The publicness of private foundations: Online accountability and Internet presence

Abstract

Private foundations face persistent charges of plutocracy and secrecy, undermining their legitimacy as philanthropic organizations that contribute to the public good, yet they can respond to the criticism proactively through online accountability and Internet presence. To what extent do foundations use web‐based tools to demonstrate public accountability, how are these tools used for this purpose, and what explains foundation participation in this form of self‐regulation? We argue that managerialism, organizational fields, and stakeholder relationships will matter for online accountability and Internet presence because they capture or reflect the “publicness” of private foundations. We test our conceptual framework on two online tools—websites and social media—using a dataset of private foundations located in Washington state. We find that few private foundations have a website or a social media account, and our analysis of those tools suggests that substantive accountability is not a high priority for those that do. Our empirical models nevertheless reveal that several components of our conceptual framework are associated with multiple forms of disclosure (operational, financial, and performance) and dialogic communication, a contribution to research on nonprofit accountability that also advances the literature on the organizational behavior of foundations.