[Chapter 14, page 238]

The Hewlett Foundation’s efforts to build the field of conflict resolution[1]

In Chapter 14, we discuss the role of philanthropy in field building, using the "innovation curve," with its phases of innovation, growth, and maturity, to chart a field's trajectory . Our own employer, the Hewlett Foundation, provides an example of a foundation engaged in field building through these three phases. For two decades, from 1984 to 2004, the Foundation worked to build the field of conflict resolution, with three focal points:

• Theory. The first element of Hewlett’s field-building approach was to support the development of a theoretical base that could inform and advance the practice of conflict resolution. While many funders are unwilling to invest in research and teaching, the Foundation believed that the absence of theory was a primary obstacle to advancement and development of the field. Beginning in 1984 with a grant for the Harvard Program on Negotiation, the Foundation helped create eighteen university-based theory centers. Among the most prominent of these was the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation, whose interdisciplinary researchers included the Nobel laureate economist Kenneth Arrow, the psychologists Amos Tversky and Lee Ross, the economist Robert Wilson from Stanford’s business school, and the legal scholar Robert Mnookin. Their individual work, as well as the collection, Barriers to Conflict Resolution (1995), are among the intellectual foundations of conflict resolution. The large majority of grants to these centers were in the form of general operating support for the programs.

• Practice. Second, the Foundation provided general operating support to a number of “cornerstone” practitioner organizations in various sectors of conflict resolution that could serve as exemplars for others in the field. For example, Hewlett provided support to leading environmental dispute organizations, such as Keystone, ACCORD and RESOLVE; Neighborhood Justice Centers in Atlanta and Honolulu; and organizations that brought dispute resolution services to diverse communities, such as the Asian-Pacific American Dispute Resolution Center, the Martin Luther King Legacy Foundation’s Dispute Resolution Center, and Indian Dispute Resolution Services.

• Infrastructure. Third, the Foundation helped build an infrastructure for the field, another distinctive feature of the field-building approach. To this end, Hewlett provided support for an array of professional associations and organizations that connected practitioners across the country, such as the Society for Professionals in Dispute Resolution, the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution, and the Association for Conflict Resolution (formerly Academy of Family Mediators).

During this twenty-year period, Hewlett’s grantmaking in the area totaled more than $160 million in almost 900 grants to more than 320 organizations. The Foundation also held an early commitment to focus on institution-building rather than support of individual projects and to provide large, multi-year grants. Such long, sustained investment is often necessary to build a field successfully.