Exploring the Talk-action Gap: a Qualitative Investigation of Foundation Practices over Three Regime Types

For some scholars and practitioners the unique organizational characteristics of foundations allow them to play a major role in society as innovators and risk takers and as powerful agents of change (Anheier & Daly, 2007). For others, foundations are in theory thought to be powerful actors, but in practice do not live up to their potential due to the seemingly ad hoc nature of their grantmaking decisions (Arnove, 1982; Karl & Katz, 1987; Porter & Kramer, 1999; Frumkin, 2006). In this paper we ask who, what and why do foundations learn from and does this differ across countries? We seek to understand whether foundations grantmaking behaviors are or are not responsive to changes in their environments, their internal operational systems and/or changes in foundation leadership. To address these questions we conduct qualitative interviews with 9 foundations across three countries active in social services. We find that the ability of many foundations to change their grantmaking strategies is highly influenced by a set of ‘imprinting forces’ which constrain their future grantmaking flexibility. We also find that across countries board members play the strongest roles in changing grantmaking priorities.