Strategic philanthropy, organizational legitimacy, and the development of higher education in Africa: The partnership for higher education in Africa (2000-2010)

Abstract

This discussion encompasses the specifics of a partnership between leading U.S. foundations—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. This analysis illustrates the dynamics of their collaboration—the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa—and offers an interpretation of how foundations leveraged legitimacy by both working collaboratively with peer grant-makers, and paying attention to their African beneficiaries' input. This inquiry illustrates how these foundations strategically monitored their accountability around various legitimation mechanisms to maximize the impact of their philanthropy on the field of higher education in Africa while supporting the field's institutionalization. They gained legitimacy by rationalizing a form of collective and participatory action, and promoting a discourse of capacity building that reinforced their role in higher education in Africa. The foundations also positioned themselves strategically in the ecology of international developers to advocate for the importance of higher education in the economic development of Africa while upholding their own conception of knowledge societies.