Category Archives: foundations

Finding Common Ground, Valuing Different Views Article

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Happy to have contributed to the National Center for Philanthropy Philanthropy webinar and resulting article on family foundations and family giving: FEATURE: Finding Common Ground, Valuing Different Views (April 2012 FGN). NCFP and GMA Foundations also led a session on managing diverse family opinions at the 2012 Family Philanthropy Conference. They sent this PDF of articles on enhancing diverse opinions and managing difficult conversations in family giving: Same-Cloth-Different-Garments-Resource-List.

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The Nonprofit Quarterly’s Rick Cohen has an insightful article today on donor-advised funds managed by financial services firms and other national providers. The article provides counterpoint to worries about those national DAFs raised by nonprofits and others. In his concluding paragraph, he writes:

In contrast, DAFs are, dare we say it, an instrument toward democratizing philanthropy, putting more philanthropic decisions into the hands of ordinary Americans who may not be charter members of the one percent club.

I agree wholeheartedly and am glad that the national providers made the DAF tool far more accessible than community foundations could have done on their own.

And, my advice to nonprofits remains the same regardless of these funds are managed: Don’t treat DAFs as foundations, but as big checkbooks for the donors you should be getting to know anyways.

The Foundation World Needs Community Philanthropy to Succeed

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“Participation is the new endowment.”

This observation from the Aspen Institute’s Janet Topolsky has been stuck in my head since I read it a month ago in the Nonprofit Quarterly. She was part of a panel discussing the recent report The Value of Community Philanthropy by the C.S Mott Foundation and Aga Khan Foundation.

The article came around the same time that philanthropic provocateur Emmett Carson spoke in Pittsburgh. He cited the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative’s research showing the majority of civic leaders across America don’t feel informed about the work of foundations and can’t cite an example of a foundation’s impact. He thought the lack of awareness also led to poor public policies, including those that propose to restrict philanthropy or decrease charitable deductions.

In addition, polls show that Americans’ trust in institutions is continuing to decline while their participation in anti-establishment groups is rising. For example, in Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer, only half of Americans trust a nonprofit to do what’s right or see a nonprofit leader as credible.

The Philanthropy Awareness Initiative tells us to counter the lack of awareness (and I suppose trust) with increased strategic communications. I’m not convinced that increased communications works when people don’t feel personally and emotionally connected – when tan issue doesn’t touch their daily lives.

I’d argue that true community philanthropy is the most effective and sustainable countermeasure to the lack of awareness and trust in foundations.

Community Philanthropy’s Benefits
There are many different takes on the definition of community philanthropy, but the benefits described would definitely be healthy for the foundation world and for the communities it serves. A few examples:

  • Asian Americans/ Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) describes community philanthropy as when “Communities expand their pool of economic assets, build their social capital, and demonstrate enhanced and increased capacity to develop tools that meet their own needs.”
  • The Mott and Aga Khan report lists six common characteristics: organized and structured, self-directed, open architecture, civil society, using own money and assets, and building an inclusive and equitable society. It notes that when people give together, they build self-identity, trust, and community leadership. Their giving to solve local problems confers legitimacy on the solutions that is missing from government aid or big foundation projects.
  • Bill Schambra recently reminded a group of grantmakers that the acts of everyday citizens forming associations and nonprofits are fundamental to sustaining and strengthening democracy. He also saw the foundation world as at best ineffective in supporting these acts, and at worst accidently working against them. His comments could easily apply to community philanthropy and foundations’ support for that approach. The TCC Group’s Chris Cardona also writes regularly about philanthropy’s role in society and about democratizing philanthropy.
  • A relatively new project, Adventures in New Giving, looks at community philanthropy through the lenses of the sharing economy and the new technology tools that accelerate collaborative giving and building communities of givers. Lucy Bernholz and many others also are watching and writing about these trends.

Supporting everyday people in getting together, giving together, solving problems, and innovating together. Shouldn’t the benefits of community philanthropy be an easy sell? Shouldn’t participatory philanthropy be the new endowment?

Connecting Foundations and Community Philanthropy
And yet, most traditional foundations don’t seem sold on the idea. Even community foundations often miss the point and end up practicing philanthropy in communities but not practicing community philanthropy.

I do think that community philanthropy efforts can and will succeed without (or in spite of) support from traditional foundations (or “Big Giving” as Tim Hwang calls them). Giving circles, Awesome Foundation chapters, and other micro-philanthropy efforts will keep kicking butt on their own.

However, there’s too much at stake for traditional foundations to ignore community philanthropy. It is too easy to lump even the most community-minded foundations into “the establishment,” not to be trusted and not to be left to manage itself. Big Giving needs community philanthropy to reconnect civic leaders and everyday people with the power and joy of organized philanthropy. To make their work more of the community and less like an inaccessible, disconnected option only for the wealthy and powerful.

Regional associations of grantmakers could actively invite community philanthropy into the fold. More foundations could adopt community philanthropy approaches (see the  Philanthropic Ventures Foundation and Grassroots Grantmakers’ members as examples). As the Mott and Aga Khan report notes, foundations could improve government programs through community philanthropy. Heck, foundations could even pick up on my idea of developing Trusted Community Giving Centers.

So what do you think? Is community philanthropy a great answer to rebuilding civic trust and broader connections to the foundation world?

Foundation Executive as Community Builder

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“…outside resources will be much more effectively used if the local community is itself fully mobilized and invested, and if it can define the agendas for which additional resources must be obtained.” - Building Communities from the Inside Out, John P. Kretzmann and John L. McKnight, 1993.

I’ve been reflecting on how much my early training in community economic development continues to influence my current work in philanthropy.  I fell into both professions by accident, and the book quoted above and subsequent training on the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach continue to be integral to my worldview.

I was lucky that mentors ranging from neighborhood leaders to national foundation staff continued to introduce me to leaders and tools that worked in the same spirit:  Jim Diers, Bill Traynor, Everyday Democracy, Grassroots Grantmakers, Project for Public Spaces, and Cambridge Leadership Associates, just to name a few.

Because of these influences, I tend to take as a given that:

  • All people and communities are full of assets and capabilities
  • Smart community leaders help people identify those assets, make use of them, and grow additional skills and talents
  • Enduring community improvement starts with everyday people connecting with each other, cultivating their civic leadership and civic entrepreneurship skills, and planning and acting on the future of their community
  • Community building and trust building work has value by itself and not just as a means to another end

In looking back on my first year as executive director of a family foundation, I realize that I’ve continued to adapt these influences to the family and its philanthropy.  I see my work as an internal community builder.  My job is to help each family member identify her or his philanthropic skills and interests, and create an environment in which those skills and interests are recognized and flourish.  And, my job is to help them stay connected to each other and become more invested in and mobilized around their foundation’s future.

The tougher task is to continue the ABCD spirit in the foundation’s grantmaking – to see the nonprofits and communities we serve as full of capabilities, and to ensure our grants help them build on their assets effectively. Years of work in grantmaking unfortunately often translate into a lazy “been there, funded that, didn’t like the grant report” cynicism and distrust in community improvement powered by everyday people.  I hope my role can be to guard against that cynicism and distrust, including in myself.

As I write this, I’m attending the 2012 Family Philanthropy Conference.  NCFP’s CEO Retreat has started the conference with a discussion of the family foundation CEO’s role using GrantCraft’s Roles@Work materials.  “Community builder” didn’t appear as a role, though many of the roles described feel familiar, including bridge builder, connector, organizer, talent scout, and validator.

If the asset-based community building approach makes sense to you in family philanthropy work, drop me a line. I’d love to find more foundation staffers who are working from the framework!

(Also posted at http://www.cofinteract.org/rephilanthropy/?p=3919)

The Growing Power of Diverse Philanthropy

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A quick plug for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s new report, Cultures of Giving: Energizing and Expanding Philanthropy by and for Communities of Color. The report dives into the world of identity-based philanthropy—“a growing movement to democratize philanthropy from the grassroots up by activating and organizing its practice in marginalized communities, particularly communities of color.”

The report is a great primer on the core characteristics of identity-based funds, the scope of the field and its grantmaking, and its key organizations and leaders.  Even most seasoned philanthropoids and philanthropists will be surprised by the breadth of the field:  the funds award $400 million in grants annually, and that’s just the giving through these formalized groups.  The report also describes the Foundation’s activities and lessons learned in supporting the funds and their leaders.

Three quick quotes from the report to whet your whistle:

  • “We hope this report will inspire everyday givers—of all backgrounds, genders, races, and ethnicities—to embrace their power as philanthropists.”
  • “Communities of color teem with generosity. Much of that generosity is informal and casual, expressed through acts of benevolence and support so prevalent that they simply seem part of the fabric of a community taking care of itself.”
  • “It is not enough, then, to say that the field—and the face—of philanthropy is changing. Philanthropy has already changed. The only question is how fast and how well our traditional structures will catch up with it.”

If you’ve read my previous blog posts, you’ll know that I’m a big fan and advocate for making philanthropy and community leadership accessible to anyone.  A big thanks to the Kellogg folks for sharing their knowledge and inspiring the rest of us to learn and do more to diversify and democratize philanthropy.

Spittin’ in the philanthropic wind?

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The Chronicle of Philanthropy reports that a group of progressive nonprofits are asking the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to pick a new CEO that will dial back on strategic philanthropy and fund more of what they and their constituents want.  Everyone is of course entitled to their opinion and the nonprofits have valid needs. That said, I wonder how the nonprofits would respond if the Foundation publicly told their boards to find CEOs who will dial back on advocacy and liberal thinking and instead perform more measurable direct services…

Philanthropy Buzzword Bingo (updated)

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Lucy Bernholz, one of my favorite philanthropy consultants (and self-described Philanthropy Wonk) just published her Top 10 Philanthropy Buzzwords list.  She annually tracks the words and phrases that are picking up steam in the philanthropy, nonprofit, and social enterprise arenas.  If you look at her past lists, most have stuck around and/or evolved.

To pay tribute, I’ve once again put her list into Bingo format for your use at meetings, conferences, or while going through your reading stack.  Remember this is just for fun and to always play responsibly.  If you have a buzzword usage problem, please seek help. Philanthropy Buzzword Bingo 2011