Elite networks for environmental philanthropy: shaping environmental agendas in the twenty-first century

ABSTRACT Examining all donations of one-million dollars or more to environmental and animal-related causes from 2000–10 in the U.S., this paper employs network methodologies to identify structural patterns in elite philanthropy. Employing k-plex algorithms, analysis demonstrates robust, overlapping donor-recipient ties forming meaningful subcomponents within the larger network. In addition to donor-recipient subgroups that partition along major environmental and animal-related issues, we find politically polarized subcomponents among organizations engaged in energy and climate change. Here it is argued that these observed substructures in the network reflect an intra-elite fracture that mirrors ideological differences of donors and a larger partisan polarization on these issues in the U.S. These findings substantiate a critical theory of foundations and elite philanthropy that accounts for their role in establishing, maintaining, and at times contesting forms of political hegemony favorable to their factional interests.