Council on Foundations Conference Wrap-Up

May 9, 2008 – 9:03 am

Wow! Now only was the COF conference really interesting, fun and exciting, but I was deeply impressed by the performance of the blog team! Just to be clear, this is Sean Stannard-Stockton writing again. I’ve been a bit of a managing editor since last weekend, so I’m glad to get back to writing.

A few reflections on the conference:

Last year at COF, I felt like a bit of a novelty attending as a blogger. One person did introduce himself to me saying that he read Tactical Philanthropy, but for the most part people seemed to perceive a blog as a place where some uneducated nobody posted rants about things they knew little about and then posted pictures of their cat. Seriously. But this time was different. Not only did it seem that everyone I met knew of Tactical Philanthropy, but people seemed to have a new sense that blogs were playing an important role in philanthropy. The very fact that my blog team included employees of major foundations was a pleasant surprise to me and indicative of the changing way that foundations see social media.

One thing I loved about the blog team is that I got to experience far more of the conference than I could otherwise. After Peter Manzo (here) and Peter Deitz (here) both posted their (opposing) thoughts on the opening plenary video, I was asked by someone what I thought of the video. It took me a second to remember that I hadn’t actually attended the plenary and that I had experienced it only via the blog! Similarly, I got a lot of emails from people who were not able to attend the conference to say that they were happily following along from home. (Note too, that these two posts were the most widely read on Tactical Philanthropy during the last week).

Speaking of Peter Manzo’s negative take on the plenary video (he called it “abysmal”), I think Peter and I were both surprised by the attention the post got (Both the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the blog of Philanthropy News Digest reported on his comments). It was a bit “shocking” to read something so negative within the halls of “institutional philanthropy”, but here’s the thing. I asked a LOT of people what they thought of the video and I’d say 80-90% agreed with Manzo. So his take wasn’t really something new, it was just airing publicly what many people thought. I think that’s a good thing.

Personally, I thought the “mega-conference” format turned out quite well. I really enjoyed meeting people from all aspects of philanthropy and getting their takes. However, for any given time slot, there were about 25 session to choose from and I often wanted to attend 2 or 3 of them.

Speaking of the format, a couple people have asked me to follow up on my horrendous experience checking into the hotel. The Gaylord was just opened in March and it showed. Without boring you with details, even after check in I continued to not have my room cleaned and routinely put on hold for 10-15 minutes (at which point I usually gave up). To their credit, the Gaylord did comp my room the first night. But I will say that I liked that so many people could fit in one space. When writing and editing the blog, I would often set up camp at a table in the main breeze way by the coffee shop. A lot of people stopped by to say hi and as they always say “the best part of the conference is in the hallways.”

I’ll just wrap up saying the same thing I did last year. The conversation does not have to stop now and wait for next year! I realize there were a lot of new readers here during the last week and I want to encourage you to keep posting your ideas and thoughts. Conferences are great, but we can still come together as a group all year round in online forums like this one to discuss these topics. I know I enjoy it and learn a lot. I think you will too.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (2)

Vision, Leadership and Partnership

May 9, 2008 – 7:36 am

(This is a guest post from Peter Deitz, Founder of Social Actions, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Peter Deitz

On Tuesday evening, the famed cartoonist Milt Gross made an appearance at the Council on Foundations annual conference. In a session called Strategic Philanthropy: Theory and Practice, the speaker Paul Brest, President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, flashed on the monitor a cartoon of howling wolves gathered at the edge of a cliff. One of the wolves had taken a break from howling to ask his companions, “My question: are we making a difference?”

The attendees at this week’s philanthropy summit in Washington DC met up to ask themselves the same question. As a blogger, I wasn’t privy to many of the intimate conversations among colleagues and close friends in the foundation world. I didn’t hear the uncertainties that were no doubt expressed in whispered voices between conference sessions and at the gala events. Instead, I heard bold proclamations on what it takes to make a difference: namely, the right combination of vision, leadership, and partnership.

In his presentation about strategic philanthropy, Brest presented an outline of his foundation’s approach to all three points. For vision, Brest said a foundation must first establish a viable theory of change. “If your theories of change are incorrect, your interventions will only be right by accident,” warned Brest.

He had just finished explaining a case study in New York City in which police implemented a program to reduce crime by arresting people for petty offences. Crime went down, which was the desired effect. During the same time, however, crime also dropped in cities that had not implemented a similar program. In this case, the desired impact may not have been linked to the city’s theory of change.

Brest went on to discuss the importance of maintaining an “expected return attitude,” in which every effort is made to assess an intervention’s cost and likelihood of success. Doing so permits grantmakers: to recognize and mitigate risks; justify large expenditures with the prospect of high returns; and be candid if and when failure sets in. He also emphasized the need for complete “logic models” to explain how change happens and evaluation criteria to measure success along the way.

According to Brest, failure to demonstrate leadership in these respects can result in wasted money, or worse, “unanticipated bad consequences.” In seeking partners, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation looks for grantees and co-funders who share a similar theory of change and demonstrate willingness to candidly assess each program during and following an intervention. Mr. Brest’s professionalism commanded respect in the room full of his peers and colleagues. Quiet in his delivery and precise with his words, I was left thinking that calmness is king in vision, leadership, and partnership.

On the following day, “Teacher of the Year” and bestselling author Ron Clark tore this hypothesis to pieces during his closing plenary of the leadership summit. Mr. Clark, who jumps rope “double-dutch” with his middle school students, delivered half of his speech while literally jumping from table to table in the closing plenary ballroom. I have never seen a more hyperactive successful adult.

In an abandoned factory turned state-of-the-art school, Mr. Clark has setup a scholastic program that transforms Atlanta’s poorest school children into over achievers. How? By mixing together the same ingredients that Paul Brest documented with Pentagon restraint.

Mr. Clark’s school has honed and implemented an accurate theory of change. That is children perform best when their instructors have high expectations, maintain rules, believe in their students’ futures, and serve as living role models of creativity, innovation, and free-thinking. Mr. Clark has created a partnership with his students, their parents, and school staff by winning them over to this theory. Together, they are reaching unlikely heights of academic achievement and preparing “a new generation for leadership in a globalized world.”

Mr. Clark’s description of his school in Atlanta reminded me of a quote I heard earlier in the day. Andrew Gillum, Director of the Young Elected Officials Network commented on the electoral success of young people of color, including himself. “We did the impossible, because we didn’t know what was supposed to be impossible.”

At the end of Ron Clark’s Broadway performance renamed a closing plenary, the audience of 1,000+ grantmakers gave him a standing ovation that extended for minutes. It sounded like wolves howling. They stood up to applaud the fact that at least one among them was making a difference by harnessing the right combination of vision, leadership and partnership.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

Are We Rising or Sinking?

May 9, 2008 – 7:24 am

(This is a guest post from Brian Walsh, head of global social engagement for LiquidNet, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Brian Walsh

There’s a giant statue of a mythic figure partially submerged in the sand of the marina at the new National Harbor where the Council on Foundations conference was held. Depending on your perspective, this figure is either rising triumphantly or sinking desperately. I can’t think of a more apt metaphor to frame one’s perspective on the future of philanthropy coming out of this conference.

At Tuesday’s mini-Summit on Philanthropy and the Economy, held at the Commerce Department, former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert “Rubinomics” Rubin declared that the current macro economic situation is the most challenging and complex set of circumstances that he’s witnessed in his adult life, and warned that no matter who becomes the next President, for the near term there will be reduced corporate returns, increased demands for services, and a decrease in the capability of government to respond. Clearly, there will be an increased demand put on philanthropy to help fill the looming gap, even as foundations see reduced returns on their endowments.

Rubin went on to lament the “unconscionable number of poor people we have in a very rich country” which he presented as not just a moral issue, but an economic one. He sees the importance of bringing the poor into the economic mainstream as necessary for the United States to remain competitive in the larger historical transformations occurring in the global economy.

Later at the same mini-Summit, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich offered hope that we are entering a phase of unprecedented technological achievement at a scale never before seen in human history. Gingrich predicted (not so subtlety) that the coming decades will see the “greatest explosion in human creativity in perhaps the entire history of the world” and went on to exclaim that “it’s almost incomprehensible how much knowledge is coming down the road; the scale is just daunting.” He railed against bureaucratic structures as hindrances to innovation and encouraged people interested in social change to follow their passion where it leads them, experiment, and take big risks.

Matthew Bishop of the Economist (and coiner of “Philanthrocapitalism” phrase) concluded the mini-Summit by heralding the “fifth golden age” of philanthropy that we’re potentially entering (the first three occurring in Britain beginning with the Tudors; the third starting with the Industrial Revolution in the U.S. and ending around 1932).

The hallmarks of this new age Bishop claims we’re on the threshold of include the fact that we are in an extraordinary period of entrepreneurial wealth creation, we face immense social challenges, and we are seeing new business models and techniques being applied to address these challenges. He talked about the need for “big, risk-taking innovation capital” provided to the “social problem solving community.” Bishop also highlighted the ‘hyper-agency’ role that philanthropy can play with its “ability to mobilize resources at a scale that gives you more power to focus on a particular problem.”

During the Q&A, Miles Rapoport, President of Demos (the publisher of “Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism” pamphlet by Michael Edwards) questioned Bishop on the ability of this new age of philanthropy to lead to the social transformation that Rapoport believes is necessary. In his response, Bishop essentially argued that if you can’t beat them, join them, in that it’s best to harness the tools provided by recent technological innovations to improve society. Market-based capitalism isn’t going anywhere soon.

Back at the brand-spanking-new Gaylord Resort, something did seem to be stirring in the salons and ballrooms.

I saw “traditional Foundation” professionals asking Ashoka founder Bill Drayton how they can encourage “social entrepreneurs.” Social Ventures Partners Executive Director Paul Shoemaker was asked how the tools of “venture philanthropy” can be applied to typical grant-making. X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis advised how more organizations might use “prize philanthropy” and competition to spur social innovation. The “Next Gen” rave-ish reception (a departure from the typical conference cocktail party, complete with the admittedly-yummy “Next Gentinis”) highlighted the online capabilities being developed to further democratize philanthropic involvement and bring new voices to the conversation, using technology to solicit ideas for change from a wider audience.

All of which is very exciting and seems very promising.

But there’s a larger opportunity out there. Philanthropy in America is a $300 billion annual market. As Ed Skloot of Duke University said during his session on Venture Philanthropy, the philanthropic field is “bereft of a marketplace that aggregates and uses capital well.” From my perspective, the philanthropic marketplace is terribly inefficient. To be sure, I am not claiming that individual nonprofits are inefficient – although certainly some are – nor am I making a judgment about the efficacy of individual nonprofits – though certainly some could be more effective. Rather, it seems to me that there is enormous room for improvement and increased efficiencies in the way in which we as a society provide resources to the causes that require resources. It’s a question of reducing transaction costs. This is a big challenge – and a big opportunity – and I’d be interested to hear from others on their perspectives for fixing our broken philanthropic marketplace.

I leave the conference as an optimist, and am excited about the possibilities that lay ahead (or is it lie ahead? I hope my 7th grade English teacher doesn’t Google me).

By the way, the title of that statue (by J. Seward Johnson, Jr.) in the sand is “The Awakening.” In my view, we’re in the midst of the next great wave of philanthropy that is now awakening , bringing with it a period of collaboration, innovation, broader engagement, and social progress. For my company, Liquidnet, an electronic marketplace for institutional investors, we’re tremendously excited to be participating in this new era through our Global Social Engagement, whereby we are committing one percent of our revenues towards addressing social challenges.

It’s an exciting time.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

links for 2008-05-09

May 9, 2008 – 12:32 am
By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

On Covering the Council on Foundations Conference

May 8, 2008 – 4:56 pm

(This is a guest post from Peter Deitz, Founder of Social Actions, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Peter Deitz

The Council on Foundations deserves two thumbs up for putting together a thought-provoking leadership summit that attracted philanthropists and foundation staff from across the globe. Unfortunately, their effort to communicate what was happening at the event to people who could not attend was less successful.

The homepage of the Council on Foundations does not feature a single headline about the conference. Visitors can click on a text link that redirects them to Philanthropy Today, the Council on Foundations website devoted to covering the event. This website features pictures with captions that read “undefined.” The video section features a screenshot of a media player with the words, “Coming soon.” On the up side, visitors can treat themselves to PDF versions of the conference’s daily print newsletter.

Contrast the coverage described above with an anecdote from Kassie Rohrbach, director of the Energy Action Coalition and a panelist on a session this morning called The Millenaials and the Moment: Youth Engagement and Leadership Development. As the organizer of the PowerShift 2007 Conference, her organization provided video training and gave cameras to interested attendees so they could cover the event using social media. The result is this powerful set of videos and this collection of images, created entirely from attendee-generated footage of PowerShift 2007. If I could make one point, it would be that the Council on Foundations can learn from the communications strategies of its youngest members.

The Tactical Philanthropy and Chronicle of Philanthropy blogging teams have done most of the heavy lifting in getting news out about the conference. And yet, not all bottom-up coverage of an event like this one works out 100%. Those of us covering the summit have added the COF2008 tag to our blog entries. Technorati, a tag-based aggregator of blog entries, has confused the Council on Foundations 2008 conference with the Czech Open Fighting 2008 competition, which also used the COF2008 tag.

As a result, all of the blog entries from the Tactical Philanthropy blog team now appear alongside videos of the Czech Open Fighting event. I guess crowd-sourcing has its limits.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

Race, Philanthropy, and the Grassroots

May 8, 2008 – 8:42 am

(This is a guest post from Peter Deitz, Founder of Social Actions, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Peter Deitz

Last night, attendees of the Council on Foundation’s annual conference were treated to a special event at the recently opened Newseum in Washington DC. Filmmaker Katrina Browne—a descendent of the DeWolf family, the largest slave trading family in the United States during the 19th century—took audience members on a 1.5 hour journey across geographic, historic, and racial borders.

In Traces of the Trade: A Story of the Deep North, Katrina and nine of her cousins travel to Massachusetts, Ghana, and Cuba in an effort to uncover the history and contemporary implications of their family’s involvement in the slave trade.

The film delivered a powerful message to members of the audience, many of whom represent some of the nation’s most wealthy private and family foundations. The documentary vividly demonstrates that wealth and privilege in the United States has been amassed, in large part, as a direct or indirect consequence of slavery. Katrina and her family members make the case for a renewed dialogue about race relations and raise the question of reparations as a path toward reconciliation.

Following the screening, Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media organized a discussion about these issues. Panelist James Joseph, a former U.S. ambassador to South Africa, commented on the potential of grassroots organizing to force a bottom-up discussion around reparations and reconciliation. “In the absence of [government] leadership, you must rely on people, their social capital, the vast networks they have, to mobilize action on this issue.”

With these words, Ambassador Joseph transformed the audience of grant-makers into an advocacy network whose responsibility could be to draw citizens into a conversation about racial inequality, individual responsibility, and paths to reconciliation.

Cynthia Carey-Grant, the executive director of Common Counsel Foundation, echoed these ideas, “In response to the question on what foundations can do regarding reparations, we can support individuals and activists who are already doing the work on the ground. Their efforts will bring about the conversation and necessary action on reparations.”

A representative from the Open Society Institute (OSI) suggested that “reinvestment” would serve as a more effective and inclusive term than “reparations.” OSI currently funds a program called Justice Reinvestments, in which federal spending on corrections is redirected to education, housing, healthcare, and employment in high incarceration areas. She presented this program as a model for what a reparations program might look like.

In a follow-up conversation after the panel, Xiomara Caro, a junior development officer at Fundacion Comunitaria of Puerto Rico took the idea a step further. “Community foundations, in a way, are the reparations. Individuals give to community foundation to address problems that we’ve inherited from the past.”

Personally, I left the auditorium thinking about what a reparations campaign organized by citizen philanthropists would look like. Viewers of this film, which airs on PBS in late June, may organize a web 2.0 campaign to raise money on behalf of the organizations and foundations that are advancing the reparations movement. Or better yet, they might organize a campaign that encourages family and private foundations to explore the sources of their own wealth.

I suspect that Katrina Browne was not the only individual in the room who could trace her privilege directly or indirectly to the slave trade. Although no one spoke this truth to the grant-makers assembled at the Newseum last night, family and private foundations may very well carry the greatest responsibility for leading a reparations movement on the issue of slavery and racial inequality in the United States.

As filmaker and “next gen” philanthropist Katrina Browne would say, “Don’t wait. Do something about it.”

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose

May 8, 2008 – 8:24 am

(This is a guest post from Taylor Ansley, a fellow at Z Smith Reynolds Foundation, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Taylor Ansley

I attended a session Monday afternoon that, frankly, won’t sound nearly as sexy and exciting as some of the topics covered recently by my fellow bloggers (micro philanthropy, socially responsible investing, venture philanthropy, etc). And yet “Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose” spawned a great discussion about desperately needed measures for improving the grantmaking process that (I hope) a number of funders will implement when they return home from DC.

This session was sponsored by Project Streamline—a group of foundation and nonprofit leaders looking for ways to improve the application and reporting process—and was focused on the results of a truly useful new report. You can find the full Project Streamline report (and I encourage grant makers to read the whole thing) at www.projectstreamline.org. Let me touch on a few ideas I hope folks will consider:

1. “Right Sized” requirements for grant applicants/recipients. Different application and reporting requirements for a $5,000 grant versus a $500,000 grant seem logical. Yet the majority of foundations do not vary their requirements by grant size, grant type, or the length of their relationship with a nonprofit (so a twenty-year grantee still submits their 501(c)3 letter each year). There remain unanswered questions (the answers to some of which will vary across different foundations) about how to distinguish between “small” and “large” grants, as well as what information should be absolutely required of all grantees. Nevertheless, the concept of “right sizing” is extremely helpful in identifying and alleviating burdens on grant applicants.
2. “Start[ing] from Zero:” the notion that foundation staff and board members should start from scratch and ask themselves “what information do I absolutely need?” to evaluate a grant proposal or project. Starting from zero means that funders should always be able to articulate to their grantees WHY they need follow-up materials, grant reports, a letter of support, etc. Many nonprofits interviewed for the study reported frustration from submitting reports to funders and not hearing any feedback. One nonprofit executive quoted in the study quipped: “We assume that [the funders] feed everything to a giant fiery furnace.” Starting from zero encourages funders to only request information that will be used in learning from grants or evaluating past and future efforts.
3. Exploring creative ways (including technology) to make applying for grants, from multiple funders, easier. Every foundation may have particular questions it wants answered, but common information (particularly things that may only vary modestly from year-to-year like contact information or board member names) could be saved in a common repository for groups of foundations. Grantees are understandably frustrated by filling out the same basic information (in addition to substantive descriptions of their work, impact, etc.) for 3, 10, or 50 funders each year. While a common application may not be feasible, what efforts could be undertaken to lessen this burden?

Again, those are just a few of the ideas explored in the Project Streamline report. In a way, it all seems incredibly simple. Yet in a sector that oftentimes seems dominated by process, sometimes it’s useful to examine the burden funders place on grantees (and themselves) through unnecessarily cumbersome methods.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

Carla Javits on COF Tuesday

May 8, 2008 – 7:47 am

(This is a guest post from Carla Javits, President of REDF, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Carla Javits

I attended an excellent set of panels on the media and philanthropy at a mini-summit held at the truly astonishing Newseum. Alberto Ibarguen, President of the Knight Foundation who also chairs the Newseum’s board noted that the President and members of Congress who stroll from the White House to Congress and back will pass the Newseum, and see the huge notation carved into the façade quoting the Constitution – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, … or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”. The discussion was all about the crucial role of philanthropy in ensuring a universal access to honest information as news sources change dramatically - more urgent than ever if we are to retain a strong democracy.

At the end of the day – tired – I headed back to the conference center and was energized all over again by the momentum and success of a group of funders focused on ending homelessness around the country. National funders have partnered with local foundations (like the Frey Family Foundation in Minnesota and the William S. Abell Foundation in Washington, D.C.) – committing more than $50 million to the creation of supportive housing and related strategies to end homelessness around the country.

Joe Weisbord of Fannie Mae moderated. He emphasized the urgency of acting to end homelessness, noting that the issue is compelling to funders who focus on housing, children, prison reentry, and health. Because philanthropy plays such a major role, Weisbord noted (I wholeheartedly agree) that the issue could bear greater attention at the Conference’s plenaries and other sessions. This was the only session on the topic.

Dr. Dennis Culhane of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice is one of the leading researchers on ending homelessness. He pointed out that while the homeless system alone can’t fix the whole affordable housing problem or the other underlying drivers of homelessness, we can make the experience of homelessness survivable (hundreds die homeless each year now); we can prevent many many more people (including children) from ever becoming homeless, and we can limit homelessness to as short a period of time as possible. His basic prescription is to focus on housing not shelter - summarized in his paper, “Rearranging the Deck Chairs or Reallocating the Life Boats”.

Local presenters included Diane Randall who heads up Connecticut’s Partnership for Strong Communities which successfully mobilizes and advocates for public and private investments in affordable and supportive housing in Connecticut. She noted that philanthropy provides not only financial resources, but also fuels confidence and hope.

Minnesota’s Jim Frey and Carleen Rhodes of the St. Paul Foundation talked about the $5 million grant made by the Frey Family Foundation to help the Governor meet his goal of 4,000 units of permanent supportive housing. With 1,700 units already built, they are now campaigning for additional support from other philanthropic families and institutions in Minnesota with increasing success. Ohio’s Terry Donlin Hueseman of the Osteophathic Heritage Foundation described their partnership with the National Alliance to End Homelessness to address rural homelessness throughout Ohio.

And finally David Wertheimer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation described the next phase of their multi-year program to address family homelessness in the State of Washington noting that when the program started in 2000 the goal was to create 1,500 units of permanent and transitional housing for homeless families. As of 2007, this goal had been met, and the Washington Families Fund has been established to fund services for homeless families. The State of Washington recently allocated $6 million, and 18 private and public funders contribute to it.

Based on this progress, the Gates Foundation is inspired to continue to invest and is launching a large-scale new homeless families initiative focused on prevention, coordination, rapid rehousing, the provision of the “right services at the right time in the right amount”, and links to economic opportunity.

Wertheimer closed by quoting Anthony Love who is the head of the Coalition for the Homeless in Houston, Texas — “Nobody likes change except a wet baby, and even the baby complains about it”.

After 15 years at the Corporation for Supportive Housing (whose President Deborah De Santis attended the session today) I know how tough it is to engage philanthropy, government and the community in making the changes required to address homelessness. But I’ve also witnessed impressive results fueled by non-profits, philanthropy, business and thousands of people in local communities around the country working together. All reports are that chronic homelessness – after years of work to increase the supply of supportive housing – is finally falling in this country.

A good way to end the day, and a fine example of something this conference is all about — real results and impact through a combined effort of philanthropy, non-profits, business, government.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

The Next Generation

May 7, 2008 – 8:38 am

(This is a guest post from Sharna Goldseker,
Director, 21/64 & Vice President of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Sharna Goldseker

I’ve been working with next generation funders for a little over a decade now–specifically at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies for the last six years– and never have I seen such a collective representation of younger funders than at the Council on Foundations’ (COF) Summit these past few days. Our next generation philanthropy division, 21/64, has been working with Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy and Resource Generation to plan the first-ever Generational Leadership Program at a COF conference. From a Next Generation Retreat to Emerging Leader Salons, COF gave us the opportunity to create a track of sessions that would be relevant and meaningful and challenging to next generation funders as well as grantmaking professionals.

At Monday morning’s plenary, where AmericaSpeaks led a town hall meeting, I discovered just how many next gen and emerging leaders were attracted to this year’s Generational Leadership Program and other innovative Summit sessions. A quick demographic poll indicated that 17% of the people in the ballroom were between the ages of 20-34 and another 23% were between the ages of 35-44. Assuming that a few Gen Xers and Yers didn’t wake up for the 7am breakfast plenary, 40% of the nearly 3,000 people in attendance is quite a turn out.

At Monday afternoon’s Philanthropy 2.0 session, a standing room only crowd listened to Joe Green, Founder of Facebook Causes, Tom Gardner, Co-Founder of The Motley Fool/Foolanthropy, Rupa Modi, East Coast Development Manager of Kiva.org, Charles Best, Founder, DonorsChoose.org and Michael Smith, Director, Social Investments, The Case Foundation all took turns highlighting their web-based philanthropy applications and the power of those sites to have social and economic impact.

Facebook Causes has mobilized 12.5 million people to sign on to the Save Darfur Campaign, Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign and others. Kiva.org has galvanized 270,000 lenders and $28 million in investments in 40,000 micro-entrepreneurs around the globe. DonorsChoose has catalyzed 70,000 donors and $26 million invested in 1.2 million students in U.S. public schools.

Whether at the COF Summit or online, I find the mobilization of younger funders and citizen philanthropists to be exhilarating. While older generations are wondering where the next generation of leaders are, I’ve certainly seen them this week.

It seems to me, if you offer them a seat at the table, they will fill it to capacity.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (1)

Telling the Story of Philanthropy

May 7, 2008 – 8:31 am

(This is a guest post from Sandra Bass, Program officer at the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Sandra Bass

Ask the average person what a philanthropist does and they may very well look at you askance before leaning in to whisper a rather sordid tale….when you gently say “no…that’s a philanderer….I’m taking about philanthropy”…that’s usually the point where you get the blank stare or the hunched shoulders. Hard to believe that in this day and age, even among the learned, there are few people who truly understand what philanthropy is and does. The Philanthropic Awareness Initiative is an effort to change all that.

PAI’s research on awareness of philanthropy among “influentials” (defined as policy makers, business, and non-profit leaders) found that only 11% could name a foundation, however about 50% had a vague notion that we did something good. Armed with this woeful data, quite a luminary panel gathered at 5pm today to talk about what we could do to change that. Much of the conversation focused on how to interact effectively with policy makers on issues of importance to your organization rather than the broader issue of educating influentials and the public about the value of philanthropy. Kevin Klose of NPR was one of the few whose comments brushed up against this issue when he mentioned that their audience research indicated that listeners were just as interested in who sponsored programs as the programs themselves. In other words, NPR audiences cared about who supported what….so at least this crowd knows a little about what we do.

Although real tips for how to raise awareness of philanthropy were pretty thin, here are two
1) Getting over our reluctance to speak about our work. There are tasteful ways to publicly acknowledge the good works of your foundation without overshadowing your grantees
2) Tell your stories. Even though many of us strive to influence the lives of thousands if not millions, telling the story of one child, or family, or community will do more to reach the hearts and minds of your audience then a slew of statistics.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (8)

links for 2008-05-07

May 7, 2008 – 12:32 am
By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (2)

Facing Reality in Philanthropy

May 6, 2008 – 6:34 pm

A lot of people like to pretend that philanthropy is easy. That every grant meets its objectives and that not only do foundations innovate and take risk, but they still manage to knock the ball out of the park with every decision.

Except innovating and never failing are mutually exclusive. In fact doing anything of note while at the same time consistently avoiding failure is impossible. If you never fall and skin your knee, then while you might not admit it to yourself, you’re hanging out in the kiddie section of the playground.

Jim Canales, the CEO of The James Irvine Foundation, isn’t one of these people. He embraces the idea that “failure” is not a mark of someone to look down your nose at, but a mark of someone who is taking risks and doing difficult things. Last year at the 2007 Council on Foundations conference, Jim was a panelist at the Demonstrating Impact session along with Joel Fleishman, author of The Foundation: A Great American Secret and James Knickman of the New York State Health Foundation. While the session was nominally about showing the world how much impact philanthropy is having, at its core the argument was that by being transparent and honest about what works and does not work in philanthropy, we will truly demonstrate impact.

Yesterday, Jim was back at it, this time with the brilliant Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. The session was called “The Advantage of Sharing Failures”. Phil pointed out as the session began that while the COF Conference has long booked sessions about innovations, a couple of years ago you would not have seen a session about failure.

Jim went through a list of the pros and cons of sharing failure:

Pros

  • You share knowledge. As foundations, knowledge and capital is all we have, so we must effectively share both.
  • You help others avoid the repetition of common mistakes.
  • Improve your own work by placing a value on self reflection and on learning.
  • Reinforces your commitment to impact and effectiveness.

Cons

  • Potentially harm your grantees.
  • You might damage your reputation.
  • By highlighting the difficulties you run into, you might discourage others from taking on high risk ventures.
  • Provide fodder for people who are against foundations.

While I think that all of the Pros are correct, I think only the potential to harm your grantees is a legitimate Con (and even this I think should be overcome by a foundation’s obligation to protect people that the grantee are serving over protecting the grantees). The other items are legitimate fears, but are not true risks (although Jim stuck with his point of view that they were when I asked him how real these risks were during the Q&A).

While there is a certain risk to reputational damage if all of your colleagues refuse to ever talk about mistakes and we slide back into a time where foundations pretend that they are infallible forces for good, I will simply point to Jim Canales and Paul Brest (from Hewlett) who both published reports on their mistakes last year. As far as reputational risk, what they got for their trouble was coverage in the New York Times, an op-ed in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and an enhancement of their already stellar reputations. And they got all of this even though for the most part, their colleauges haven’t followed their lead. Effectively hanging them out to dry, the lack of other foundations taking similar steps has made Jim (in his own words), “The poster child for failure in philanthropy”. And yet still he hasn’t suffered any reputational damage. Instead he’s asked to lead sessions at the COF conference.

I think highlighting difficulties and then having nothing bad happen to you (as is the case with Brest and Canales and will likely be the case in 99% of future cases), encourages people to take risks. With Canales leading the way, it is the people who are not joining him in sharing failures that are discouraging other people (ie “Everyone applauded Jim, but they aren’t following suit and sharing. Maybe I shouldn’t either.”)

Does talking about failure provide fodder for people who are anti-foundations? Last year at the Demonstrating Impact session, a member of the audience who identified herself as a professor of marketing stood up to say that people who admit their mistakes publicly are viewed with more trust afterwards. ‘Nuff said.

At the Demonstrating Impact session, panelist James Knickman summed it all up for me:

“We need to frame our release of “failures” as an attempt to learn. No one tells scientists they are a failure when one of their experiments don’t work!”

And my comment at the time, which I stand by now was:

That’s it right there. What philanthropy is engaged in is an experiment. An experiment in how we can all make the world a better place. We don’t know what the right answer is. In fact, the “answer” is probably evolving as quickly as we can design experiments. But by being transparent, by sharing successful ideas and failed ideas. By judging ourselves not on the outcomes of each grant, but on the body of knowledge that we contribute to the field, we will truly transform philanthropy.

Look, I know that this stuff is hard. But moderator Toni Freeman of the Duke Endowment told a wonderful story that highlighted the fact that this is hard, but that you can do it. She described how she had decided to take a “firefighter training class” as part of a leadership training. She was told “you are going to climb up to the 7th floor and jump out the window”. She thought “that sounds good!”, but standing on the ledge, every fiber of her body was telling her not to jump. But she did. And then she climbed back up and jumped out of the window two more times.

And each time it was easier.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (7)

Engaging Donors and the “Y & H”

May 6, 2008 – 5:38 pm

(This is a guest post from Roxie Jerde, of DonorEdge & Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Roxie Jerde

How do we engage voices to be heard? Whether at the Council on Foundation’s Monday opening session of conference attendees from various foundation sectors, to philanthropists – large and small in our communities, to nonprofit organizations to the clients hopefully served well? The in-person discussion guided by “voting” on prescribed questions and an assimilation of ideas for trends proved to be a helpful method to gather 2700+ opinions. The desire to know results immediately was satisfied and I enjoyed the lively discussion with my pot-luck table mates. All the while I wondered when and for what key questions do we engage voices in our communities using this methodology? The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation’s leadership work evolved from the CitiStates process of gathering input and determining five priorities to a focus on the “Time to Get It Right” report issued by a blue ribbon task force of national leaders. Community voices were listened to and they have galvanized a community to realize the potential of Kansas City being a national life science leader. We will need an educated workforce which has lead to initiatives ensuring academic achievement for all in greater Kansas City, a major challenge for our urban public school districts.

I also attended the session on donor advisors, recognizing as a community foundation driven by a donor centric model, the responsibility we have working with donors. It is critical in our donor work to clarify intentions, advise on the best possible use of philanthropic dollars to achieve results and build trust so the donor is assured the community foundation will follow their intent in this lifetime and beyond. Knowing where philanthropic dollars are best invested to achieve results made me appreciate the work we have done to pioneer DonorEdge We do have a quality database of easily accessed information on results driven nonprofits and an exciting partnership with GuideStar to further strengthen our ability to tap into even more quality data nationwide.

Ending the evening at the ‘Y & H”… “young and very hip”…. Next Generation 2.0 session was invigorating! Seeing the potential to tap into the “next generation” with products and new ways of thinking of philanthropy was fun! Last July, the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation launched the Charity Giving Card which uses the online DonorEdge data base for receivers of the giving cards to redeem the cards on DonorEdge nonprofits. The purchaser gets the charitable deduction and the redeemer gets to choose what is important to them ….fun and innovative philanthropy and maybe even “Y & H” in Kansas City. So what will be the next social marketing big idea for community foundations to engage the next generation?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)

Tactical Philanthropy Un-Reception

May 6, 2008 – 5:33 pm

Just want to send my thanks out to the 50-60 people that cycled through the Tactical Philanthropy Un-Reception last night. It was a last minute idea, so I was thrilled that so many people showed up (including Tactical Philanthropy reader Bill who drove in to say hi even though he wasn’t attending the conference). I’m already looking forward to COF 2009! Maybe we’ll look into an official Tactical Philanthropy reception? (Or maybe an “un-reception” is better for all those readers who think, “the best part of the conference happens in the hallways!”).

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (1)

Don’t Worry, I’ll Save Democracy!

May 6, 2008 – 1:49 pm

(This is a guest post from Sara Melillo, Program officer, McCormick Tribune Foundation, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Sara Melillo

USC Annenberg Dean Ernest James Wilson III made the room chuckle today with his take on the state of the media as part of the popular Media and Philanthropy mini-summit held at the Newseum. The headline: Traditional media is dying/changing, and democracy is at great risk.

Nothing new there, but through the hundreds of cocktail receptions and dinners he’s obligated to attend, he’s identified the common syllogisms media people use when pleading their importance to democracy.

According to Wilson,

If you’re a member of TRADITIONAL MEDIA you argue:
1. Newspapers are vital to democracy
2. Newspapers are dying, therefore:
3. Democracy in the U.S. is at great risk.

If you’re part of DIGITAL MEDIA:
1. New media is opening new channels of communication and networking for all
2. Democracy is all about the interchange of ideas, therefore:
3. Democracy is being enhanced by digital media.

If you work for PUBLIC BROADCAST:
1. The non-commercial media space is essential for democracy
2. Public broadcasting is seeing a decline in audience and is slow to adapt digital media, therefore:
3. Democracy is at risk.

If you are with COMMERCIAL MEDIA:
1. Commercial media are desperately trying to leverage their assets and cut costs to save itself
2. Democracy is good in principal, but the government has moved away from regulation, therefore:
3. Commercial media pays little attention to democracy.

Levity aside, Wilson raises a good point that more cross-sector collaboration on the challenges facing media is vital. No one sector will “save media” - and self-importance won’t help their case either. I’ve seen the silo-ing firsthand through my work as a journalism program officer, meeting with a variety of organizations claiming to have “solutions” to the changing media landscape.

Wilson’s call for increased cross-media dialogue is useful for funders considering investing in media (and by the looks of the overcrowded room, many either already are or are interested).

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Comments (0)