The Roles, Impacts, and Institutional Characteristics of Grantmaking Foundations Supporting Women’s Causes in the U.S.

This study examines the roles and impacts of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women, as well as the influences of the foundations’ institutional characteristics on their grantmaking practices by employing a mixed-methods research design. In the first quantitative phase, this study explores three major research questions: (1) How has foundation grantmaking for women changed in the U.S.? (2) Whether and how foundations’ institutional characteristics are related to their grantmaking activities for women? (3) Whether and how foundation grantmaking for women has influenced women’s status? To address these research questions, I collect and analyze data on the U.S. foundation grants for women during the period between 2005 and 2014 from the Foundation Center and data indicating women’s status at the state level from various sources. The second qualitative phase focuses on examining the second and third research questions further by employing a comparative case study approach. Specifically, I conducted semi-structured interviews with directors or staff of the selected five foundations supporting women’s causes. The results show that foundations supporting women’s causes have focused more on their advocacy role than their charitable role by distributing their grants to programs for women’s rights/studies. Additionally, a foundation is more likely to give grants for women’s rights/studies when the organization is younger, with a higher total giving size, in the Western region, in the state of liberal ideology, or an independent foundation. Furthermore, a state with a larger amount of foundation grants for women (per woman) reveals a higher women’s status. The case study findings indicate that differences exist in how foundations implement their grantmaking decisions for women and how foundations assess their grantmaking impact on women. It also shows some evidence that foundations’ grantmaking decisions and impact assessment strategies for women are affected by the foundations’ institutional characteristics such as women’s leadership. This dissertation sheds light on our understanding of current trends of U.S. foundation grantmaking for women that was less focused and makes both theoretical and practical contributions to the nonprofit sector by suggesting a framework to assess the impact of foundations in society.