Case 22

Abstract

Background. When, in 1950, the Ford Foundation became the world’s largest private philanthropy, it did not immediately begin to throw money into hands-on programming. Rather, the Foundation, quite often over the next three decades, preferred to fund studies and analysis, believing that thorough research could unlock the solution to many of society’s most pressing concerns. Nowhere has this approach yielded higher returns, nor left such lasting monuments, than in the field of public policy research. Between 1950 and 1981, the Ford Foundation was the catalyst for building and strengthening a host of research institutions, operating in several different fields, to inject statistical and economic analysis into the policy-making process. In addition, the Foundation provided significant support for several existing policy research organizations, helping to build them into eminent centers of social science research and application. Strategy. In Think Tanks, Public Policy, and the Politics of Expertise, Andrew Rich explains that the Ford Foundation “actively pursued a program supporting ‘knowledge-creating’ institutions . . . [and was] a principal source of support for many think tanks.”320 These institutions created or supported by the Foundation have many similarities, but each operates within its own niche of the policy-making process. Among the most significant321 are the following: