accepted the evaluation advice
of Western Michigan evaluators to develop specially written
productivity proposal gpidelines for the 1975 grants, for
the purpose of clarifying the productivity concept judged
unclear and undefined in the 197A productivity phase.61

These evaluators pointed out that it was the Founda-
tion's intention in the 197A Applicant Guidelines to allow
colleges to arrive at their own definitions of educational
productivity, but that cost reductions be an important
component of any definition. Leaving "productivity" more
or less undefined and allowing the colleges' freedom to
derive their own meanings, resulted, in most cases, in
definitions emphasizing educational quality rather than
efficiency.

In the new guidelines for 1975, instead of putting
primary emphasis upon cost and efficiency in the teach—
ing—learning process, the Foundation shifted to include

higher instructional quality as part of the productivity

 

60

612219-: pp- 107-109; Hill Family Foundation. "Guide-
lines . . .," _p, £1E~: 1975, pp. 1_3.

Ibido, pp. 1214-1250

98

definition, more in keeping with the conception adopted
by most 197A projects.

Thus the 1975 Guidelines read:

So that there may be no confusion regarding
the Foundation's expectation of productivity
grants . . ., the primary mission of the
Program is to assist colleges to implement
ways of reducing instructional costs while
maintaining or improving acceptable levels
of academic quality.

(8) Advisory Committee Prpposal Review: Just as the
Foundation employed internal and external evaluators
and consultants, they placed high value on the objective
judgments of its ICP Advisory Committee. The staff and
Board painstakingly interviewed and selected these in-
dividuals, nationally recognized educational authorities
purposely chosen from outside the Foundation's eight-
state region.

For each round of grants, the Committee deliberated
over the merits of college proposals, and made its recom-
mendations to the Foundation staff, and the staff to the
Board of Directors. In both the 1975 and 1976 grant
competitions, the recommended proposals by the Advisory

Committee ultimately became those proposals funded

 

62Ibid., p. 2.

99

by the Board.63 Most evaluation authorities agree
that such external expert opinion greatly strengthens

the effectiveness of a grant review process.

(9) Proppsal Selection Criteria: When the Advisory

 

Committee met with the staff to review the college pro-
posals in both years, they devised special selection
criteria for Productivity Grants.* Although inconsist-
encies in use are described later, the fact that specific
criteria tied to ICP goals were employed strengthens the

proposal selection procedure.

(10) Multiple Sources of Information: As we men-
tioned before, for each proposal solicited by the Founda-
tion under ICP, an initial screening is performed by the
staff to determine whether it complies with Foundation
policy. Grants are not made to capital fund campaigns,
to operating budgets of organizations, to individuals,
or for travel, scholarships, propaganda, lobbying or
religious activities. For the 197A productivity grants,
Western Michigan evaluators concluded that the Foundation

staff had successfully selected requests that fell within

 

63Personal communication from an Advisory Committee
member who served both years.

s

Selection criteria for 1975 and 1976 were listed in
an earlier section of this chapter and also appear in Ap-
pendix B.

100

funding policies and had screened out Opportunistic ap-
plicants.6Ll

After this first screening, the staff research each
proposal, investigating its various components. Their
comments and suggestions, together with those of the Ad-
visory Committee, are fed back to promising applicants for
proposal revision. The staff stay in regular communication
with applicant colleges during this stage and the corres-
pondence between them reveals professional and amiable
relationships. Nowhere in the two-way correspondence is
there even a trace of resentment to Foundation requests
for revision that one is led to expect from the litera-
ture on university—foundation relationships.

As a supplemental information source aiding funding
decisions, the Foundation staff and Advisory Committee
members make site visits to those colleges where they
need further clarification on proposal or budget questions.
The site visits, then, together with the staff investi-
gation, proposal and evaluation plan revision, and the
Advisory Committee review, provide multiple sources of
valuable information from which to properly judge the

quality of college proposals.

 

6"Western Michigan University Evaluation Center. Forma—
tive, Final Report . . ., pp. cit., 1975, p. 156.

101

(ll) Post-Grant Approval Negotiation: After projects
have been approved by the Board and funding announcement
letters have been received, the Foundation embarks upon a
final stage of negotiation, in which any remaining proposal
ambiguities are cleared up, the Foundation and the grantees
express their mutual expectations, and the evaluation
plans are further refined with help from the Foundation
evaluator. As one of the 197A Western Michigan evaluators

commented:

After a proposal has been approved for fund-
ing, the relationships of the Foundation to
the project defy definition as usually under-
stood in management. The relationships are
neither "staff" nor "line"; the relation—
ships are not "supervisory" and are cer-
tainly not "surveillance." Perhaps the
relationships are a two-way flow of formal
and informal contacts. The nature of the
contacts vary. Skill in communication is
most important.

Defects in the Selection Process

From our comprehensive review of the documents trans-
mitted during the 1975 and 1976 grant reviews, certain

defects manifested themselves. The primary deficiencies

 

65Western Michigan University Evaluation Center. "Eval-
uation Notebook." Hill Family Foundation, February, 1975,
pp. 6-70

102

centered around a contradiction in a funding principle

and use of undeclared selection criteria. We will assess

these first.

(1) Lack of Adherence to the Productivity Funding

 

Principle: Earlier when we described the evolu-

 

tion of ICP,we quoted from minutes of a special Board of
Directors' meeting where approval was granted for this
program and a guiding principle of educational funding
was adopted, to be followed for three to five years follow-
ing the 1975 grant competition.

It stated that the Foundation's program in higher

education should focus upon projects

which are directed to assisting indepen-
dent colleges and universities to increas-
ing income and slow down the rapid increase
in expenditure of these institutions.
Grants will not be made to independent
colleges for other types of programs, ex-
cept in unusual circumstances, during this
period of emphasis on increasing income

and productivity.

Nevertheless, in December 1975, the Board clearly
moved away from its earlier commitment to productivity
and adopted an "open policy" of funding for the 1976

grants. In fact, "pp_description of which issues the

 

66Northwest Area Foundation. "Minutes of the Board
of Directors' Meeting," pp. cit., 1973, p. l.

103

Foundation might fund" was explicitly recommended.67
Productivity proposals were neither encouraged nor dis-
couraged, but the 1976 Applicant Guidelines gently sug-
gested projects on institutional stabilization and im-
proved student learning opportunities. No "unusual
circumstance" seems to have preceded this new direction;
Foundation correspondence explains this change in terms
of "having done its part" and time to move on "toward a

68

more curriculum-based approach."

(2) Contradiction Between 1976 Applicant Guidelines

and Selection Criterion: Under a section of the Guide-
lines entitled, "Preparation of the Proposal," it informed
1976 applicants that:

Proposals will not be judged on the basis
of being "innovative"; the Foundation is
more concerned with a college's willing-
ness to confront critical issues and to
allocat institutional resources for
change.

 

67Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo Regarding
Board Action on ICP." December 10, 1975, p. 1; Northwest
Area Foundation. Correspondence with Advisory Committee
Member. November 20, 1975, p. 1.

68Ibid., p. 1.

69Northwest Area Foundation. "Guidelines...," pp,
cit., 1976, p. 2.

10A

However, the innovative quality of grant proposals
was used by the Advisory Committee that year as the fifth
selection criterion, in contradiction to the guidelines
information received by the college applicants.70 Pro-
posal rating sheets used by the Advisory Committee showed
reasons for declination such as: "Nothing imaginative."
"Nothing special." "Not new."71

A staff memo to the Board expressed awareness and un-
easiness about this contradiction, explaining that at

"new

least one committee member underscored the need for
approaches to solving old problems, implying a high degree
of innovation."72 The memo went on to describe that the
innovative criterion was indeed applied, albeit differently
in different college situations.

Attempts in the 1976 Guidelines to deemphasize the
innovative character of proposals were consistent with
1975 Productivity Guidelines that specifically stated

project goals "need not be unique or innovative."73 The

Western Michigan evaluators had commented critically on

 

7ONorthwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo...," pp. cit.
1976, p. 2.

711bid., pp. 5-11.
72Ibid., p. 2.

73Hill Family Foundation. "Guidelines...," pp.
1975, P- 2-

O

H

Cf
v

 

105

the 197A expectations of innovative programs from one-
year college grants. In that year, the Applicant Guide-
lines were ambiguous on innovation, but still stressed

newness:

Although the proposed program need ppp be
"innovative" in the sense that it has never
been implemented elsewhere, it must be a
new experience for the applicant college.7"

And in another document authored In! the Foundation staff,
the goals of the projects emphasized ppp approaches to
productivity.75 This lack of agreement between the Ad-
visory Committee judgments and this selection criterion
is debated even when the criteria are spelled out.76

The Foundation never seemed comfortable with how
much innovation to ask for in college proposals; they
claimed in official publications that ICP "deliberately
moved from developing new pursuits in colleges to
strengthen what they already had going,"77 and yet

in both 197A and 1976, college applicants were judged by

 

7"Western Michigan University Evaluation Center. For—
mative, Final Repprt..., pp, cit., 1975, p. 2A2.

751bid., p. 17.

76Northwest Area Foundation. "Criteria...,", pp.
cit., 1976, p. l.

 

77Northwest Area Foundation. An Approach to Keeping
Independent Colleges Independent, pp, cit., 1973-1975, p.31.

 

106

this recurring innovation criterion. According to the
Western Michigan evaluators, the 197A projects did not
live up to the Foundation's expectations of "newness"

anyway.78

(3) Non-Explicit Selection Criteria Employed: Recog-
nizing that to expect innovative proposals from needy
colleges may be unrealistic, the Advisory Committee in
1976 imposed the innovative criterion more stringently
in judging stronger institutions than weaker ones. In
other words, the innovative criterion was applied to all
applicants, contrary to the Applicant Guidelines, and
selectively applied to institutions, using undeclared
criteria.79

None of the ten proposal criteria instructed the
committee to take into account the resiliency or financial
health of the educational institutions, or that stronger
colleges would be required to meet higher standards than
others. Yet the committee's recorded comments on the
proposal rating sheets noted weak or thriving institu—

tions and their relevance for funding. Advisory Committee

members wrote, as part of their proposal ratings:

 

78Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
Formative, Final Report..., pp. cit., 1975, pp. 169—170.

79Northwest Area Foundation. "Staff Memo . . .,"
pp. cit., 1976, p. 2.

107

This college is in financial trouble and
it would not be wise to involve them in
our program.

Note college is in bad shape financially;
long string of deficits.

This college is in a bad way. Doubtful
if it can survive . . . . But what does
it have to sell?

Is there any reason to believe (this)
institution can or should survive?

Well-to—do, thriving institution.8O

And a staff memo explains the Foundation would be doing
"a disservice" to encourage those college applicants in
the pool who were in difficult financial straits.

This demonstrates that two sets of selection criteria
actually were employed in 1976 in judging college pro-
posals, i.e., those that examined the merits of the pro-

posal as a document, and those that evaluated the financial

 

stability and capacity of the applicant institution to
carry outtfluaprojects. In times of fiscal uncertainty
and institutional decline, and perhaps other times as
well, this latter set of proposal criteria are relevant
to Foundation funding decisions. However, these limiting
conditions on colleges should somehow be made explicit

as legitimate proposal selection criteria, or some waver-

ing institutions will find themselves in the discouraging

 

80Northwest Area Foundation. "Independent College Pro-
gram-Phase III." Advisory Committee Rating Forms, 1976.

108

situation of never being able to write proposals good
enough for grants. Also if the criteria were made explicit,
it would assure their uniform application by all committee
members.
It is an interesting policy question just how much
the financial stability of the college should enter into
the selection process. How risk-taking should foundations
become with proposals from colleges with a poor prognosis
for survival? And how much risk-taking can foundations
expect from institutions already in a risk-taking decline?
In 1975, one criterion referred to the "strength of the
institution." Evaluators found in the 197A proposal review
that tun) different sets of criteria indeed were employed,
one that distinguished the eligibility characteristics of
participation in ICP, and another that screened the pro-
posals themselves.81 The first set of criteria explicitly
listed such institutional characteristics as level of en-
rollment, existence of record-keeping systems, and the ad-
ministrative, academic and financial viability of the col-
leges as relevant to funding.82
But the 197A proposal review had its own confusing

use of criteria. Section III of the Applicant Outline

 

81Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
Formative, Final Repprt . . ., pp. cit., 1975, p. 2A3.

82Ibid. , pp. 2111-2112.

109

added a final and new criterion, almost as an after-
thought, i.e., a statement of institutional mission and
goals is to be used "as a primary criterion in evaluating
the college's proposal . . . ."83 This criterion does not
appear among those officially adopted by the Advisory

Committee.

(A) Call for Productivity Proposals Beyond Capacities

 

of Most Regional Colleges: Despite further clarification
of the productivity concept in the 1975 Applicant Guide-
lines, Foundation records show some college reluctance
and unfamiliarity with how to achieve its aims. Perhaps
this expression of dismay from one college that declined

the opportunity to apply communicates the problem:

Several of us here, including the President,
the Provost, and the Treasurer, worked at
great length (and our thought processes

were active many additional hours) in try-
ing to come up with an idea which could be
successfully measured against the two criti-
cal criteria of the Program: improve the
quality of the academic program and spend
fewer dollars doing it. We simply could not,
with any degree of institutional honesty,
develop a project or program or procedure

by which the desired result could be ac-
complished. To improve the quality of

the program - yes; to spend fewer dollars

— yes; but to combine these two in realis-
tic and honest terms - no . . . . Rather
than submit a proposal which we feel cannot
immediately or ultimately meet the more-

 

83Ibid., p. 2A5.

110

quality-for—less money requirement, and
which will not, in our judgment, make (our
college) stronger for the late 19703 onward,
we have concluded that we should not par-
ticipate as an applicgpt in the current
Productivity Program.

This is not to suggest that many colleges declined
to participate, but that the early difficulties with the
productivity concept resulting in few applicants in 197A
willing to tackle increased productivity, returned to
confound the 1975 applicants. 197A evaluators observed
that colleges under the productivity rubric converted
their understanding of it to mean heightened educational
enrichment and quality. "Productivity" at this time was
neither a friendly nor familiar concept in higher educa-
tion, especially among faculty.

Requesting that projects be designed around produc-
tivity brought other problems we will examine in greater
detail when we look at project outcomes. Suffice it to
say now that some college applicants admitted to having
no office of institutional research or only a minor opera-
tion, thus lacking critical research resources and trained
faculty for cost-benefit analyses. These small private
colleges, then, with no history of research experience

and preoccupied with their financial woes, stood in a

 

8“Northwest Area Foundation. Correspondence with
Prospective Grant Applicant. March 18, 1975, p. l.

111

weak position to mount sophisticated cost-related evalua-
tion of their productivity projects.

The fact that educational productivity was defined as
having two dimensions, the quality of the academic pro—
cess and the number of students involved,85 implied a
link between educational quality and student enrollment
that had previously plagued the 197A grantees, since it
narrowly confined the measurement and definition of pro-
ject success. The Foundation conception of productivity
was, at the same time, too open—ended and too contained,
and a complicating factor in later grant activities. As
we describe in Chapter VI, many of the 1975 grantees over—
came some of these difficulties, and contented themselves
with simple enumerations of instructional savings, rather
than more complex analyses.

If the Foundation communicated expectations beyond
the capacities of college applicants in 1975, they placed
relatively little stress upon expected outcomes in 1976.
The basic proposal selection criterion in that year's
Applicant Guidelines, namely, "observable improvement,"86
posed difficulties in measurement also. What seemed

patently obvious and observable as "improvement" to the

 

85Hill Family Foundation. "Guidelines . . .," pp,
ci ., 1975, p. 1.
86Northwest Area Foundation. "Guidelines...," Op.

., 1976, p. 2.

O
H-
d

112

grant recipients in their project activities were not
so obvious to external evaluators, for when does one have

an observable improvement?

Summary

In this chapter, we have described and critically
examined the Foundation's grant review process used with
college applicants in ICP. First, we isolated the essen-
tial components of the process as employed in the 1975
and 1976 rounds of grant competition, with relevant
insertions of Foundation practice from its 197A produc—
tivity phase. Then we examined extensive documentation
of the review process from Foundation and external sources
to determine its virtues and defects as a screening pro-
cedure.

Essentially, we found that this review process has
much to commend it and exhibits many more strengths than
weaknesses. The record shows the Foundation open to
external advice, concerned with arriving at objective
judgments using advisors, evaluators, and safeguards in
their Board structure, and active in revising elements
of the process to improve proposal selection. Current
and past philanthropic literature cites the Foundation
as a leader in providing guidance and information to

grant applicants, and in developing an internal and

113

external evaluation capacity.

The weaknesses revealed in the documentation related
to the lack of adherence to the productivity funding
principle in the 1976 grants, the confused and unpre-
dictable use of the "innovative" criterion, the unde-
clared use of the "financial stability" criterion, and
expectations of productivity applicants beyond the
capacities of many colleges in the Foundation region.

We turn now, in Chapter V, to a comparison of awarded
and declined proposals to assess the effectiveness of

the Foundation's proposal selection procedure.

CHAPTER V

THE GRANT SELECTION PROCESS:

COMPARISON OF AWARDED AND DECLINED PROPOSALS

Introduction

 

Now that we have isolated the strengths and short-
comings of the grant review process using Foundation
documentation, in this chapter we assess the influence
these procedures exert over the quality of the proposals
that actually get funded. We pose the question: Does
the grant selection process in operation at the Foundation
actually separate out the carefully conceived, workable
proposals from the superficial, the poorly planned, and
the inconsequential? Do proposals awarded under ICP match
up to recognized criteria for good proposals and show
greater merit than those proposals the Foundation declined

to fund?

Proposal Comparison Procedure

Drawing from the Foundation's college proposal files,

we randomly selected 22 declined proposals, 12 from 1975

11A

115

and 10 from 1976, to be compared against 22 awarded pro—
posals of the projects in our sample. Because of the
Foundation's fine record-keeping, declined proposals

back to 1975 were still available from the same funding
competitions as our awarded sample. This precaution of
maintaining the same funding periods assures that the

-same Advisory Committee members judged both declined and
awarded proposals using the identical set of selection
criteria within the same year. The committees and criteria

differed between years.

Evaluation Instrument

Many different criteria statements for assessing grant
proposals exist within foundation and government circles
(Jacquette 1973, Kimball 197A, Rippel 1967). Certain
factors of judgment reappear in most sets, including
project purpose, feasibility, need, social utility,
originality, appropriateness to funding focus, likeli-
hood of future funding, realistic budget, applicant
accountability and competence. In fact, a grant decision
study of 100 foundation and government agency spokesmen
rated five of the above factors as very important in-
fluences on grant decisions (Townsend, 197A).

Probably the most recognized and widely used criteria

for proposal assessment, the "Proposal Checklist and

116

Evaluation Form," was developed by Norton Kiritz (1979)
and adopted for use in the Grantsmanship Center Training
Program and by proposal evaluators nationwide. (Form
in Appendix A.)

This rating form breaks down grant proposals into

eight major components:

Summary: Clearly and concisely summarizes the request

Introduction: Describes the applicant agency and
its qualifications for funding

 

Problem Statement or Needs Assessment: Documents
the needs to be met or problems to be solved by
the proposed funding

 

Prpgram Objectives: Describes the outcomes of the
grant in measurable terms

 

Methods: Describes the activities to be conducted
to achieve the desired objectives

Evaluation: Presents a plan for determining the
degree to which Objectives are met and methods
are followed

 

Future Fundipg: Describes a plan for continuation
beyond the grant and/or the availability of other
resources necessary to implement the grant

 

Budget: Clearly delineates costs to be met by the
funding source and those provided by other
parties

Each major proposal component contains 5 to 12 sub—

items essential to a complete and persuasive proposal;
for each sub-item the rater codes "Yes" or "No," indicat-

ing whether or not the item is included in the proposal

being evaluated. An Optional scale of Poorest (1) to

117

Best (5) is provided for those items to which it is ap-
plicable.*

We employed this Proposal Checklist as an independent
instrument to rate our sample of awarded and declined
proposals, and thereby detect differences, if any, in
the merits of the two sets. Although the Checklist proved
extremely adaptable to assessing Northwest Area Foundation
proposals, several sub-items were irrelevant, confusing
or contradictory to the Applicant Guidelines and were
eliminated.** The total group of AA proposals, then,
were coded on 68 of the 72 sub-items of the eight major
proposal components included in the Checklist.

Means were computed to allow specific comparisons
between awarded and declined proposals for each compon-
ent, as well as overall means for general comparisons
between the two groups. All mean computations and coding

scores were re-checked for accuracy.

Limitations of the Instrument and Bias in the Data

 

The Proposal Checklist used to assess Foundation

proposals includes among its sub-categories both observable

 

*
The optional scale was found to be inapplicable to

many proposal items and, therefore, not used in this
analysis.

«s

Items not used included sub-item 1 under Summary for
1976 proposals, sub-item 7 under Problem Statement and sub-
items 5 and 6 under Budget for both 1975 and 1976 proposals.

118

and judgmental items. The observable items are those
easily detected when reviewing proposals, i.e., "Details
fringe benefits, separate from salaries"; the judgmental
items lend themselves less to objective coding, i.e.,
"Makes no unsupported assumptions." Thus, subjective judg-
ments inevitably entered into the coding operation when
determining the presence or absence of proposal charac-
teristics.

Because the author had prior knowledge while evaluat-
ing proposals of which had received funding, this biasing
factor possibly advantaged awarded proposals in the ratings.
Every effort was taken to suppress this bias, including
coding awarded and declined proposals in random order and
stringently applying the same standards to both sets.

A third source of subjectivity derives from the self-
report evidence used to code various components, based
upon claims made in the prpposals themselves. This was
unavoidable since the proposals were the subjects of
study, but the veracity of some of the college claims was
never questioned.

The influence of previous grants presents another
factor contributing bias. Earlier in Chapter IV, we
mentioned that some colleges who applied and were awarded
grants in the 1975 competition had had previous one-year
grants in 197A. The latter grants were considered renew—

able if the institution had achieved its goals but there

119

was an obvious need to continue the project.

Seven of the 12 grants awarded in 1975 were renewals,
although, in some cases, different projects. The fact
that some renewal applications were rejected, and colleges
without previous grants did receive awards dilutes, to
some extent, the notion that colleges with previous grants
were greatly advantaged.

Our final reservation about the data concerns project
budgets. On site visits to thenmumapromising applicant
colleges, preliminary proposal budgets were modified to
fit Foundation expectations more closely. Full proposals
that we coded, then, incorporated these changes for the
visited colleges. Only a few of the declined proposals
received the benefits of that advance counsel. Therefore,
the budget component of revised proposals had a better
chance of pleasing the Advisory Committee than proposals
with unrevised budgets.

Our review of project records showed the Advisory
Committee used budgetary considerations as only one of
the criteria to eliminate applicants, and then not the
primary criterion. In our proposal ratings, problematic
budgets were always accompanied by other major proposal
flaws. For these reasons, coding all proposals on the same
budget criteria, even though some budgets already had been
tampered with, still seemed a reasonable procedure, if

somewhat imprecise.

120

Proposal Evaluation Findings

Looking at Table 1 of mean responses for awarded and
declined college proposals, a consistent overall pattern
emerges. For every one of the eight major components,
awarded proposals in both 1975 and 1976 received higher
mean values than declined proposals. In five components,
the differences were unmistakable for both years, and,
in the other three, differences exist, but were less
dramatic.

For the declined proposals in both years, mean values
in none oftnueproposal components reached the mid-point
of 1.5, whereas, among the awarded proposals, the mid-
point was reached or surpassed eight times. Declined
proposals in 1976 scored somewhat higher than those in
1975, but not higher than awarded in either year; awarded
proposals for 1976 displayed higher or equivalent means
than 1975 in every case.

When the number of positive assessments was totaled
for each proposal on the Checklist sub-items, the range
of scores revealed the relative merits of the awarded
and declined proposals. For the 1975 awarded proposals,
the positive scores ranged from 28 to Al, and, in 1976,
from 27 to A9. But for the declined proposals, in 1975
the scores ranged from a low 6 to 27 (with an anomalous

A3 received by one proposal we discuss later). In 1976,

121

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declined proposals fared somewhat better, with a range
of positive scores from 9 to 32. But in both years,
declined proposals made a very poor showing compared with

awarded proposals.

Major Flaws of Declined Proposals

Three major proposal components, i.e., Problem State-
ment, Program Objectives, and Methods, comprised the
central shortcomings of declined proposals, although
Budget and Evaluation presented difficulties also. Many
declined proposals were characterized by unfocused problem
definitions and a confusion between conceptual and imple-
mentational issues. Often program objectives were not
clearly specified, or goals, objectives, and program
activities were used interchangeably. When present,
process objectives were confused with outcome objectives,
and seldom related logically to proposed activities. In
the few proposals where measures were specified, they
failed to provide apprOpriate data upon which to base
later claims of project success.

Among the unrealistic or inappropriate requests for
funds, colleges proposed to build TV towers, establish
a new community college, mount elaborate fund-raising
campaigns, and buy new equipment like computers or
electro-pianos. In other cases, salaries, instead of on-

going projects, were requested, or some implausible

123

schemes which amounted to sacrificing educational quality
to economy. Other declined proposals displayed over-
ambitious or naive intentions, as in the case of one col-
lege that predicted its project would increase the student
retention rate by 90 per cent.

With few exceptions, project designs were not power-
ful enough to test educational strategies in their own
or other settings, and they often totally ignored projects'
relationships to curricular improvement and institutional
mission or history. In addition, several colleges pro-
posed extravagant budgets of over $A00,000, and paid scant
attention to program evaluation. As described in an
earlier chapter, to strengthen the evaluation components,
the Foundation required that colleges develop full evalua-

tion plans, even after the grants were awarded.

Contrast Between Extreme Cases

To highlight the differences between awarded and
declined proposals, we closely examined the most extreme
cases -- the three proposals receiving the lowest ratings
(scores of 6, 7 and 9), and the three receiving the
highest (scores of A9, A7, and A6). We found their
characteristics to be highly divergent. The lowest
rated proposals received no or minimal positive assess-
ments in five of the eight components of Objectives,

Methods, Evaluation, Future Funding and Budget. These

12A

proposals contained no Summaries or Introductions; they
gained their few positive points in the Problem State-
ment. Overall, they were poorly conceived and developed
prOposals. One college had the dubious honor of submitting
two of the three lowest scoring proposals, one in each
funding year.

In sharp contrast, the three highest scoring pro-
posals showed strength in all major components except
Future Funding and Evaluation. They included, among
other things, especially persuasive Problem Statements,
and well defined Program Objectives and plausible Methods.

The major flaw of all proposals, whether awarded or
declined, clearly rested in the area of Future Funding,
i.e., project continuation plans beyond the grant and
the specification of possible resources and support. All
applicants incorporated into the budget their required
share of funds for the projects, but rarely did either
set of proposers even mention future funding. In those
few instances where they did, colleges merely alluded to
their pppp that the projects would eventually become
assimilated into their own budgets.

Many proposals showed poor use of Introductions and
Evaluation Plans, and uneven use of project Summaries.
Frequently, colleges failed to describe their institu-
tional purposes and goals or their curricular programs,

perhaps assuming this was common knowledge to a foundation

125

in their region to whom most had applied repeatedly in

past years. Perhaps for this reason, they also failed

to furnish evidence of their past accomplishments and
credibility as educational institutions. They found it
unnecessary, in most cases, to support their Problem State-
ments by citing statistical evidence, authorities or
relevant educational literature, a practice common in
government agency proposals. The 197A Western Michigan
evaluators found similar faults with the 197A grant pro-
posals (Western Michigan University Evaluation Center,

1975).

Proposal Comparison Conclusions

The Proposal Checklist used here as an assessment
instrument represents an independent and nationally
tested measure, specifically designed for reliably
evaluating grant proposals. The comparative mean
responses between awarded and declined college proposals
demonstrate that awarded proposals scored consistently
higher in every proposal component over declined proposals.
This indicates that the judgments of the Advisory Com-
mittee and staff, together with the other ingredients
that make up the grant approval process, do indeed ef-
fectively single out the higher quality proposals for

funding. Only in a few cases did the "Yes" ratings of

126

declined proposals approach the "Yes" scores of the award-
ed proposals, and, as it turns out, two of these proposals
were seriously considered as finalists, but later denied.

Aside from the effectiveness of the review process,
this analysis points up another interesting finding.
The close attention applicants devoted to the Foundation's
Applicant Guidelines suggests college proposals can be
improved by further specification of requirements. The
Foundation could tighten up their guidelines in the future
to produce more fully developed and persuasive proposals.
Most 1975 declined proposals, for example, did not specify
project Objectives at all, but did declare program goals,
literally following the guidelines that asked for the
latter but did not explicitly request the former.

This close adherence to application procedures indi-
cates the control the guideline content can exert over
the inclusion of proposal components. Rarely did pro-
posers offer areas of information on their own initiative
that amplified and improved their proposals, but when the
Foundation clearly asked for certain information, they
invariably responded. Of course, the quality of the
responses will be more difficult to control. In short,
this comparative assessment demonstrates the centrality
of the Guidelines to the whole grant application procedure
as a direct mechanism for eliciting appropriate and valu-

able information from candidates.

 

127

Sub-Anaiysis Using AdvisoryeCommittee and Author's Criteria

Because we wanted to determine whether the awarded-
declined differences found using the Proposal Checklist
would stand up to other measures, and we assumed the
assessment of proposals from several dimensions would be
more reliable than one, we initiated a separate sub-
analysis. We coded the AA proposals by two other sets
of criteria,* i.e., those used by the Advisory Committee
for the two funding years and those the author concluded
were important but not included elsewhere. We wanted to
discover whether the same pattern of findings would emerge.

As can be seen in Table 2, awarded proposals con-
sistently produced higher mean values than declined
proposals -- in fact, in every comparison. Even the high-
est mean score for declined proposals (1.A) did not surpass
the lowest mean score for awarded proposals (1.6). The
awarded group exceeded the mid-point of 1.5 in every
case; the declined scored below it each time. For both
years, the awarded proposals attained almost identical
mean scores, one not exceeding the other, but always

surpassing the declined proposal scores. In short, all

 

!

Advisory Committee selection criteria for both 1975
and 1976, and the author's criteria appear in Appendices
B and C. The sixth criterion of the 1975 Advisory Com-
mittee, "the strength of the institution," was not used,
since the author felt she had neither the knowledge nor
evidence to make these global judgments on applicant
colleges.

128

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129

comparative data point decisivelyixlthe same direction,
i.e., that awarded proposals received higher scores than

declined.

Sub-Analysis Conclusions

We conclude from these consistent findings that
theprOpOSalassessment criteria adopted by the Advisory
Committee successfully selected meritorious proposals
and eliminated less adequate ones. This sub-analysis
corroborates the earlier proposal assessment using the
Proposal Checklist, and coincides with the results of
the author's criteria as well. By using three independent
sets of criteria, we have produced a measure of inter-
rater reliability, with the author reevaluating the
proposal judgments of the Advisory Committee. It showed
a very high agreement between raters and, consequently,
among the three sets of findings.

Even though the grant review process appeared to work
quite effectively for the two granting periods under
study, the process could be improved by standardizing
investigations of grant requests and certain proposal
selection criteria, and systematically researching ques-
tions like the stability of educational institutions.
Since the financial conditions of private liberal arts

colleges are becoming increasingly relevant to funding

130

decisions, criteria for proposal selection, and the in-
vestigations that precede selection, should reflect chang-
ing considerations. HOwever 'they are devised, proposal
selection criteria used by the Advisory Committee should
be linked to the overall goal of ICP. Without an explicit
link, the program goal may become easily obscured, since
the criteria are visible and in use, but the goals are a
matter of history and buried in past documents.

To illustrate this point, we remind the reader that
the professed goal of this educational funding area called
for aid to independent liberal arts colleges in the region,
most of which were under financial stress. However, as
we learned in Chapter IV, the Advisory Committee used
financial strength of applicant institutions as an un-
spoken criterion in 1976. Denying grants to fiscally weak
colleges imposes a great qualification upon the original
goal of the program, not intended at the time of its
conception. These inconsistencies would be Obvious and
recognized by the committee members if program goals were
linked to the selection criteria for each year.

Incompatibility between program goals and selection
criteria caused by changing economic and social condi-
tions may call into question the purpose of ICP. As the
197A evaluators concluded: "This (grant selection)
process, so important to philanthropy, should be con-

tinuously appraised and revised whenever necessary to

131

maintain its effectiveness."87

 

87Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
Formative, Final Report ..., pp, cit., 1975, p. 156.

131

87

maintain its effectiveness."

 

87Western Michigan University Evaluation Center.
Formative,iFinal Report ..., _p, cit., 1975, p. 156.

CHAPTER VI

THE GRANT EVALUATION PROCESS

AND COLLEGE OUTCOMES

Introduction

As pointed out previously and commended in the
foundation literature, historically, the Northwest Area
Foundation has occupied a position of leadership in
evaluation, by consistently promoting an internal evalua-
tion capacity, using an external committee of proposal
evaluators, an external evaluation agency, and requiring
evaluation plans and self-evaluation from funded projects.

Perhaps this commitment to improving grant administra-
tion and openness to evaluation findings explain the
Foundation's lack of hesitancy in sanctioning an assess—
ment of its Independent College Program. The founda-
tion literature abounds in exhortations about the need
for evaluation of foundation programs, but, as Orville

Brim contends:

In spite of this interest, and the wide
agreement in the administrative field and
in the public mind that evaluation is much
to be desired, we still have virtually no
information relating foundation program

132

133

consequences to administrative purpose and
management. Here is a major class of Ameri-
can institutions numbering in the tens of
thousands, a more-than-billion—dollar-a-
year enterprise, and yet there are hardly

a half-dozen published reports on any sub-
stantial efforts t evaluation of founda-
tion activities.8

Brim, as President of the Russell Sage Foundation,
initiated such an evaluative investigation of differen-
tial project success during 1970, based wholly upon Sage
organizational records. This study, similar to our under-
taking, and Brim's insistence upon foundation evaluation,
make his writings especially relevant to this thesis.

Even our method of using Suchman's four categories of
effect to evaluate project outcomes has Brim's endorse-
ment.

In our assessment of the Foundation's Independent Col-

lege Program, the evaluation components can be stated thus:

Overall Goal of ICP: "...ways of assisting indepen-
dent colleges to control escalating costs while
maintaining educational quality"89

Program Objectives: Improve the teaching-learning
process, i.e., increase productivity (1975);
improve student learning opportunities and
stabilize basic support functions (1976)*

 

 

88Brim, pp. pip., 1973, p. 228.

89Northwest Area Foundation. An Approach to Keeping
Independent Colleges Independent, pp. cit., 1973-1975, p. 8.

5
These objectives have been quoted earlier from the
applicant guidelines for those years.

13A

Program Strategy: Carefully select worthy college
proposals using pre—determined criteria, and
provide funds to carry out program objectives,
consonant with ICP goals.

Program Measures: Use Suchman's criteria of project
success, as well as those of the Foundation, to
judge colleges' self-evaluation data; also use
the project monitoring and process evaluation
of the author-evaluator, as a supplementary data
source

 

Program Outcomes: From evaluation data, determine
the individual impact of funded projects and the
cumulative outcomes of ICP

 

Based upon the data reported in Chapters IV and V,
ICP's strategy of carefully selecting and funding worthy
college proposals has been borne out. Using Suchman's
criteria, in this chapter we evaluate the outcomes of
funded projects themselves, and the extent to which they
support the primary goal and objectives of the Foundation's

educational program.

Background on Foundation Evaluation of Grantees

 

Earlier in Chapter IV, we elaborated the ways in which
the Western Michigan evaluators influenced later Founda-
tion funding decisions by their 197A evaluations. Based
upon their recommendations, the Foundation extended the
1975 productivity grants to three years, awarded larger
budgets to fewer colleges, developed specially written
productivity proposal guidelines, amplified their defini-

tion of college productivity, and devoted greater

135

attention to project evaluation plans (Western Michigan
University Evaluation Center, 1975).
Following in—service evaluation training sessions

with 197A project directors, these evaluators concluded:

Despite the emphasis on evaluation which the
Foundation put out in the request for pro-
posals, despite the training in evaluation
given to project directors, despite the
statements in the proposals concerning
evaluation activities, no evaluation is
taking place . . . . There is no reason

to believe that evaluation of . . . ac-
tivities will ever take place on the cam-
puses.

The evaluators further concluded these projects were not
against evaluation of their efforts; they were a-evalua-
tive, feeling no need to measure and test their project
activities. And, even if they felt so disposed, many

of the colleges did not possess the research facilities
and trained personnel to undertake systematic cost reduc-
tion analyses.

Lacking comprehensive project self-evaluation, the
197A evaluators relied primarily on site visit reports
and process documentation for data on project outcomes.
Their final report took the form of a qualitative narra-

tion. They concluded that, starting with the college

 

90Western Michigan University Evaluation Center, Forma-
tive Final Report . . ., pp, cit., 1975, p. 119.

136

proposals describing "narrow and less than significant

projects,"91

. . collectively (they) do not add up to
much in the way of impacting on pervasive
productivity problems in higher educa—
tion, and they are not being carefully
evaluated . . . . (these) grants are not
likely to produce effects that are trans-
portable and demonstrably successful since
they are not focused on well-defined prob-
lems, problem strategies, or careful docu-
mentation.92

This first attempt by the Foundation to increase the
productivity of the teaching-learning process, then,
produced little impact upon college instruction. This
evaluation background to the 1975—1979 funding periods
should highlight the improvements that followed after ICP's
197A Productivity Grants.

During the 1975 and 1976 funding competitions, instead
of employing the Evaluation Center again, the Foundation
contracted individual evaluators as we described earlier,
to systematically monitor and evaluate the educational
projects. The author was employed as this evaluator
since 1977. _Obviously, bias is introduced by our direct

participation in the program being evaluated here.

 

91Ibid., p. 115.

92Ibid., pp. 176-177.

137

However, it is vitiated partially by the finding that
program evaluations conducted by individuals within the
same organization as being studied produce higher quality
research than when conducted by completely external
evaluators. Even though this finding contradicts the
belief in independence of judgment, it confirms that
"the quality of evaluation studies decreased as the in—
dependence of the evaluation effort increased."93

Our project files included process evaluation docu-
ments, correspondence and memos to and from grantees,
college progress reports, summative self-evaluation re-
ports and our evaluation reports. Brim claims that
". . project or program record-keeping for most founda—
tions . . . is not geared to providing good information
about the course and outcomes of a program or project,
so that evaluation judgments can be made 1ater."9u TO
the contrary, the full and conscientious record-keeping
of the Foundation in this case presented us with a unique

opportunity for grant evaluation.

Suchman's Categories of Effect as Evaluation Framework

In our methodology chapter, we referred to the evalua-

tion approach of Edward Suchman, which we have used to

 

93Ball and Anderson, pp, cit., 1978, p. 130.

9“}3rim, pp. 933., 1973, p. 2A7.

138

measure the relationship between administrative inputs
and educational outputs of funded projects. He outlined
four categories of effect which represent the criteria of
success or failure we have adopted to evaluate grant pro-
jects:
(1) Effort: Project input or energy regardless of
output;

(2) Performance: The results of project effort
rather than the effort itself;

 

(3) Efficienoy: The costs or savings in terms of
money, time and personnel, i.e., output
divided by input;

 

(A) Process: Project operation's effect on achieve-
m.95

The criteria the Foundation applied to judge the 1975
Productivity Projects required maintaining or improving
the quality of instruction while reducing costs, coincid-
ing with Suchman's categories (2) and (3) above. The
Foundation's criterion in 1976 was the degree of observable
improvement the project produced for either the student
or the institution, much like category (2). Suchman con-
tends that categories (1) and (A) on effort and process
are necessary but not sufficient conditions for an ef-
fective project, and thus less important factors than

performance and efficiency.

 

95Suchman, pp. pip., 1967, pp. 61-67. Suchman actually
proposed five categories of effect, but we eliminated the
category of "fulfillment of community need," not having
appropriate data upon which to make judgments.

139

Inter-Project Evaluation Procedure

In order to evaluate the success of ICP's granting
program to liberal arts colleges, we needed to ascertain
whether Foundation funds had been properly used, whether
the grants achieved what they set out to do, and whether
project outcomes showed lasting impact or changes in
desired directions. When taken together, our evaluation
of individual projects should indicate the cumulative
impact, if any, of the Foundation's educational funding
program during our period of study. With these project
evaluation results, and those already gathered on the
grant review process and proposal selection, we will have
assessed the major attributes of grant administration
from start to finish, and be in a position to make over-
all judgments on the general effectiveness of ICP.

The author's tenure with the Foundation extended over
three of the five years of the projects under study, and
overlapped with both funding periods. Therefore, the
author monitored the 1975 projects in their last year
and a half, and most of the three years of the 1976 pro-
jects. All the project documentation and process informa-
tion described earlier, as well as personal evaluation
experience, observations, and contacts with the colleges,
went into our final judgments on project effectiveness,

using Suchman's four categories of effect. We employed

1A0

a three-point effectiveness scale in our ratings: Gen—
erally Effective (5), Partially Effective (3), and Gen-
erally Ineffective (1).

For the first category of Effort we counted the number
of distinct activities and accomplishments the colleges
demonstrated over the course of their three-year projects,
such outcomes as new educational models and structures,
new instructional modes and resources, new data collection
facilities or systems, new resource documents and publica-
tions, new non-instructional programs and resources, en-
rollment and degree improvements, programs to be continued
beyond the grant, evidence of heightened productivity
awareness (for 1975 only), new local and federal grants,
financial contributions and instructional savings, all
directly traceable to grant activities.

For the category of Performance, we judged the results

 

of these efforts (rather than the efforts themselves)

on student performance and learning opportunities, upon

the overall teaching—learning process, and upon basic sup-
port functions. This included an assessment of whether
changes did occur, whether they were the ones intended

from the original project objectives, the quality of the
changes, and whether they alleviated the problems addressed
in the proposals. Obviously, a project could earn a high
rating in Effort from the many activities it managed to

generate, and still fail in terms of Performance, with

1A1

no change to measure. This was the case in several col-
leges we describe later.

For the category of Efficiency, we coded the reported

 

cost savings and financial contributions resulting from

the projects.* This advantaged the 1975 grantees, who

were funded under the productivity rubric, were primed

to achieve educational savings, and originally selected

their projects to comply with this funding emphasis.

Since the Foundation abandoned its productivity emphasis

in 1976, the nature of these college projects and related

efforts did not approximate the level of savings of 1975.
For the final category, Process, we reviewed all

process documents over the history of the projects to

determine if and why the programs were working or not work-

ing, and how the project effects were being achieved. Data

results from these four categories, Effort, Performance,

Efficiency, and Process, determine the degree of congru-

ence between what the projects actually intended to ac-

complish and what actually happened.

 

*Financial contributions were included when they
were the explicit intent of project objectives. Time
prohibited an assessment of savings in time and personnel,
as the complete Efficiency category specifies.

1A2

Limitations of Procedure and Data

Since a large component of the information used to
judge project effectiveness comes to us from self-reports
by the project directors themselves, these evaluation
data suffer from the same limitations and possible bias
as does all self-evaluation. Fortunately, the author's
participation as the Foundation evaluator provided in-
dependent sources of information that acted as a check to
the self—reports.

Cost data, like any other, are not immune to bias,
and yet there was no way, within the scope of this thesis,
to audit the projects' estimated cost savings. This con-
cern with the accuracy of cost reporting works both ways.
Instead of exaggerating savings in their progress reports,
some project directors neglected cost documentation al-
together, even in their final evaluation report. When
present, cost savings were reported in a rudimentary and
simplistic fashion. Sometimes, savings would be recorded
in earlier reports for only certain years, but not totaled
for the three-year period. Occasionally, savings were
referred to without actual figures, as statements of
faith. Obviously, these affirmations had to be ignored
in our coding. More than likely, then, college savings
for some projects were grossly underreported or under-

estimated.

1A3

Aside from the problem of bias, much of the self-
evaluation data from the college projects lack precision
and sophistication. As the author wrote in a recent

Foundation evaluation report (1980):

Even after being required to revise ob-
jectives and evaluation plans, removing
the gross measurement problems, projects
without on—site research consultation
available, struggle to understand what
is expected of them, and frequently offer
irrelevant or weak evidence for their
claims of success. Probably for these
reasons, (they) have not set before us
their most effectivg case for what they
have accomplished.9

Often, the evaluation assignment at the colleges fell
into inexperienced hands, persons unfamiliar with data
collection and unsure of what constituted an "outcome."
This became apparent in our review when significant
changes were left unmentioned in final reports, brushed
aside, or mentioned accidentally in another connection.

Even after continuous counsel from the Foundation
evaluator, some colleges failed to understand the dif-
ferences between the actual achievement of a task and the

quality of its execution, between program pOpularity and

 

96Marcus, Dora. Impact of Funding on the 1976 Inde-
pendent College Projects. Northwest Area Foundation. In-
dependent College Program. March, 1980.

1AA

effectiveness, between intuitive observations and ob-
jective judgments.

Constant prodding for evaluation did make a difference
when compared to the 197A grant experience. Remember
that the 197A evaluators also stressed the lack of tech-
nical abilities and research facilities for projects to
mount sound cost analyses. They found no self-evaluation
being conducted by the projects at all. In contrast, all
1975 and 1976 grantees made efforts to assess their pro—
gress, albeit varying in completeness and quality. For
the poor evaluations, colleges presented sporadic state-
ments of faith, verbal assurances and testimonials, and
weak student course evaluation and workshop data; for the
good evaluations, the colleges engaged in conscientious
and continuous assessment, using questionnaires, inter-
views, institutional and NCHEMS—gathered data, course
comparisons, and various pre- and post-tests.

For the colleges' benefit as well as the Foundation's,
this situation argues strongly for assigning project
directors that are trained in research techniques, that
participate in the early formulation of project objectives
and measures, and have the technical qualifications to
oversee both the operation of the project and its evalua-
tion, or,at least, the willingness to contract and use
evaluation advice.

Some colleges profited greatly from the use of

1A5

consultants for evaluation. On the whole, they worked co-
operatively with the Foundation evaluator also, and were
open to her suggestions and criticisms. In the process,
they made modifications in their project activities when

it became clear they lacked any direct relationship to
their objectives, they recognized naive assumptions and
unrealistic projections and redirected other unfeasible
activities. Rarely did the colleges make the evaluator
feel she was intruding upon their autonomy or project free-

dom, or that they resented her feedback on their progress.

Flexibility in Project Ratings

In rating the projects on the four categories of
effect, several factors were taken into account in fairness
to the projects.* Several colleges felt free to vary
strategies when they felt it advisable, initiated project
activities not originally conceived in the grant proposal,
abandoned other unworkable objectives, recognized false
directions and dead ends, or redeployed funds. Most often,
this was done with the Foundation's permission. Partly,
the projects changed because of wise use of evaluation feed-

back, partly, from their own diagnosis of problems.

 

*Two 1976 projects that requested one-year extensions
end in June 1980, and, therefore, have not yet submitted
their final evaluation reports. At this time, their ef-
fectiveness ratings must be considered tentative.

1A6

In any grant experience, projects rarely manage to ac-
complish every project objective, with conclusive sub-
stantiation for each claim. Consequently, we adopted the
Foundation's flexibility when we rated the projects by
not holding the colleges to every one of their stated ob-
jectives, by recognizing positive shifts in resources
and energies, and by judging the projects' overall merits
and effectiveness in achieving primary objectives and

purposes.

Results of Inter-Project Comperisons

The range of college projects undertaken in 1975 in-
cluded faculty and instructional productivity, academic
skills improvement, inter—college cooperation, curricular
review and revision, computer-aided instruction (CMI),
personalized system of instruction (PSI), and management
information systems. In 1976, projects included faculty
development, departmental evaluation, curricular revision,
continuing and career education, critical skills develop-
ment, student recruitment and retention, long range planning
and community awareness.

For this complex assortment of 22 educational projects,
we first present our findings on their level of effective-
ness, and follow with some process observations of what

worked and what didn't work and why. Looking at Table 3

1A7

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1A8

of the 1975 ratings on Suchman's categories of effect,
five of the 12 projects received the highest effectiveness
ratings in all four categories and four in three of four
categories. For the other three projects, one was rated
partially effective in three of four categories, while

the other two, with only one category exception, were
rated generally ineffective. In short, nine projects

were judged generally effective, (combining four-out-of-
four and three-out-of-four ratings), one judged partially
effective, and two generally ineffective.

The majority of these 1975 productivity projects, then,
managed to achieve their desired purposes, through sound
effort, performance, process, and efficiency. When we
assigned priority to the two categories of Performance
and Efficiency,* the criteria most similar to the Founda-
tion's, eight colleges remained in the effective category.
Well over half of the funded projects in 1975, then, met
the Foundation's and Suchman's criteria of success, and
showed themselves to be decidedly superior to those in
197A.**

At this point, we caution the reader against taking

 

*Suchman gives priority to Performance and Efficiency
over the other categories. See earlier discussion in
this chapter.

*
*There exist no ratings for the 197A projects against
which to compare ours, but ample evaluation narrative by
the evaluators on their summative conclusions.

1A9

these evaluation judgments as conclusive. Our earlier
qualifications regarding the validity of self—evaluations
and the difficulties inherent in evaluating social pro-

grams, prompt us to quote Paul Dressel (in press) that:

. . . the results of evaluation are seldom
definitive. Since some outcomes are dif-
ficult to define and measure, the meaning
of the evidence may be uncertain and the
quality of the performance indeterminate.97

For the 1976 project ratings presented in Table A,
we found only two projects achieved the highest effec-
tiveness scores in all four categories, and two in three
of the four categories. Of the ten funded projects for
that year, then, four can be considered successful, (com-
bining four-out-of-four and three-out-of-four ratings).
Because 1976 grants emphasized improved learning oppor-
tunities over cost savings, very few projects scored high
in the Efficiency category.

Two other 1976 projects received a Performance rating
of partially effective, and the remaining four failed in
project Performance. To conclude, four projects suc—
ceeded and four projects failed, with two having charac-

teristics of both success and failure. Using Suchman's

 

97Dressel, Paul L. The Autonomy of Public Universities.
San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, in press, 1980.

 

150

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151

Performance criterion as closest to that of the Foundation's
in 1976, six colleges remained in the effective or par-
tially effective category.

When we contrasted the effectiveness levels of 1975
with 1976, the 1975 prOjects fared much better. They
enjoyed two distinct advantages, however, over the 1976
group: they were constantly encouraged to report progress
in cost efficiency as productivity projects, and, in seven
cases, they were renewal projects, profiting from a year's
previous experience.

Combining the effective and partially effective pro-
jects for both years, we find 16 of the 22 realized some
degree of success on Suchman's categories and 1A of the 22
on the Foundation's. Next, we look at what went wrong
in the failed projects and what went right in the suc-

cessful ones.

Characteristics of Failed Projects

What went wrong in the 1975 and 1976 projects that
were judged generally ineffective? Although they present
a complicated admixture of pre—conditions, events and
circumstances, we have grouped the negative forces ef-
fecting these projects as those internal to the project's
operation, (either structural, procedural or human),

and those external to the program.

152

InternaipBarriers to Project Effectiveness

Procedural and structural difficulties plagued several
projects from the outset and handicapped them when they
came to presenting their evaluation conclusions. In their
program Operation, original Objectives or strategies were
found unmanageable or overambitious, and were constantly
modified or abandoned for new ones. TO some extent, this
occurred in the successful projects also, but they were
able to capitalize on their early diagnoses, resolve their
difficulties, and recover their momentum.

Progress was slowed in some failed projects by delays
in college decision-making, which led to requests for
One-year extensions beyond the three-year grant period.
Two of these colleges, still on extensions, are experienc-
ing difficulty realizing project expectations, and are
suffering isolation from other college units and an
essentially disinterested faculty. In another case, many
scattered and undirected mini-projects failed to produce
coherence and overall meaning to the whole grant experience;
theproject staff itself rated the majority of its mini-
projects as "uncertain." And, in one grant situation, the
project's non-traditional instructional model was hampered
from the start because it did not coincide with the college's
growth model of expanding traditional educational pro—

grams.

153

In 1975, much less than in 197A, some projects suf-
fered from a lack of understanding Of the instructional
productivity concept, how to operationalize it and demon-
strate it through cost evaluation. All failed projects
in both years, except one, received ratings Of ineffective
in the Efficiency category.*

Human barriers to project success joined up with
structural difficulties in two projects. In one involv-
ing two-college cooperation, the difficulties presented
by changes in the academic calendar and competing admis-
sions offices were overcome, and the project grew into a
successful Operation. In another, the laxity of students
moving through a new Open Semester Plan seriously hindered
progress, and eventually resulted in the Opposite of what
was originally intended. The new flexibility Offered by
the Plan caused students to take a full year to complete
courses that were previously completed in a term. Again,
efforts in another college to reduce small classes were
prevented by lack of student interest and poor instruc-
tion that failed to attract high enrollments.

Nevertheless, students presented less difficulties

to failed projects than faculty. When one college

 

*

The only failing Of some highly rated projects fell
into the Efficiency category as well, where they claimed
institutional savings, but did not specify them or cite
dollar amounts.

15A

experimented with CMI, and later with PSI, they encountered
strong faculty resistance, self-interest, and fear of staff
reductions that greatly limited cooperation. The project
lacked faculty experienced or trained in computer use,

and had not allowed sufficient time and money for their
preparation.

Comparing different projects experimenting with com-
puter instruction, but producing decidedly different out-
comes, may be instructive. The major distinction between
them that seemed tO dictate much Of their future impact
was the degree of reliance placed upon this mode of
instruction. In one case, the college used CMI as a sup-
plementary technique to conventional instruction; in
this secondary role, it provided a new and unusual dimension
to regular course work. In the other case, CMI replaced
regular courses entirely, but,in the long run,exercised
very narrow impact upon instructional improvement.

Another barrier to project success derived from weak
institutional leadership and faculty support. These
conditions drove one project to divert grant funds from
its original commitment to more acceptable areas, when it
became Obvious that the faculty would resist changes
recommended from departmental reviews. At the outset,
much effort was devoted at this college to bringing the
faculty, as one Advisory Committee member put it, "...to

a realization and acceptance of the issues which the

155

administration had laid out in the proposal."98

But the inherent problem of the lack Of faculty in-
volvement in the formulation Of the initial grant proposal
haunted the college efforts from the beginning, and steered
major project decisions away from curricular reform. The
departmental reviews, then, and the consultants who per-
formed them, only reinforced strong departmental autonomy,
and never permitted the translation of recommendations for
curricular change into educational improvements.

Another persistent difficulty whose effects elude
precise measurement concerned the debilitating impact
of frequent turnover in project and institutional leader-
ship. Commonly, project directors changed in mid-project,
with a loss of project continuity and support for change.
The difficulties in conducting effective evaluation Ob—
viously are compounded by these transfers Of leadership.
Successors rarely go back and review the entire project
record, or acquire a clear understanding Of original
proposal intentions and evaluation commitments made in
previous reports or communications.

One of the Foundation's Board members pointed to the
disheartening problem Of academic turnover in the small

liberal arts colleges among top administrative personnel.

 

98Northwest Area Foundation. Memo From Advisory Com-
mittee Member to Other Members. May 1A, 1976, p. 2.

156

He cited presidential change-over in at least four of our

99

1975 college sites alone, generating a dilution of insti-

tutional involvement and support.

External Barriers to Project Effectiveness

Various interventions from external sources, whether
from units within the colleges or from societal forces,
hindered projects from achieving their intended purposes.
For successful projects, such factors as the cancellation
by the state legislature of student intern opportunities,
or student populations with higher than expected skills
deficiencies, produced temporary set-backs subsequently
overcome with other strategies. But failed projects were
unable to surmount obstacles in the same way.

For example, changes introduced by one college ad-
ministration, cancelling varsity sports and hiking student
tuition, was accompanied by high faculty turnover and un-
stable finances. These events and conditions seriously
undermined their student retention program's potential
achievements.

The effectiveness ratings for this project demon-
strate how a college can satisfy the majority Of its pro-

gram objectives, generate a multitude of relevant

 

99Northwest Area Foundation. Correspondence with
Member of Board of Directors. February 1, 1979.

157

activities, but still fail to accomplish its overarching
goal, the reduction Of student attrition. As a matter

Of fact, student attrition before and during the life of
the project went up instead Of down, the reverse of the
project's intent. The college's unremitting decline in
enrollment and retention suggests the strength of outside
economic and demographic forces that resist local remedies,
no matter how energetically put forward.

Most often in our sample, the level of project effort,
defined by input or energy regardless of output, was cor-
related with the success Of the eventual outcomes, i.e.,
high effort, high performance; low effort, low performance.
However, in another 1976 retention project, high effort
was associated again with low performance. These findings
would greatly discourage other college efforts in reten-
tion if it weren't for the fact that neither project focused,
to any great degree, upon curricular and instructional im-
provements that may lie at the heart of successful reten-
tion.

Could we have predicted from the relative quality Of
the original grant proposals which projects would have
succeeded and which would have failed? Clearly, the
answer is no. Using the Proposal Checklist ratings, four
of the proposals of failed projects did receive the low-
est or near lowest ratings; however, two proposals of

ineffective projects received very high ratings. The

158

number of intervening variables falling between project

proposals and project outcomes makes predictions from

one to the other highly risky.

Characteristics of Successful Projects

 

Obviously, the projects rated as generally effective
managed to overcome the kinds of human, procedural, and
structural roadblocks hindering the failed projects. When
confronted by certain unavoidable problems, they real-
located their energies, modified their strategies, and
pressed on. For example, at one college, the project
proposal was written under very trying circumstances of
faculty controversy and fear, indeterminate leadership,
declining enrollment, an unbalanced budget and imminent
personnel and salary reductions. Despite all this, and
the death of the project director, the college went on to
distinguish itself as one of the highest rated projects
in the 1975 sample. In short, both failed and success-
ful projects faced set-backs and hurdles, but the central
difference between them became whether they adopted new
strategies and contrived their way out of their difficul-

ties or whether they were permanently crippled by the

experience.
In the effective grant projects, one accomplishment

led directly to others. In one case, effective institu-

tional planning brought with it new activities in academic

159

planning. In other cases, heightened appreciation for pro-
ductivity issues among faculty led to their willingness to
accept larger teaching loads and long range fiscal planning,
uncharacteristic of the institutions before. Effective use
of NCHEMS accounting systems led to development of in-house
research facilities and the integration of computers into
instruction. Curricular revision, originally envisioned on
a narrow course-by-course basis, eventuated in the elimina-
tion of whole departments and degree programs. Success in
the integration of writing across one college curriculum
led to a second and much expanded program across all.

Local project success led to obtaining large federal
grants totaling over one and one-half million dollars. The
cumulative savings that college projects attributed to in-
structional improvements and new financial contributions
totaled almost two and a half million dollars. Most effec-
tive projects laid out concrete plans and/or committed bud-
gets for program continuation after the grants terminated,
even though their original proposals did not. The only
project in 1975 not planning to continue its programs was
one of the two rated ineffective; three of the four inef-

fective projects in 1976 do not plan continuation.*

 

*Two of these four projects received grant extensions
through June 1980, and even though they did not indicate
continuation plans in their 1979 summative reports, they
may still do so.

160

Summary

When the Independent College Program commenced in 1974
with 16 Productivity Grants, a Foundation staff member
summarized the impact of that funding period for the Founda-
tion Board, saying, ". . . there haven't been any mira—
cles."100 Our findings lead us to conclude that, perhaps
not miracles, but substantially greater financial and
educational outcomes were produced by the 1975 and 1976
grant experiences than in 197M. The data tell us that the
majority of the Productivity Projects in 1975 achieved
their desired purposes and priorities, and that Founda-
tion funds acted as a laudatory and perhaps lasting stimu-
lus to certain academic program changes.

For some 1975 colleges, this meant innovative instruc-
tional modes and teaching resources, overdue curricular
reform, or new skills labs and language programs. For
others, it meant increased enrollments, degree improve-
ments, federal grants, new data collection resources
and facilities, new source documents and publications,
new structures for fiscal planning, and significant in-
structional savings. And, in most cases, the projects
laid the groundwork for difficult productivity decisions

or new student learning opportunities.

 

100Hill Family Foundation. "Staff Memo to Board of
Directors Regarding the 197U Productivity Grants of ICP."
January 8, 1975-

161

Whether the outcomes constituted an observable new
program or less tangible effects, they provided a strong
impetus for institutional change and renewal. Even the
heightened sensitivity to productivity issues, noticed by
faculty and administrators alike, allowed certain actions
historically resisted in some colleges.

The 1976 projects, on the whole less impressive than
1975, still produced a striking number of new programs
accompanying their grants, as well as numerous non-instruc-
tional programs not envisioned by the 1975 instructional
grants. They established a large array of support pro-
grams in career and continuing education, student reten-
tion, high school outreach, student leadership training,
and liaisons with business and industry.

In summary, well over half of the grant projects the
Foundation funded in 1975 and 1976 realized some degree
of success, judged by either Suchman's criteria or those
of the Foundation. We conclude that ICP satisfied its
professed objectives of increased productivity, improved
educational instruction, student learning opportunities,
and support functions.

In Chapters IV and V, the data indicated the Foundation
worked successfully to select the more meritorious college
proposals, thereby increasing its chances for effective
projects. Selecting and funding proposals through the

grant review process proved to be an effective and

162

appropriate strategy to achieve ICP's objectives.
However, because the Foundation strayed in 1976 from
its overall goal for ICP by changing to an open funding
policy, it failed to reinforce the cost-quality dimension
in instruction for those projects, and inadvertently
weakened ICP outcomes. Certainly, the 1976 projects as
a group displayed less collective force than those of
1975, and received lower effectiveness ratings.
Inexplicit 1976 Foundation guidelines and unspecified
evaluation criteria for an undefined funding area may
account for the projects' differential levels of success
between 1975 and 1976. This points up the central im-
portance of specifying an explicit funding theme and of
linking applicant guidelines, proposal review, and project

evaluation to ICP's purpose and program objectives.

CHAPTER VII

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Summary of Findings

 

As far back as 1938, foundation writers decried the
absence of explicit attention to the quality of grant
proposals and the administrative machinery used in assess-
ing them (Hollis, 1938). In following years, they insisted
that foundations make the managerial commitment to improve
the grant review process, investigate project outcomes,
and, by these actions, show public evidence of foundation
accountability.

To remedy this neglect, and recognizing that grant
behavior represents the social output of private founda—
tions, we embarked upon this case study. We examined
pre- and post-grant administration of the Independent Col-
lege Program of the Northwest Area Foundation, especially
proposal selection and project evaluation. We assessed
the effectiveness of this educational program's grant
procedures, and the extent to which the program itself,
and the college grants under its sponsorship, achieved

their intended goals and objectives.

163

l6u

Based upon Foundation and external documentation,

our primary findings on the grant review_process re-

 

vealed:

(l) The development of the Independent College Program

 

grew from a sound data base, derived from a comprehensive
survey of the needs and opinions of liberal arts colleges
within the Foundation region;

(2) The Foundation took unusual precautions in its

 

history against possible conflicts of interest in awarding

 

grants by establishing a two-board structure to remove

owner influence, and by developing a special code of conduct
for its Directors and staff to prevent funding improprie-
ties;

(3) The Foundation showed early and continuous leader-

 

ship in providing college applicants with yearly guidelines

 

 

for proposal preparation and disseminating other funding
information; generally, the Foundation showed itself to
be open and unsecretive about its pre-grant operations;

(A) Historically, the Foundation required self-evalua-

 

tion from its funded projects, beginning with an evaluation

 

plan that outlined data collection to support project

claims; the grant agreement specified regular reporting

 

requirements that produced a cumulative project record
critical for process and product evaluation;

(5) The Foundation exhibited a strong evaluation

 

commitment over the years by using evaluators on their

165

staff, an Advisory Committee of educational experts,
external evaluators and evaluation agencies, in-service
evaluation training for staff and project directors, and
self-evaluation of funded projects;

(6) The Foundation respondedfto evaluation advice on
the Independent College Program and modified some of its

policies and procedures, i.e., extended grants from one

 

year to three years, awarded larger budgets to fewer number
of colleges, developed a consortium of college projects,
and devised specially written productivity proposal guide-
lines;

(7) Because of the Foundation's concern for objective
and expert judgment, it emplpyed an external Advisory Com-
mittee for proposal review; the committee's proposal recom-
mendations were consistently approved by the Board of
Directors for both granting periods under study;

(8) The Advisory Committee devised special proposal

 

selection criteria for grants under the Independent Col-

 

lege Program;

(9) Multiple sources of information formed the basis
for judgments on the quality of proposals, i.e., site
visits, staff investigation, evaluation plan revision,
Advisory Committee and Board of Directors' review, and
pre-grant negotiations;

(10) Post:grant negotiations clarified remaining

proposal and evaluation plan ambiguities and mutual

 

166

expectations between grantor and grantee;
(11) The Foundation deviated from its productivipy
fundingpprinciple after the 1975 round of grants, and

adopted an open policy of funding, in contradiction to the

 

1973 Board action and ICP's overall goal of assisting

 

independent colleges in controlling escalating costs while
maintaining educational quality;

(12) Despite an explicit disavowal in the 1976 Appli-
cant Guidelines concerning "innovation" as a prOposal

selection criterion, the Advisory Committee did apply it

 

in their grant review and selection; generally, in each
funding period, use of the innovative criterion was con-
fused or unpredictable; and

(13) The Advisory Committee used undeclared selection

 

criteria in 1976 on the resiliency or financial stability

of the applicant institutions; therefore, two sets of

 

selection criteria actually were employed, one explicit

 

and one implicit, i.e., those on the merit of the pro-
posal as a document itself, and those on the financial
health of the colleges; in addition, stronger colleges
were expected to produce better proposals than weaker
ones.

As a major element of the grant review process, we
isolated proposal selection for separate study. In our
content analysis of awarded and declined proposals, we

compared a number of characteristics to discover the

167

Foundation's ability to single out proposals of merit.

The findings from this proposal comparison showed:

 

(1) Using a nationally recognized set of proposal
assessment criteria, mean scores for awarded and declined
proposals exhibited a highly consistent pattern, i.e.,
in every one of the eight major proposal components,
awarded prpposals in both funding years attained higher
means than declined proposals;

(2) Both awarded and declined proposals for 1216
scored higher than those in 1975;

(3) Three proposal components, i.e., Problem State-
ment, Program Objectives and Methods comprised the major
shortcomings of declined proposals;

(A) The major flaw of all proposals, whether awarded
or declined, appeared in the area of Future Funding, and,
secondarily, in the quality of Evaluation Plans and poor
use of Introductions on institutional purposes and charac-
teristics;

(5) These findings indicated that the judgments of
the Advisory Committee and staff in the selection process
did single out the higher qualipy proposals for funding;

(6) Using two other assessment measures of proposal
quality, i.e., the Advisory Committee selection criteria
and a set devised by the author, the same_pattern of

findings emerged, confirming the primary analysis, i.e.,

 

awarded prpposals consistently received higher mean scores

168

than declined proposals.

Finally, the findings on thepgrant evaluationpprocess

and the outcomes of funded_projects revealed:

(1) Evaluators of the 19?“ Productivity Grants con-

curred those grant experiences produced little impact

upon the teaching-learning process;

(2) For 1975 and 1976 together, 16 of the 22 projects

 

realized some degree of success judged on Suchman's cate-

gories, and 1A of the 22 on the Foundation's; either set

of success criteria, then, yielded well over half of the

 

projects accomplishing their intendedppurposes;

(3) Human barriers to project effectiveness figured
at least as prominently as structural and procedural dif-
ficulties, i.e., laxity or disinterest of students; faculty
resistance, self-interest, lack of c00peration or experi-
ence, lack of involvement in proposal development, fre-
quent administrative turnover, or weak project and institu-
tional leadership; lack of trained personnel for cost
analyses on instructional productivity gains, and only
a dim understanding of the productivity concept;

(A) Procedural and structural barriers to project
success included unmanagable objectives, delays in college
decision-making, scattered efforts lacking coherence,
faulty diagnoses of ways to produce cost savings, poor

planning and timing of project strategies, changes in

169

semester plans, and lack of adequate computer facilities;
(5) External barriers to project effectiveness came

from within the institution and without, i.e., changes

 

introduced by college administration inadvertently under-
mined project efforts; economic and demographic forces
accelerated enrollment decline, faculty turnover, and un-
stable finances;

(6) The low correlation between highly rated college

 

proposals and highly rated completed projects lends little

 

confidence to the ability to predict one from another,
and underscores the strength of intervening variables,
such as quality of project personnel;

(7) To some extentrrthe difference between successful
and failed projects depends upon project leadership, i.e.,
the ability to marshall together collective energies and
not be stymied by set-backs; in effective projects, one
accomplishment led directly to others in curricular re-
vision, academic planning, instructional improvements,
large federal grants and cumulative instructional savings,
non-instructional support services and program continuation
after funding ended; ineffective projects, delays in
implementing appropriate strategies led to further inaction,
grant extensions, and misplaced activities;

(8) The 1975 and 1976 grant experiences produced
financial and educational outcomes far surpassing those

of 197“, and stimulated institutional change in certain

170

academic and non-instructional programs, degree improve-
ments, increased enrollments, data collection facilities,
and student learning opportunities;

(9) 1976projectsrproduced more failedrprojects than

 

ggzg, and considerably less instructional savings; iron-
ically, 1976 college proposals received higher ratings
than 1975, but when translated three years later into
completed projects, received lower effectiveness scores;

(10) The cumulative projgct outcomes of both years

 

indicated that ICP satisfied, to a considerable extent,

its combined opjectives of increased productivity, im-
proved educational instruction, student learning opportuni-
ties, and support functions; and

(11) ICP less satisfactorilyrmet its ultimate goal

 

of assisting colleges to control escalating costs while
maintaining educational quality, being weakened by the
largely non-instructional non-cost savings activities of
1976. The Productivity Projects of 1975 assured that this

goal was at least partially met.

Comparison of Foundation Behavior with Historical Gener-
alizations

 

 

In Chapter II we described recurring allegations from
educators about foundation conduct relating to unequal
funding among institutions, the politics of grant getting,

the erosion of educational autonomy and project freedom,

171

an exaggerated concern for sponsoring innovation, and a
basic conservatism in funding. Academic critics blamed
private foundations for encouraging an already mobile
faculty, promoting dual loyalties, supporting research
over teaching, and diluting the instructional force.
Lastly, they charged foundation application procedures
were faulty or non-existent, and, when available, only
confused or discouraged college applicants.

From our vantage point as a foundation evaluator,
closely familiar with the conduct of both the grantor and
the grantees over two funding periods, our observations
on the higher education/foundation relationship may help
to dispel some historical stereotypes and confirm others.

The first criticism of funding mostly prestigious or
select institutions has been documented earlier, admitted
to by foundations, but has less relevance here for a
regional foundation such as Northwest Area.

It does maintain a policy, however, reflecting a
concern for the equitable distribution of funds, that
disqualifies any college or university applicant already
holding a current grant. This policy raises questions
about the basic assumptions underlying the grant program
-- whether its intention is to spread money around and
give minimal support to many colleges, or support the
quality of ideas, regardless of their source? If the

Foundation is in business to fund worthy ideas, so the

172

argument goes, it matters little how many come from the
same source,and it also eliminates the practical difficulty
of reduced applicant pools caused by extant grants.101

The other side of the argument was espoused by the
Danforth Foundation in 1969 when it embarked upon a pilot
program to assist a number of private liberal arts col-
leges of limited resources, and supported the idea of
stabilizing weak organizations. Of course, equal distribu-
tion of foundation resources obviates the quest for innova-
tive projects, since novel ideas cannot be expected to
emanate from all colleges equally.

The often-heard accusation of political maneuvering
for foundation grants and the influence of personal con-
tacts was found to be ill-applied at Northwest Area. On
the contrary, we described the elaborate safeguards taken
there to prevent conflicts of interest and political
conduct by the staff and Directors. Not only do Directors
resist contact with colleges before application, but Board
members are expressly prohibited from voting or discussing
grant applications with which they have any personal or

professional connection.

In the foundation we studied, we also lacked evidence

 

101Northwest Area Foundation. Advisory Committee Mem-

ber's Comments on the Discussion with Independent College
Representatives at Spring Hill Conference Center. October
20, 1976, p. 2.

173

that their grants have worked to the instructional dis-
advantage of the sponsored colleges. Frequent turnover
in project and institutional direction resulted from an
already mobile and transient faculty and administrators,
not from dependence upon short-term foundation grants.
Charges that grants creat disloyal faculty and encourage
research over teaching are more appropriately lodged
against large research universities than small under-
graduate colleges.

Encroachments on institutional autonomy and academic
freedom from private foundations became a familiar theme
in the 1950s and 1960s, but these charges were seldom
formally verified. In one case studied at The University
of Michigan, Jones (1972) rejected this allegation, as
we reject it here, based on our experiences at the Founda-
tion. In fact, our on-going contacts and correspondence
with the colleges over the years produced no instances in
which they objected or even implied that the Foundation or
its evaluators were interfering with their internal in-
tegrity as educational institutions.

For a long time, monitoring progress and assessing
project outcomes were tantamount to violating academic
freedom. Whiting (1970) stood apart as one of the first
foundation writers to question the wisdom of the "hands
off" policy toward grant holders. We have documented

earlier the Foundation's historical leadership in

17A

promoting an evaluation capacity both for themselves and

their grantees. Today, many other foundation officials

and university evaluators have come around to the posi-

tion that close but unobtrusive monitoring is not only

appropriate but necessary as a matter of general policy,

and as an obligation owed the public. As Whiting writes:

Good monitoring and evaluation can inform
(the judgment of a foundation's offices,
board, and staff) by providing a continu-
ous flow of up-to-date information without
which it is very difficult for them to make
sound decisions. With such information they
can do much better at judging not only whether
a grant prOposal before them is worthy of
support, but, in a broader sense, whether
the foundation's funds are being used ef-
fectively and to the greatest advantage --
whether, in other words, the foundation

is properly fulfilling its long-term philan-
thropic mission. That, ultimately, is the
most important reason for a foundation's
organizing itself well and maintaining a
close relationship with grantees.l

On the debate over funding innovation, the wisdom of
seeking out new projects versus supporting and strengthen-
ing on-going educational programs raises an unsettled
policy question at the Foundation. Even when denying the
importance of innovation in proposal ideas, and asserting
instead an interest in stabilizing institutions, the

Foundation's preoccupation with novel projects resurfaced

 

102Whiting, 92. cit., 1970, p. 177.

175

during the grant review process. Especially at a time
when many liberal arts colleges in the northwest region
find themselves in difficult financial straits, a declared
policy on innovation one way or the other, and selection
criteria coinciding with that policy, are overdue. Goheen
asserts that renovation and sustaining high quality may
be more fundamentally needed in this century, and ". . .
where the nurture of innovation is the dominant, guiding
spirit of foundation practice, it is one-sided and a
mistake."103

Finally, the Northwest Area cannot be said to suffer
from weak or mysterious application procedures, as this
study aptly demonstrates. The analysis in Chapter IV
attested to the Foundation's unusual initiatives in dis-
seminating frequent grant information to the public, its
early development and distribution of applicant guide-
lines and outlines of review procedures. In addition,
the Foundation imposes a minimum of formality and restraint
upon applicants, exercises flexibility throughout the ap-
plication process, and negotiates proposal modifications
by mutual discussion and agreement.

In sharp contrast to the characterization of founda-
tions as secretive and isolated, the Northwest Area took
the lead in the 1970s by organizing 35 Minnesota-based

+

103Goheen, 9p. cit., 1972, pp. 19—20.

176

foundations into a collective initiative to dispel tradi-
tional aloofness and separatism, and to supply public
information about foundation productivity. Even the members
of the Joint Senate-House Subcommittee on Tax Exemption
agreed to work with the Foundation to escape punitive
philanthropic legislation because they respected its
thorough public reporting practices (Engh, 1973).

Robert Bonine, assistant executive director of North-
west Area, served as researcher and secretary to the col—
lective Minnesota foundations, later tranformed into the
Minnesota Council on Foundations. This Council's objec-
tives included public reporting on financial and program-
matic foundation activities, and dissemination of informa—
tion among foundations on sound management practices. In
addition, the full information disclosure policy of North-
west Area brought it nation-wide recognition from the
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy as one of
the highest rated foundations in the country on information
accountability.

Philanthropic observers have noted that, apart from
the administrative chores associated with the application
process, often, foundation officers substantially improve
proposal ideas in their negotiations with applicants.
Thus, some writers claim that foundation staff comprise
a great, but often overlooked, national resource of in-

formation and advice on educational questions, acquired

177

after years of experience as generalists grounded in one

broad field (Weaver, 1967; Thompson, 1970).

Conclusions and Recommendations Based on the Findings

A cornerstone concept in foundation thinking stresses
the notion of social amelioration. Characteristically,
American foundations attempt to achieve this ultimate
purpose primarily through the allocation of grant funds.
But the actual distribution of money stands as merely a
means to the ends anticipated by the public, i.e., founda-
tions as a positive force for social betterment. Through
improved internal administration, foundations increase
their social effectiveness and impact of their sponsored
activities and help their grantees make the most of their
grant opportunities.

Our case study of a foundation's grant program to
liberal arts colleges has produced basic findings about
internal grant management and the operation of college
programs. Our recommendations below grew out of these
findings. For foundations, they can be fed back into the
grant review and evaluation process itself to improve
staff judgments and the allocation of Foundation resources.
For colleges and universities, they suggest ways to help
transform grant proposals into significant educational

programs.

178

(l) The Foundation should sharpen and shaperproposal
content by carefully delineating all components necessary
to comprehensive and persuasive proposals. Since the
guidelines for grant-seekers greatly control proposal
content, they should reflect the selection criteria im-
posed later by the Advisory Committee and staff. When the
Advisory Committee assesses college proposals with a set
of criteria, the proposals should present all the relevant
information needed to compare them against these criteria.
Our proposal comparison showed many did not.

(2) Rather than standing as separate entities, £22
applicant guidelines and the Advisory Committee criteria
should be logically derived from the fundipg program's
overarching goal and objectives. That way, a contradic-
tion in the use of the criteria signals a contradiction
in the application of the process toward the goal. The
criteria themselves should take the form of a rating
instrument, whose items are keyed into program objectives.

(3) The criteria used for prpposal selection should
be distinct from the criteria used for prgject evaluation.
In 1976, the selection criterion in the guidelines concerned
"the degree of observable improvement it promises," and,
in the absence of specified evaluation criteria, the pro-
jects were judged on the observable improvement shgwn.

Evaluation criteria need to specify characteristics of ef-

fective projects; selection criteria applied before the

179

project, need to be predictive of what may be achieved by

Foundation support;
(A) Once a funding policy is adopted for a certain

term, the Foundation either must adhere to it and give

the funding_emphasis a chance to prove itself, or ex-

 

plicitly and formally change therpolicy based on evaluation

 

data that supports the change. When the Foundation
changed its course in 1976 away from productivity, it did
so without any evidence indicating the wisdom of that
decision. What information convinced the staff they had
already done enough in this area, that it was fully ex-
plored and time to move on to another? What policy values
were brought into play in their program determination, and
to what extent were the influences of these values legi-
timate?

Foundation documentation turned up little formal
consideration of this action, in sharp contrast to the
thoughtful and comprehensive needs survey that preceded
the adoption of the funding area. Ignoring the Board
decision to continue Productivity Grants for a certain
number of years, and its admonition not to engage in
other types of grants during that time, represent an
uncharacteristic aberration by both the staff that proposed
it and the Board that later contradicted itself and approved
it.

Results from the 1975 projects show strong productivity
gains over 197“; the 1976 projects, without the productivity

180

emphasis, show an unmistakably weaker collective force.
Given the opportunity, 1976 grants with a productivity
focus may have carried on the positive trend from 1975
and even surpassed them in cost/quality outcomes.

Not only did this deviation in policy weaken the pro-
ductivity emphasis, but it failed to strengthen any other.
Every college was allowed to go its own way, choosing
projects in either instructional and non-instructional
areas, but primarily in the latter, with no central focus
unifying the individual grants.

(5) The Foundation should specify an explicit funding
Ehemg, despite the fact that it returns us to the old
fears, now largely dissipated, about grantee autonomy and
project freedom. We have learned from our examination of
the grant review process that college grantees do better
with sharply defined problems, (e.g., increased instruc-
tional productivity), and that these projects lend them-
selves better to evaluation. In 1975, where the Foundation
imposed a definite focus, its expectations matched those
of the grantees more closely than in 1976 without one,
perhaps because the criteria of project success for a
focused program delineate more clearly the desirable link-
ages between individual projects and Foundation program
purposes.

An open funding policy, like that of 1976, obscures

overall program strategy and its record of progress, and

181

puts a foundation in a relatively passive role about the
content of the proposals it receives. It fails to capi-
talize upon the backlog of knowledge and competence founda-
tion staff acquire in choosing among alternative proposal
ideas, with several rounds of experience in a specific
funding area. It also ignores evaluation data on program
operation and outcomes, since it refrains from actively
endorsing grant experiences that have succeeded in the past.
In all probability, staying with a funding theme over a
period of years will improve grant administration in that
area and increase the chances of positive grant outcomes.

(6) The Foundation should settle its polipy toward
the intrusion of certainrproblematic criteria into the
proposal selectionrprocess, e.g., the relative weight
assigned to proposal characteristics versus institutional
characteristics. Specifically, in the review process,
the Advisory Committee expected colleges to be in a state
of financial stability, an undeclared criterion; it also
showed consistent ambivalence over using "innovation" as
a declared criterion. These criteria should not be ran-
domly and arbitrarily applied, unbeknown to college appli-
cants, unrelated to ICP's goals, but still influential
over selection chances.

If independent liberal arts colleges had their way,
they would insist that foundations reorder their funding

priorities away from innovation toward institutional

182

sustenance, more in keeping with their own economic reali-
ties. Since they find themselves more significantly depend-
ent upon foundation funds than public universities, yet
often fail to qualify for research-oriented federal grants,
their administrators are being sorely tempted to write
proposals, not to engage in novel experiments, but to ease
their tight budgets.

(7) Because of discontinuities caused by frequent
turnover in project leadership, the Foundation should
insist upon college assignments of projgct directors that
match the longevity of the projects; also these directors
should have the appropriate capacities needed for over-
seeing the project's operation and its evaluation. There
should be a greater relationship between authorship of
a proposal and leadership of the ensuing project. Not
enough attention has been paid to date to project person-
nel qualifications and tenure of appointments; assignments
have been wholly at the discretion of the colleges. Many
directors in 1975 and 1976 vacated their positions before
completing the projects, causing some of the problems we
described earlier.

As Donald Young and Wilbert Moore wrote about the

management of foundations:

. . (project) success or failure always
depends upon the individuals involved. The
personnel to be engaged in an institutional

183

project under foundation consideration
need to be given no lfiss scrutiny than
the project design.10

And, as Lindsley Kimball observed once:

If one were to attempt an appraisal of
results achieved following any particular
grant of funds, he would immediately dis—
cover that he was appraising human per-
formance. In every case of failure it
would be less likely that the original
idea turned out to be defective than

that the disappointment would inhere

in the operating personnel.1

(8) Related to recommendation (7) is the use of out-

 

side consultants and evaluators assigned to every project.
Most colleges studied here profited by outside counsel,
when they engaged it. Earlier we pointed to the limited
evaluation capacities at many colleges and the primitive
level of data they sometimes produced without external
help. An Advisory Committee member posited the idea of
keeping a tentative list of evaluators at the Foundation

from which colleges could choose, when seeking competent

 

10”Young, Donald R., and Moore, Wilbert E. Trustee-

ship and the Management of Foundations. New York, Russell
Sage Foundation, 1969, p. 83.

lOSKimball, Lindsley. "Human Needs and Philanthropic
Opportunities." In Andrews, F. Emerson, Ed., Philan-
thropic Foundations. New York, Russell Sage Foundation,
1956, p. 228.

18A

advice and technical assistance; this would also empha-
size the evaluators' reporting responsibilities to the
Foundation as well as to the colleges.106 From our ex-
periences with these college evaluators, they are unclear
about their relationship to the Foundation, and often do
not report their findings of grant projects to them, unless
expressly requested to do so.

(9) The Foundation should continue its insistence

that funded projects_perform self-evaluation, monitored

 

by its evaluator throughout the duration of the grants.

Once projects commence, Foundation records indicated clearly
that project evaluation responsibility became the prime
reason for on-going communications between grantor and
grantees. Without it, little project monitoring and forma-
tive evaluation occurs, leaving the Foundation with little
more than subjective judgments and a terminal summative
report upon which to base future funding decisions.

(10) Periodic review of the entire fundipgjprocess,
preferably by objective outsiders, would do much to dispel
the general public distrust of foundations. In this case,
it would reinforce Northwest Area's internal commitment
to review its purposes, reflect upon its goals, and im-
prove its performance. Systematic evaluation, integrated

into the planning process, should become a part of any

 

106Northwest Area Foundation. Memo From Advisory Com-

mittee Member to Foundation Staff. July 23, 1976.

185

foundation's standard operating procedure.

The conclusions of professional evaluators like
Wholey (1973) and Stufflebeam (1973) stress how founda-
tions should forge strong linkages between evaluation
planning and program decision-making. By using in-house
"bridging persons," foundations bring evaluation findings
into the grant review process, just as the Northwest
Area has already instituted with their evaluators and
consultants.

Unlike business firms, foundations have no internal
profit and loss gauge that registers success or failure,
thus the necessity for formal evaluation of its programs.
And, unlike government, with its complex system of checks
and balances, foundations are freer to engage in experi-
mental activity that, by virtue of its newness, calls for
critical examination of its effects. How else but through
evaluationvwnfiuia.foundation retrieve what has been ac-
complished by a funding program and learn what gaps exist
that need to be filled?

Generally, foundations are unlikely to hear adverse
commentary about their programs, and self-studies are
likely to confirm on—going procedures and policies. The
institutional isolation and autonomy of many foundations
cut them off from the natural flow of critical informa-
tion typical of other social institutions. As the Presi-

dent of the Robert Johnson Foundation expressed it:

186

". . . foundations need tough-minded and pragmatic docu-
mentation of the worth of their efforts, carried out by
trained, objective third parties."107

Whatever the difficulties in measurement of grant
productivity and administration, foundations bear the
responsibility of testing their effectiveness and ap-

praising their social and intellectual impact. Zurcher

observes:

The indispensable condition is the injec-
tion into foundation administrative policy
of greater concern for evaluation -- a com-
mitment by foundation officials to the ex-
penditure of thought, energy, and funds

to insure review and appraisals.lO

Periodic case studies, such as this one, would strengthen
that commitment.

(11) The Foundation should extend its reputation for
openness and social responsibility and regularlyrpublish

its project successes and failures. In a sense, founda-

 

tions have little to lose by such actions; they cannot
make fatal mistakes in their granting policies, only in

their investment policies. Because of this distinctive

 

107Young, Patrick. "Robert Wood Johnson: Assessing
Success." Foundation News, July/August, 1979 (Vol. 20,
No. A), p. 15.

108Zurcher, Arnold J. "Measuring the Product of a
Foundation Grant." Foundation News, March/April, 1970
(Vol. 11, No. 2), p. 55.

 

187

nature, foundations should be able to admit publicly to
their failures and accept the consequences of unsuccess-
ful experiments.

Since foundations are characterized in the public
eye as private institutions eager to bury their mistakes
and forget them, this accentuates the importance of fre—
quent and candid public reporting of project evaluations,
regardless of the outcomes. Disseminating the results
of grant experiences may help other foundations achieve
similar benefits or avoid similar pitfalls. Successfully
tested college models could be publicized and transplanted
for use on other campuses, while unsuccessful models could
be examined for what could be learned about their weak-
nesses and then discarded. Educational grantees hold a
similar obligation to place knowledge gained through their
projects, and from any positive and negative unanticipated
consequences, into the hands of similar institutions.

Knowledge of project outcomes, and the difficulties
inherent in them should have mutual value to colleges,
foundations, and the public. For foundations, project
results aid in the further refinement of funding programs
and in future resource allocation decisions; for col-
leges and universities, the value of the grant experiences

lies not only in their direct practical benefits, but also

in what they reveal about the conditions under which educa—

tional experiments thrive cn:fEil, and the complexities

188

of implementing social change. And, for the public,
honest reporting of foundation activities reestablishes
confidence and sympathy for those entrusted to dispense
private monies for the public good.

Our case study findings on grant administration to
higher education institutions have ready implications for

college behavior. The following recommendations for col-

 

legps and universities spring from the cumulative grant

experiences of our sample:

(1) Welcome the opportunipy to evaluate project ac-
tivities as a means of increasing the probability that
colleges will achieve their intended purposes. This means
accepting the legitimacy of public accountability for all
social institutions, including academia, and a redefini-
tion of the university/foundation relationship as utili-
tarian and reciprocal. Recognize that for the colleges'
own self-interest, formative evaluation and foundation
monitoring help improve project efforts; learn from
evaluations of other educational projects by watching for
patterns of success or failure; insist upon foundation
evaluation of their own funding programs, so they can better
advise colleges about the feasibility of proposal ideas
and project strategies;

(2) Since most colleges learned quickly enough that

running effective projects was more intricate and complex

189

than they had realized, heed the findings of this case

 

study on the relative merits and deficiencies of awarded
and declined proposals. Poor proposals lacked well-con-
ceived project objectives and relevant strategies; they

failed to produce a comprehensive evaluation statement or

a convincing commitment to future funding possibilities.

(3) Heed the findings of this case study on the

 

characteristics of failed projects; since project leader-

 

ship influenced the probability of project success, assign

competent and experienced prpject directors and contract
external evaluators for formative and summative evaluation;
involvetflmeproject directors and other faculpyjinjproposal
development and conceptualization, so that proposal ideas
acquire broad faculty collaboration and support, and later
will likely gain approval from those who must carry them
out;

(A) Clarify_academicrprocedures for forwarding grant

 

prOposals, initiated by administrators and faculty in

 

concert; keep development officers on the sidelines in
the negotiation process, since their intervening presence
is often resented by foundation officials;

(5) Join together with the new public policy thrust
of private foundations and design educationalrprojects

compatible to both the philanthrppic and educational goals

 

of the two institutions. Currently, foundations are en-

 

gaged in a continuing search for societal activities which

190

they can perform better than other social or governmental
institutions. By involvement in public policy issues,
they hope to formulate a contemporary and unique rationale
for their existence, showing their adaptability to social
change, and, simultaneously, dispelling the traditional
separatism attributed to them throughout their history.
Liberal arts colleges can participate in and influence
the direction of foundation funding by recognizing this
policy orientation and developing project ideas that
convince foundations of the social merit and positive
policy implications of continued sponsorship of private

higher education.

APPENDICES

 

APPENDIX A

Proposal Checklist and Evaluation Form

191

 

192

APPENDIX A

 

Proposal Checklist
and Evaluation Form

By Norton .I. Kiritz

This form. designed for use in the Grantsmanship aid to the proposal evaluator in assessing the merit of a
Center Training Programs. follows the format of grant application.

“Program Planning and Proposal Writing" (see issue Yes/No answers indicate whether or not an item is

29). It can assist the proposal writer in the preparation included. The numerical rating ( l is poorest, Sis best) is
and improvement of a complete proposal. It is also an for use where applicable.

Proposal Components
and Necessary Items:

 

 

Summary: Clearly and concisely summarizes the comments on summary
requeSt I< z T:
8 o

 

I. Appears at the beginning of the proposal

 

. Identifies the grant applicant

 

. Includes at least one sentence on credibility

 

 

. Includes at least one sentence on objectives

 

2
3
4. Includes at least one sentence on problem
5
6

. Includes at least one sentence on methods

 

7. Includes total cost. funds already obtained and
amount requested in this proposal

8. Is brief

9. Is clear

 

 

 

I0. Is interesting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Norton 1. Kiritz is the president of The Grantsmanship Center.

Copyright °l979 The Grantsmanship Center

 

193

 

I. Introduction: Describes the applicant
agency and its qualifications for funding (credibil-

M)

93A
0N
91

 

1. Clearly establishes who is applying for funds

 

. Describes applicant agency purposes and goals

 

. Describes applicant‘s programs and activities

 

 

2
3
4. Describes applicant‘s clients or constituents
5

. Provides evidence of the applicant’s accomplish-
ments

 

6. Offers statistics in support of accomplishments

 

7. Offers quotes/ endorsements in support of accom-
plishments

 

8. Supports qualifications in area of activity in which
funds are sought (e.g., research. training)

 

9. Leads logically to the problem statement

 

10. Is as brief as possible

 

l I. Is interesting

 

 

IZ. Is free of jargon

 

 

 

 

Comments on Introduction

 

 

II. Problem Statement or Needs
Assessment

93A
0N

 

l. Relates to purposes and goals of applicant agency

 

2. Is of reasonable dimensions—not trying to solve all
the problems of the world

 

3. Is supported by statistical evidence

 

4. Is supported by statements from authorities

 

5. Is stated in terms of clients‘ needs and problems—
not the applicant's

 

6. Is developed with input from clients and benefi-
ciaries

 

7. Is not the “lack of a program,” unless the program
always works

 

8. Makes no unsupported assumptions

 

9. Is free of jargon

 

l0. Is interesting to read

 

I]. Is as brief as possible

 

 

l2. Makes a compelling case

 

 

 

 

Comments
on Problem Statement/
Needs Assessment

 

 

 

.1:

13

 

III. Program Objectives: Describes the
outcomes of the grant in measurable terms

sag

Z "‘ Comments
9 ”' on Program Objectives

 

I. At least one objective for each problem or need
committed to in problem statement

 

2. Objectives are outcomes

 

3. Objectives are not methods

 

4. Describes the population that will benefit

 

5. States the time by which objectives will be accom-
phshed

 

 

 

 

 

 

6. Objectives are measurable. if at all possible

 

 

 

IV. MCthOdS! Describesthe activitiestobccon- Comments on Methods

ducted to achieve the desired objectives

sax
0N
-t

 

l. Flows naturally from problems and objectives

 

. Clearly describes program activities

 

. States reasons for the selection of activities

 

 

. Describes staffing of program

 

2
3
4. Describes sequence of activities
5
6

. Describes clients and client selection

 

 

7. Presents a reasonable scope of activities that can be
conducted within the time and resources of the program

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

V. Evaluation: Presents a plan for determining comments

the degree to which objectives are met and meth- ,_ .
ods are followed g on Evaluation

39A

 

l. Presents a plan for evaluating accomplishment of
objectives

 

2. Presents a plan for evaluating and modifying meth-
ods over the course of the program

 

3. Tells who will be doing the evaluation and how they
were chosen

 

4. Clearly states criteria of success

 

5. Describes how data will be gathered

 

6. Explains any test instruments or questionnaires to
be used

 

7. Describes the process of data analysis

 

 

 

 

 

8. Describes any evaluation reports to be produced

 

 

 

195
VI. Future Funding: Describes a plan for Comments

continuation beyond the grant and i or the avail- .
ability of other resources necessaryto implement on Future Funding

the grant 5 g 7‘

 

 

I. Presents a specific plan to obtain future funding if
program is to be continued

 

2. Describes how maintenance and future program
costs will be obtained (if a construction grant)

 

3. Describes how other funds will be obtained. if
necessary to implement the grant

 

4. Has minimal reliance on future grant support

 

 

5. Is accompanied by letters of commitment. if
necessary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Budget: Clearly delineates costs to be met by the
funding source and those provided by other parties

sag

c2 ‘3'" Comments on Budget

 

I. Tells the same story as the proposal narrative

 

2. Is detailed in all aspects

 

3. Projects costs that will be incurred at the time of the
program, if different from the time of proposal writing

 

3. Contains no unexplained amounts for miscella-
neous or contingency

 

4. Includes all items asked of the funding source

 

. Includes all items paid for by other sources

 

. Includes all volunteers

 

 

. Includes all consultants

 

5
6
7. Details fringe benefits. separate from salaries
8
9

. Separately details all non-personnel costs

 

IO. Includes indirect costs where appropriate

 

 

ll. Is sufficient to perform the tasks described in the
narrative

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Grantsmanship Center NEWS is published six times per year by The Grantsmanship Center, a nonprofit, tax-
exempt educational institution, located at 1031 South Grand Avenue, Los Angeles, Ca. 90015.

Subscription Rates: 315 for one year (6 issues): 327 for two years (12 issues): S38for three years (18 issues); (prices to increase
after August I979). Foreign subscriptions. add 34 per year/surface mail. 3 12 per year/air mail.
Reprints of this form are available:
25 copies (minimum order), $6.00; 50 copies. 310.00; 100 copies, $18.00; 250 copies, 337.50; 500 copies $50.00;
over 500 copies. 310/100.

APPENDIX B

1975 and 1976 Proposal Selection Criteria
Used by the Advisory Committee

196

197

APPENDIX B-l

1975 PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA -— USED BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

1. The proposed project should have a high probability
of reducing the cost of instruction without impairing
the quality of academic service.

2. The proposal's objectives must address real and com-
pelling needs.

3. The college must genuinely require Foundation assistance
in order to implement the project.

5. The project must have a high level of administrative
leadership and support.

5. The faculty must exhibit a climate of cooperation and
willingness to change, in terms of the proposed project.

6. The college should demonstrate strength as a liberal
arts institution.

198

APPENDIX B-2

1976 PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA -- USED BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE

10.

Will the grant change the institution over the course
of the next five years?

Will the grant supported project sustain itself beyond
the lifetime of the grant, and have a lasting impact
upon the institution?

Does the grant prevent the college from dealing with
real and serious problems?

If the college is so concerned with the problem ad-
dressed in the proposal, what evidence is there that
previous attempts have been made to solve the problem?

The innovative element: Unresolved.Education is in
trouble and needs new models. Is the application in-
novative in some respect? If innovation is left out of
the criteria, other colleges will simply use the idea
to get a grant. Perhaps it's unrealistic for the
Foundation to expect innovation in such basic areas as
admissions, retention, fund-raising, etc.

Is the budget reasonable and justifiable?
Is the project integral to the mission of the college?

Does the grant have broad acceptance by the affected
constituencies?

Is there evidence that the applicant college has asked
the important contextual or environment questions which
would impinge upon the success of the project?

Are evaluation plans present?

 

APPENDIX C

Proposal Selection Criteria Used by Author

199

 

 

200

APPENDIX C

PROPOSAL SELECTION CRITERIA -- USED BY AUTHOR

Includes faculty involvement in the proposal develop-
ment.

Cites tOp administration support or organizational
commitment.

Describes clear goals, distinct from objectives or
project strategies.

Defines measurable objectives describing expected
outcomes of program.

Shows correspondence between objectives and strategies
to achieve them.

Includes adequate evaluation plan.

Submits all sections requested by Foundation guide-
lines.

Shows compatibility of proposed project with college
history or mission.

Shows links of proposed project with other college
units.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Andrews, F. Emerson, Ed. Foundations: 20 Viewpoints.
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21A

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