This article examines how local public policy may be influenced by small foundations. Written as a policy analysis, it focuses on one case study: the work of the Woods Fund of Chicago in the Chicago school reform movement from 1987 to 1993. This is an ongoing reform movement rooted in a path-breaking, 1988 state law that decentralized the governance of Chicago's public schools. Woods played a special role in bolstering the movement's central tenet: parent and community empowerment. Woods alone was not responsible for parent and community control becoming the basis of the new school governance system. But its strategic focus, in both funding and activism, contributed to the idea's ascendance and helped establish the governance structure in which Chicago's biggest foundations have invested so substantially. Three strategic factors explain Woods's effect: unwavering means, enduring collaboration, and staff activism. Although centered on one foundation, this article provides insights on two gaps in public policy and philanthropic research: most broadly, the intersection of local foundations and local public affairs; and, more specifically, the ways small foundations may contribute to the formulation and implementation of urban education policy.
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