The thesis of this dissertation is that philanthropic foundations in the western world---specifically Canada, the United States, and Europe---may be evaluated according to the social values they convey, articulated as a vision of a better, preferred, or ideal society. Social values are distinguished from personal values and organizational values, which together with social values constitute cultural values.Finally, the educational potential of the research results is considered, including an outline for a proposed educational program to engage foundation principals in an ongoing critical reflection of their foundation's commitment to social values.The study concludes that foundations in Canada, the United States, and Europe may be evaluated according to their social values provided that the set of social values are identically understood in the three regions and that foundations are forthright in expressing their convictions. The theoretical implications for a proposed theory of rational evaluation are considered in terms of four constitutive elements: rational choice theory, social values, an epistemological model, and a model of evaluation. These elements are arranged to create an evaluative framework that can be used to judge foundations for: (a) internal management purposes as a correlation between the foundation's espoused social values and its actual resource allocation decisions, and (b) external public policy purposes in terms of the congruence between the foundation's social values and those held by public interest groups or society at large.To test this thesis a comparative evaluative methodology was designed which included creating and testing a social values identification and measurement instrument. Research case studies investigate the strength of the measured correlation between espoused social values and actual resource allocation decisions in one foundation in each of the three regions studied.