Giving for the City: How Civic Capacity Influences Philanthropic Support for Education Reform in Small-to-Mid-Sized Urban School Districts

Abstract

School-community partnerships enhance school districts’ capacity to provide effective educational services to their students. In under-resourced schools—such as small-to-mid-sized urban school districts—these partnerships play a crucial role, as resource limitations often inhibit the availability of services traditionally provided by public schools. Philanthropic foundations have played a vital role in catalyzing school-community education reform partnerships in urban school districts. Although bureaucratic challenges have limited the success of such partnerships in large urban school districts, small-to-mid-sized urban school districts are more amenable to school-community partnerships, having fewer layers of bureaucracy and greater financial need. Using correlational research methods, the present study examined the civic capacity characteristics of small-to-mid-sized urban school districts and the funding allocations of local philanthropic foundations to identify factors that delineate school districts receiving education reform grants from those not, illustrate the grantmaking preferences of local philanthropic foundations, and explain how school districts’ civic capacities are associated with their likelihood of receiving education reform grants.