Philanthropic Partnerships in the Just City: Parks and Schools

Abstract

The role of private funding and management in U.S. urban public services has expanded through the auspices of private nonprofit organizations in formal relationships with government and aided by large gifts from wealthy donors with visions for their cities, leading scholars to raise concerns about potential harm to democratic governance and displacement of public investment. Where do these private efforts fit into current policy initiatives to improve equity in schools and parks? Employing Susan Fainstein’s Just City framework, this article analyzes cases in which policy actors sought constraints on private dollars in an attempt to institutionalize equity into public private partnership (PPP) regimes. The Portland, Oregon, school board required that school foundations share funds with a districtwide foundation for reallocation. In New York City, unsuccessful state legislation proposed reallocating private funds but executive action redirected public city funds, and largely nonmonetary private resources. These cases can inform policymakers striving for just cities.

Nonprofit Density and Distributional Equity in Public Service Provision: Exploring Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Public Park Access across U.S. Cities

“…Situated in the context of public park services in large U.S. cities, we find that while the nonprofit sector promotes park access for all racial–ethnic groups, it is associated with more benefits to whites compared to other groups. These results offer important lessons for public managers as the equity concerns of relying on nonprofit organizations in financing and supporting public service provision is mounting (Gazley, LaFrontant, and Cheng 2020; Nisbet and Schaller 2020). From a theoretical perspective, our study articulates multiple pathways through which the represented interest by nonprofits and their influences in urban governance may jointly determine who gets better access to public services.…”

“…An increase in net social gains does not necessarily mean that benefits are equitably distributed, and therefore, the end goal of social equity to “either maintain or create a level playing field” (Norman‐Major 2011, 238) is not guaranteed. In communities where POC have been systematically denied public service in the past, there needs to be race‐specific interventions and policies in place to make sure the involvement of nongovernmental actors does not continue widening the gap (Nisbet and Schaller 2020).…”

“…2020). As a result, scholars and policymakers have advocated for more research to examine how different spending patterns on parks may affect access to public parks by various racial–ethnic groups differentially (Nisbet and Schaller 2020; Rigolon 2019).…”

“…The reliance on nonprofit funding leads to two concerns, first over the crowding out of public funding (Walls 2014) and Figure 1 Relationship between nonprofit sector size and public service distribution second, unequal benefits enjoyed by better-resourced parks as parksupporting nonprofits are often located in more resourceful and whiter neighborhoods (Brecher and Wise 2008;Gazley et al 2020). As a result, scholars and policymakers have advocated for more research to examine how different spending patterns on parks may affect access to public parks by various racial-ethnic groups differentially (Nisbet and Schaller 2020;Rigolon 2019).…”

Government‐nonprofit partnerships outside the contracting relationship and public funding allocation: Evidence from New York City's park system

“…What is still missing in the literature is that as local governments are increasingly relying on their nonprofit partners to fund public service provision, how do these partnerships influence the allocation of public resources? This question is particularly salient as the concerns about equity are mounting for these partnerships (Gazley, LaFontant, & Cheng, 2020;Nisbet & Schaller, 2020).…”