The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund, and Manage Effective Programs

Public Policy and Public Will

Whenever foundations work with government officials, there is a danger that the result could be an elitist project remote from the needs and desires of the general public. Indeed, one can point to examples, such as certain programs in President Lyndon Johnson's “War on Poverty,” where this has happened. To guard against this tendency, foundations should make sure that public will is taken into account in all of their policy activities. Thanks to the pioneering work of the Union Institute (Jones and Siegal, 1993), we have a working definition of public will: “The collective recognition of the need for change in a societal condition that leads to making choices, setting goals, and acting to achieve those goals. It ...