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Corporate
Philanthropy in the New Urban Economy:
The
Role of Business-Nonprofit Realignment
in Regime Politics
by
Leonard
Nevarez
Department of
Sociology
Vassar
College
Accepted for publication in
Urban Affairs Review
November
2000
PHILANTHROPY
TO HIGHER EDUCATION
For the last of my targeted
fields, I examined corporate philanthropy to (1) the new
Academy of Entertainment & Technology at Santa Monica's
community college; (2) the College of Engineering at the
University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB); and (3)
the fund-raising campaign by San Luis Obispo's community
college to establish a new campus, develop high-tech
training and certification programs, and upgrade computers
and laboratory equipment.
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Table 3:
Contributions per firm (total contributions) to
selected higher education programs
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locality
|
software
|
entertainment
|
tourism
|
banks
|
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Santa
Monica
|
$1,657.41
($179,000)
|
$416.04
($111,500)
|
$0.00
($0)
|
$0.00
($0)
|
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Santa
Barbara
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$4,485.82
($632,500)
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$1,063.83
($100,000)
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$0.00
($0)
|
$0.00
($0)
|
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San Luis
Obispo
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$6,428.57
($360,000)
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$0.00
($0)
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$543.85
($300,750)
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$3,888.88
($105,000)
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Individual gift amounts
calculated using mean values of reported gift
ranges.
Source: Contribution amounts come from author's
interview with Santa Monica College Dean of
External Affairs, September 22, 1997; UCSB College
of Engineering (1997); author's interview with UC
Santa Barbara College of Engineering development
director, May 21, 1998; Cuesta College Foundation's
1998 "Shareholders" report. Total local firms
derived from InfoUSA Inc. (1998).
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As Table 3 shows, the software
industry gave significantly to higher educational
institutions, yet its donations came from a relatively small
number of firms (two in Santa Monica, twelve in Santa
Barbara, and three in San Luis Obispo). Tracking software
donations by geographical source reveals an important
distinction. Although software donors to community colleges
were almost entirely local, at high-profile research
universities like UCSB, nonlocal firms from Silicon
Valley and other high-tech districts gave more in cash or
in-kind contributions, and local firms gave more in
executive service. At UCSB, the dean of engineering's
advisory board brought together thirteen executives, of
which two came from local software firms and nine from local
firms in other high-tech sectors. Not far behind software,
entertainment showed a similar pattern. In the Santa Monica
academy's 15-member advisory board to the college president,
thirteen members were high-level executives from a cross
section of important entertainment firms. At UCSB, one
multinational electronics/media corporation represented the
sole entertainment donor to the College of Engineering. San
Luis Obispo provided the only case of tourism contributions
to the higher educational institutions that I studied. Two
tourism firms gave about one sixth ($300,750) of the San
Luis Obispo community college's fund-raising campaign;
almost all of this amount came from the owners of one of the
area's more popular hotels. This idiosyncrasy suggests the
new urban economy's philanthropy to higher education mostly
involves knowledge-intensive industries like software and
entertainment.
The new chamber of
commerce
In the research sites, college
administrators and faculty have recently stepped up efforts
to address local industry needs by participating in local
industry organizations, R&D collaborations with local
firms, and training programs. Although they have been quite
entrepreneurial in soliciting corporate donations for these
ends, local university and community college administrators
recognize that local software firms "are more important in
other regards." In the words of the UCSB dean of
engineering, his advisory board offered useful ideas about
"how to work together, what kind of courses and training
students need, how to partner in research and education, or
just being a civic minded citizen." UCSB's engineering
college lured in other local CEOs for specific events, such
as guest lectures in a course on "entrepreneurial
engineering," while about 20 local companies recruited
actively from the College of Engineering. Likewise, whereas
four entertainment firms gave over one sixth of donations to
Santa Monica's Academy of Entertainment & Technology,
the sector's importance lay more in directorships and other
service gifts (e.g., student internships, curricular advice,
networking). By the end of the Academy's first year, 48
entertainment-related firms and organizations had
participated either in a consulting role or as a
"partnership company" offering internships to Academy
students. Observed one Santa Monica software
entrepreneur/chamber officer,
You want to
talk about organizations that [entertainment]
people got passionate about? There was a lot of
support locally for wanting to provide help for
developing [the Academy], so kids could learn
about the technology and then be able to go to work
here.
In both cases, the returns that
software and entertainment donors received were often
indivisible but still quite tangible: a local labor market
of skilled employees, external research shaped around their
priorities, and contact with other local industry
executives. These highlight how universities and colleges
make an important local component in the otherwise global
business structure of software and entertainment's
technology-intensive components.
As higher educational
institutions channel systemic relationships to software and
entertainment leaders, they reveal another facet of local
dependence: face to face interactions. The industry and
scientific leaders in university advisory committees and
fund-raisers gather less to protect business relationships
among themselves (as entertainment does) than to share their
considerable knowledge about local and often national
business circles they come from, the direction of the new
economy, and its relevance for the places their industries
inhabit. For these and other reasons, a variety of
locals&endash;chambers of commerce, local politicians,
nonprofit fund-raisers, newspaper reporters, and social
scientists&endash;compete for the limited time and resources
that these new business leaders allocate to nonbusiness or
noneducational issues. In this regard, the new
business-university coalition siphons off industry elites
from traditional civic settings like the chamber of commerce
or traditional charities. They effectively constitute new
chambers of commerce for the information economy. The real
chambers can hardly compete with universities to represent
and organize the new firms, promote the local sector, get
personal access to the most important local industry
leaders, and understand the shifting tides in the new urban
economy.
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