Conclusion: Equal Participation and the Challenges of Higher Education Philanthropy

Abstract

The discussion in the preceding chapters encompassed the specifics of high-impact grantmaking among leading US foundations, with a particular focus on several trend-setting foundations in the field of higher education in Africa: the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation. The considerable impact of these foundations over African higher education, accumulated over decades of strategic grantmaking in the field, remains unrivaled. Their vast influence is truly remarkable considering the relatively small size of their investments to academic institutions. These foundations, demonstrating a high level of expertise in the field, maximized their investments, impact, influence, and legitimacy, particularly in relation to institutions of higher learning in Africa. The research presented in this book focused on the role of institutional, inter-organizational, and environmental factors in the relationship between US foundations and higher education institutions in Africa. The findings help to explain the dynamics of collaboration in the PHEA, as well as the ways in which collaboration served the foundations involved. These dynamics of collaboration framed the discourse of philanthropic foundations and the extent to which collaborative mechanisms increase the complexity of grantor–grantee relations.