Category Archives: Foundations

Should Foundations Fund Philanthropic Information?

January 16, 2008 – 1:49 pm

An interesting conversation is beginning to unfold in the comments to Phil Buchanan’s podcast. The point I’m making is not that foundations have some sort of obligation to fund nonprofit information for public use, but that doing so is in their best interest. This conversation ties in directly to the conversation we’ve been having about Google Finance and Google.org.

If a foundation can give $1 that creates $2 of social benefit, or give $1 that spurs the public to give $10, which creates $20 of social benefit, which one should they choose? This ability to give $1 and get $10 of social benefit instead of $2 is the “leverage” that so many philanthropist and foundations say they want to employ.

Here’s the big leverage opportunity of this decade: Provide the individual donors (who every year give seven times more than all the foundations in the country combined) the information they need to make better donation decisions.

Join the conversation with Phil Buchanan and let’s work this problem out!

PS: As background it might be useful for readers to note the essay by Paul Brest, the president of the Hewlett Foundation, in which he discusses “the advantages of good information” in philanthropy. In the essay he mentions Great Nonprofits, whose founder Perla Ni is participating in the conversation with Phil Buchanan. Hewlett is, to my knowledge, the most forward thinking foundation on these issues. Hewlett is also considering funding GiveWell.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Evaluation, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Transparency, nptech | Comments (0)

Edna McConnell Clark Foundation’s Thrilling Move

December 21, 2007 – 12:56 pm

I have a friend who emails me every time I complain that big foundations are not more innovative to say “But Sean, look at the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation!”

He’s right.

I first heard EMCF CEO Nancy Roob speak at a Council on Foundations meeting. She co-presented with Clara Miller of the Nonprofit Finance Fund on why funders need to provide growth capital to nonprofits. I dug the presentation. After I wrote up my thoughts on the session, Nancy stopped by and became the first major foundation CEO to leave a comment on the Tactical Philanthropy blog (probably any blog for that matter).

Now The New York Times’ Stephanie Strom has an excellent article talking about a new fund being launched by EMCF:

A New York foundation that focuses largely on opportunities for low-income youths is creating a fund to help charities become bigger and more efficient.

The institution, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, has committed $39 million to the fund and attracted $49 million more from other foundations and individuals, putting it well on its way to achieving its goal of raising $120 million by June…

…The effort by McConnell Clark and its partners “is groundbreaking,” an acknowledgment “by major funders that scale isn’t cheap and that the order of magnitude needed to scale up to make real and lasting changes will take collaboration,” said Kirsten Moy, director of the economic opportunities program at the Aspen Institute…

…[The foundation] has won financing from major foundations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is highly unusual. Foundations have typically been unwilling to support concepts already developed by others; thus the proliferation of tiny organizations doing similar work.

“So very often there is pressure on foundations to feel like they are the ones discovering something,” said Hilary Pennington, director of special initiatives at the Gates Foundation. “We have said we want to explore ways in which grant makers could work together for greater impact, and we have an obligation to put our money where our mouth is.”

I encourage you to go read the full article here. You can also read a Nancy Roob’s own thoughts on the fund here with more details on the fund here.

EMCF seems to have created a $1 million funding commitment to accept new funders into the pool. I believe that over time, individual donors (who give seven times more than foundations do each year) need to gain access to funds like this. However, even today, nothing should stop community foundations or national donor advised funds from aggregating their donors to make a $1 million commitment. This kind of work is already being done to provide smaller donors access to funds like Good Capital.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy, Tactics, Venture Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Trent Stamp: Transparency’s New Champion?

December 20, 2007 – 10:03 am

Trent Stamp just emailed me:

Sean, I have every intention of running the most transparent foundation in the world  I hope it’ll be a leader in its field.

My Charity Navigator bashing ends today. I told Trent that he has all of my support in his new job.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (0)

Trent Stamp Retires

December 20, 2007 – 9:51 am

From Trent Stamp’s, the CEO of Charity Navigator, blog:

Shortly after the New Year, I am leaving Charity Navigator, my happy home for the last 7 years, to become the Executive Director of the Eisner Foundation in Los Angeles. It’s a wonderful opportunity for me and my family and a chance for me to spread my wings and try something new, to see if I know as much about giving money away as I have claimed over the last few years. But I do not depart without great sadness at what I leave behind.

You can read the whole thing here.

I’ve been hammering at what I view as the flawed rating system that Charity Navigator uses. But let me say this about Trent. He knows charities. He will likely make a great executive director. He won’t just use overhead expense ratios to make grant decisions for the Eisner Foundation. Charity Navigator themselves always warned donors that expense ratios alone are not enough.

Here’s a “what if” for you. What if Trent Stamp decides to share with everyone why his foundation funds the nonprofits they choose? What if he releases detailed explanations of the research conducted and the analysis done? What if he uses his extreme media savvy to shine a light on how a foundation can operate transparently and by doing so increase their own impact? The Eisner Foundation is the foundation of Michael Eisner, the former CEO of Disney. So Trent should have public visibility if he chooses to seek it.

I wish Trent the best. I’ll follow his work in his new job closely.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Grantmaking, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (0)

Why GiveWell Matters

December 20, 2007 – 8:37 am

GiveWell and its co-founders Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld are suddenly media darlings. Not many people are written up in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on the same day.

Stephanie Strom at the New York Times writes up a great profile in “2 Young Hedge-Fund Veterans Stir Up the World of Philanthropy”:

Their efforts are shaking up the field of philanthropy, generating the kind of buzz more typically devoted to Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett, as charities ponder what, if anything, their rigorous approach to evaluation means for the future…

Read the full article here.

Sally Beatty and Rachel Emma Silverman at the Wall Street Journal discuss GiveWell in their article, “Doing Due Diligence On Your Donations”:

Donors can readily compare charities from a financial perspective: how much an organization spends on administrative costs or fund raising, for instance. But givers, especially younger, business-minded ones, now tend to want more information on how successful a charity’s programs are in addressing the issues the charity sets out to resolve, from feeding the homeless to securing employment for the disabled. That’s especially important as the number of charities continues to grow, with about 1.4 million to choose from…

… And there are a growing number of groups whose aim is to make charity-effectiveness evaluations open to the public. GiveWell, for instance, was started this year by two former hedge-fund researchers who were frustrated by the lack of available information on charities’ results and impact. They research and grant money to organizations in specific topic areas that the group deems effective and post the results on their Web site. For example, when researching job-training charities in New York, GiveWell asked groups to provide data on how many people took advantage of the programs, what skills they were taught, what percentage of clients found jobs, what kind of jobs they found, and how long workers kept their jobs, says 26-year-old co-founder Elie Hassenfeld.

The article ends with this advice,

It’s also smart to see if the charity’s progress has ever been evaluated by a third party, rather than just the charity itself. Check the charity’s Web site or annual report for specific details on how it gauges its results. If the information isn’t there, call the charity and ask. Be wary about giving, however, if a charity doesn’t answer your questions or provide annual reports or other filings.

When the Wall Street Journal tells donors to be suspicious of nonprofits who won’t provide details of how they gauge their results, you know there’s a sea change coming.

When I first wrote about GiveWell in February and said, “Why are the young members of the GiveWell project doing more to improve our shared knowledge base than The Ford Foundation?” and when I wrote in April that, “Fringe players like Holden (Karnofsky) are actually the real change agents (in philanthropy).” I never thought that by the end of the year, the New York Times would be quoting a GiveWell team member saying:

“There are huge foundations out there whose job it is to find great organizations doing great things,” said Robert Elliott, a club member who is now the Clear Fund’s chairman, “but when you call them and say you’d like to leverage the information they’ve already collected to make a smart donation, it’s a closed book.”

The IRS is focusing more and more on accountability and efficiency in the philanthropic sector. But with GiveWell being featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy and Chicago Tribune in the last week, you have to start thinking about the cultural norms that these reports are creating.

When the LA Times wrote about the Gates Foundation investment policy earlier this year, the article created more movement on “aligned investing” in the foundation world than the IRS would ever accomplish through years of committee meetings.

Will the next LA Times exposé question why foundations are not sharing their philanthropic knowledge with the public and why two 26-year-olds with no philanthropic experience and a tiny budget seem to be doing the most to help donors?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, Media, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (12)

Results Only Work Environments in Philanthropy

December 19, 2007 – 9:00 am

The runner-up in the One Post Challenge was An Evacuation of the Ivory Towers by Trista Harris, in which she argued the merits of foundation program officers going office-less and working in the field full time. In the article, she wrote:

Flexible work schedules and telecommuting have become commonplace in many for-profit organizations, but a Minnesota company has taken flexibility to the next level with the results-only work environment. Best Buy, an electronics retailer, has given its employees full control of how, when, and where they work. A guiding premise is that “work is something you do, not somewhere you go.” This means that employees take conference calls while fishing and start project planning after their kids go to bed. This new model has decreased turnover but, more important to our conversation, has improved productivity by 35%.

The people behind Best Buy’s transformation of their work environment are Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. Their book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It is due out in April 2008. Intrigued by Trista’s post, a member of Cali and Jody’s team emailed me the following:

As you might have guessed, ROWE is a very polarizing concept. People love it, and embrace it, or hate it, and are vocal about it.

We’ll support you in any way we can, would welcome the opportunity to post about it, and go into more detail about how it could work in a variety of settings, not just the corporate offices of a retailer.

We get emails from churches (Why do I have to be in a church on Sunday from 9am to 10am to pray?), High school students (If I’m an A student, why do I have to sit in class?) non-profits (Shouldn’t I be paid for the “good” I do? Not the hours I spend in the office?, and all kinds of corporations (I hate my job, help?)

We loved the revolution analogy, because ROWE was created at Best Buy from people buried in the organization, and when C-level people are pitched the idea, they shoot it down.  (after the Business Week cover story ran we had half of the Fortune 500 companies call or email us)

It’s a grass roots movement, and little revolutions are going to be happening in companies, foundations and non-profits all over the world. (Germany, Scandinavia, the UK and Australia are FASCINATED with ROWE).

You can learn more about Results Only Work Environments at www.CaliAndJody.com. I think Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It might just become the hot book of 2008 with the foundation set.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Google Nonprofit Pages Feature Foundations

December 14, 2007 – 11:45 pm

The Google Nonprofit pages feature large private foundations as well as nonprofits. I can’t wait to see the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation discussion board explode once people wake up to this new service.

I thought I’d go ahead and post a question to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation discussion board. You can find the thread here. I’ve reprinted my question below. I look forward to their response.

To the Hewlett Staff,
I live in California and have a two year old son and a four year old
daughter. I’m very interested directing some of my philanthropic
resources to improve K-12 education in my state. I see from your
website that you have a program focus on Improving Public Education in
California. I’m particularly interested in the third “strand” of this
focus, which you describe as “supporting innovative approaches to
improving the quality of academic instruction in the state’s
demographically diverse public schools.”

I’m personally at a loss to identify how I might donate my money to a
nonprofit which is improving the quality of academic instruction in
the state. I realize that picking a four star nonprofit from Charity
Navigator doesn’t make any sense, since improving education likely
requires extensive program evaluation and educated staff (both
categorized as overhead).

Would you mind pointing me in the direction of a few nonprofits that
your program staff believes are worthy of my donation? If you wouldn’t
mind linking to some of the research you’ve performed to come to your
conclusions, it would make me feel better to not just be following you
blindly.

I look forward to partnering with you in your efforts to support
education. While my donations might pale in comparison to your annual
grants, I know a ton of other parents who would be thrilled to donate
time and money to your grantees if they felt that doing so would
actually do something to improve education.

-Sean Stannard-Stockton
TacticalPhilanthropy.com

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Grantmaking, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Transparency, nptech | Comments (1)

One Post Challenge Runner Up

December 11, 2007 – 1:40 pm

I sent FORGE their prize money today. Congratulations once again to them and “a fundraiser”, the author of the winning post of the One Post Challenge. We also have a runner up. Thanks to a $250 prize offer by charity gift card company TisBest, I get to award a prize to the post that I thought was the best example of what I was trying to accomplish with the One Post Challenge.

Drum roll please…

And the runner up prize goes to Trista Harris for her post An Evacuation of the Ivory Towers. I think this is an excellent argument for something new and different in philanthropy and the post spurred a 17 comment conversation with Trista actively responding to her readers. You can read find the original post here with attached comments and I’m republishing the post below.

An Evacuation of the Ivory Towers

Today One Post Challenge entry comes from Trista Harris, a Program Officer and the voice behind www.newvoicesofphilanthropy.org, a blog about next generation philanthropy issues.

By Trista Harris

Today I am proposing nothing short of a revolution in the philanthropic field. What if foundations were connected to the communities that they were serving; innovation and creativity were encouraged; knowledge was shared within organizations and with the larger philanthropic and nonprofit sectors; and foundations were measured on the results of their investments, not just amount of money spent or number of staff? I know you are probably asking yourselves right now, “what kind of crazy alternative universe are you living in Trista Harris?”

I should probably back up. Any time you are proposing a revolution, it’s important to give proper background or else you scare people off. The philanthropic landscape is changing. Baby Boomers are beginning to retire or re-imagine their positions. Donors are more actively engaged and want measurable results, and the government is spending a lot of time and energy trying to reign in the philanthropic sector. Professional philanthropic staff are trying to figure out how to do more with less time. How do we re-invigorate our troops of professional do-gooders to make sure that are connected to the communities that they serve and have the capacity to move the philanthropic sector from potential to results?

As a life long staff member of nonprofits, I always cringe when someone, usually a board member, says “if you just applied business principals to your work, all your problems would be solved.” But, I think I have found an idea from the for-profit sector that could solve a variety of our sector’s ills. Flexible work schedules and telecommuting have become commonplace in many for-profit organizations, but a Minnesota company has taken flexibility to the next level with the results-only work environment. Best Buy, an electronics retailer, has given its employees full control of how, when, and where they work. A guiding premise is that “work is something you do, not somewhere you go.” This means that employees take conference calls while fishing and start project planning after their kids go to bed. This new model has decreased turnover but, more important to our conversation, has improved productivity by 35%.

What if Program Officers suddenly became office-less? What if we spent our time in the communities that we serve, rather than in a stuffy conference room talking about the community? Would this change force us to create knowledge management systems to connect this out-based workforce? Would that system then institutionalize the wisdom that is currently only available inside of an “about to retire” program officer’s head? How much more effective could our work be? Flexibility breeds innovation and it encourages collaboration outside of the “usual suspects.” The people that probably have the best insight about the need for a new community center are the moms and dads that are at a nearby playground during the day. That’s not who most Program Officers are rubbing shoulders with at 11am.

When people are measured by what they accomplish, not how much time they are at their desks, the rules change. Suddenly the star employee isn’t the one who arrives at 6am and leaves at 6pm, it is the one who is most knowledgeable about community solutions and has the most positive effect on their program area. How different would the sector be if we were all working at full capacity and still had time to be a good parent and an engaged community member?

I am proposing a revolution. So let me know, are you in or are you out?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Grantmaking, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (3)

Why Philanthropy Should Embrace Controversy

November 30, 2007 – 2:30 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from “a young foundation staffer”. The author is “a recent college graduate who has interned with an operating foundation, a venture fund at a community foundation, and now a family foundation.”

By  “a young foundation staffer”

The work philanthropists and foundations is inherently controversial.

Decisions to grant money to a particular cause and to a particular organization are always decisions not to give that money elsewhere. No individual and no foundation has enough money to solve all of the problems out there or to even to really fund all the approaches to a particular problem out there. Foundation work and strategies are about decisions: to give in this country or city, to fund short-term or long-term solutions, to prevent the problem or treat the disease, to listen to a community member’s idea or to the expert advice.

In this sense, philanthropy is like voting. We generally want to encourage more people to do it because democracy is healthier when more people engage it in. But stopping at ”more is better” and “any is good” is wrong, deeply misleading, and potentially harmful to society. It is also healthier for democracy if people are informed voters and if people disagree and debate about who should receive their vote. These are tough issues and tough problems; we don’t agree on them and pretending we do is naive. Similarly, while it’s fine to acknowledge that philanthropy is generous and positive, on the whole, we also should acknowledge that it should involve informed decision making and a willingness to engage with the idea that one’s decision could be wrong. And like our government, philanthropy has done a lot of good, but it has done harm too.

Too many times, I think, we try to take the controversy and the politics out of the work by talking only about how “giving is good and generous, etc.” or by trying to boil it down to a science of identifying high impact organizations, and that does a disservice to everyone. Debate in board meetings and amongst staff members and between different foundations and, most of all, in communities should be about more than whether a nonprofit is “well-run”. It should be about whether it is a pressing problem, whether the approach is right, and whether the values underlying it are ones we want to endorse. And we should see that kind of deep probing as healthy signs that the decision makers are thinking about the consequences of the decision to give somewhere (or rather, the decision to NOT give to many other somewheres) and recognizing the valid arguments about why their decision might be wrong.

That’s why, I think it’s too bad that the “$500 for Your Nonprofit!” post didn’t ask people to engage in a conversation about not just what nonprofit, but why their nonprofit. The premise generated responses, but leaving it at that simplifies the nature of philanthropy. One’s vote in that challenge is an implicit decision that an issue is critical and that an organization is the most deserving. We shouldn’t ignore that.

Generosity and empathy certainly inspire the decision to give, and evaluations, assessments, and research of all sorts are tools for helping make the decision. But none of that can take the controversy out of it. And we should be thankful, rather than frustrated or scared, by that reality because it means we’re engaging with how hard and how vital this work is.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (15)

Not Just “Grant” Making

November 29, 2007 – 12:07 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Amy Sample Ward. Amy is a Communications and Learning Associate at the Meyer Memorial Trust. She authors MMT’s New Media Blog as well as a personal blog devoted to nonprofit technology.

By Amy Sample Ward

As the holiday season is now in full swing and many organizations are launching online donation campaigns, I have been thinking more and more about how closely my personal views of “giving” have formed my professional ones.

Working in a large private foundation means that I am all too familiar with large amounts of initial inquiries and grant applications flooding in every month.  Previously, I worked in nonprofits, though, and am also very familiar with the kinds of Christmas lists small, grassroots organizations can really think up.

Whenever conversation turns to philanthropy and how we teach philanthropy to our children, as it does often this time of year (especially in the blogosphere, like on Beth’s blog), I chime in with the argument that not all giving equals money and that not all organizations really need money as much as other things.  For example, a domestic violence shelter may have enough funds and in-kind agreements to maintain its kitchen consistently, but doesn’t have enough volunteers to help with tutoring and child care in the evening when dinner is being prepared.  There are many alternatives to donating money, be it time, skills, knowledge, community, or even man power.

So, how does that view of philanthropy in my own life change that of my professional life at a foundation? I don’t think that our responsibility is to just dole out the cash—we have a whole lot more to offer!  As a foundation, we have program officers and other staff with terrific skills and knowledge that range from grant writing and strategic planning to mission and vision planning, technology and communications skills to engagement and outreach tactics.  There are many nonprofits that apply for grants and are declined. They could still desperately need and grow from training or other outreach and support in the other areas I mentioned above.

As grantmakers, we need to accept a broader role than just “grant” makers.  We need to step up to provide knowledge, skills, and resources when it is really in all of our best interests to do so; after all, those nonprofits are fulfilling needed services in our communities and that’s why they applied for the grant in the first place!  Contributing all that we can as an organization is the best way to align with our own missions to serve nonprofits and our communities as best as possible.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Grantmaking, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy, Volunteering | Comments (4)

What’s it Like to Work for a Family Foundation?

November 29, 2007 – 11:44 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Elizabeth Miller. Elizabeth works as a Program Associate for The Overbrook Foundation, a New York City-based family foundation established in 1948 by Frank and Helen Altschul. Its mission is to improve the lives of people by supporting projects that protect human and civil rights, advance the self-sufficiency and well being of individuals and their communities, and conserve the natural environment.

This post first appeared on the Future Leaders of Philanthropy blog.

By Elizabeth Miller

Growing up, my favorite books to read were those from Sydney Taylor’s series, “All of a Kind Family.” The five books detailed the lives of an immigrant family living on New York’s Upper East Side just prior to World War I. I read the books over and over and at one point, my grandmother even recorded the books so that I could fall asleep listening to a tape of them every night. Looking back, I’d like to think it was a sign that I’d someday go to work for a family foundation in New York.

Now that I have that job, I realize that a lot of my friends and family don’t really understand what I do. When I tell people I work for a family foundation the most common response I get is, “Oh so you must write a lot of grants.” Well, not exactly.  I wasn’t even quite sure what I was getting myself into when I first came to The Overbrook Foundation in the spring of 2004.

In order to understand what it’s like to work for a family foundation you first have to understand why families would be motivated to start a foundation in the first place. The overarching reason is usually a desire to give back to a community that you care about. Families might want to support issues that they feel strongly about, or pass on the tradition of giving to future generations, and they also probably have a general desire to unite all the branches of the family with a shared sense of purpose. Along the way of figuring out all of the above (for example, what issues in a community are you going to focus on - education, health, environment?), people probably come across unique challenges and opportunities, enriched by the lively personalities in their families.

So what is it really like to work for a family foundation? On a daily basis, the tasks I undertake vary tremendously. In “All of a Kind Family” the five young girls encounter everything from everyday chores, to missing library books, to trips to the Rivington Street market. Ironically, I too have “chores” whether it’s drafting minutes from committee or board meetings, responding to letters of inquiry that the Foundation is unable to fund, cleaning out grant files or setting up for meetings; I search for missing pieces of grant proposals; I even make trips downtown to the flower district to pick up orchids before our quarterly Board Meetings.

Taylor’s books also had a unique way of illustrating life in the 1900s. There were episodes of scarlet fever, peddlers, and weekends spent at Coney Island. Likewise, my job is often impacted by modern-day New York City. Just this summer the steam pipe explosion on Lexington Avenue closed our offices for two weeks; I had to walk to work from Battery Park City during the subway strike in December of 2005. And likewise, our grantmaking at the foundation can be impacted by big-scale events or issues, such as September 11th or the Board’s desire to create a climate change initiative, respectively.

There’s a chapter in one of Sydney’s books where the girls spend their penny allowance at the local candy store. The girls would stand next to the counters, trying to decide which chocolate or treat was worth their precious allowance. I’m sure a penny went a lot further almost a hundred years ago, but fundamentally what the Foundation staff does with our annual grants budget is similar: we try to be strategic in the way we manage our portfolio of grants and try to figure out how to best spend the limited resources that the Foundation has available. We look for opportunities that support our Board of Directors’ interest in the Environment and Human Rights Programs, whether it’s continuing old programs or being more innovative with new grants. We try to be responsive to the needs of our grantees and to understand how to improve the grantmaking process.

In the end, I think what makes my experience at a family foundation truly unique from other foundations is the interests and personalities of the Directors. What is different about my job from others who work in philanthropy is that The Overbrook Foundation’s entire philosophy is based around a set of family values, values that have evolved over time. Each family has unique traditions and values, and it’s those values to a large extent that shape the Foundation’s grantmaking. Luckily, I happen to share the specific set of values with the family I’m employed by (which is why I’m so happy with my job). Yet I constantly remind myself that I’m merely a steward of a family and that the work I do is for them. (Of course there is a famed family tree on the wall in front of my computer in case I need a reminder, although I must admit that even with a family tree it took me over a year to figure how everyone was related to each other).

According to The National Center on Family Philanthropy’s recent estimates, there are between 30,000 and 40,000 family foundations in the US that distribute approximately $5 billion dollars a year. While factors such as families’ motivations for giving, personal giving interests, level of assets, and number of generations and family branches interested in participating will inevitably vary from family to family, I’d be willing to bet there’s at least one thing that will remain constant - like the five sisters from “All of a Kind Family,” you’ll always feel like it’s an adventure.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Grantmaking, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (3)

The Futures of Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Advertising

November 28, 2007 – 12:50 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Peter Deitz. Peter writes a blog called About Micro-Philanthropy and is the founder of Social Actions, a community website that aggregates person-to-person fundraising campaigns and helps people to start their own. Deitz also works as a consultant to nonprofits and philanthropists interested in leveraging the power of social networks.

By Peter Deitz

The Futures of Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Advertising

The futures of philanthropy, fundraising, and advertising are looking remarkably similar. In all three fields, technology innovators are turning to real people to do the hard work of moving money.

Foundations are asking non-specialists to “crowd source” their grant recipients. Development teams are using “wired fundraisers” to increase online donations. Companies are relying on “fansumers” to promote their latest products.

The online marketing guru Seth Godin first reported on this trend in a series of e-books entitled Flipping the Funnel. In three versions of the same e-book, Godin addresses companies, nonprofits, and politicians. He instructs them on how individuals can be empowered to sell products, raise money, and recruit votes respectively.

Godin could easily have written a fourth version of Flipping the Funnel, one tailored to the needs of foundations and private philanthropists. The hypothetical e-book would have emphasized the important role that non-wealthy and non-specialist individuals can play in awarding grants and redistributing wealth.

Flipping the Funnel for Foundations and Private Philanthropists would have noted that:

  • Real people are often excellent judges of innovation and long-term impact;
  • If provided with the right incentives, individuals may back their grant recommendations with donations of their own, resulting in larger grants and more grantees;
  • People who are involved in grant-making are more likely to recognize a philanthropist for his or her contribution to the field.

Today, only a handful of nonprofits are effectively using wired fundraisers to raise money. Companies experimenting with fansumerism are drawing criticism for their attack on consumer privacy. And only a handful of foundations and private philanthropists are actually crowd-sourcing grant-making.

And yet, the innovators in these fields are continuing to experiment with new technologies that enable person-to-person communications and discernment. Overtime, the pioneers who balance privacy and fraud concerns with the opportunity for greater sales, donations, and grants will reap rewards for their early adoption.

Compared to fundraisers and advertisers, philanthropists have been the least exuberant in their embrace of the peer-to-peer economy. The sector needs leadership and technology innovation so that more wealth can be moved, and more effectively.

This post will hopefully serve as a starting point for discussing the trend as it pertains to philanthropy. Lessons from person-to-person fundraising and advertising will no doubt inform the discussion and provoke more innovation.

I look forward to exchanging ideas with the Tactical Philanthropy community and the larger world of emerging philanthropy bloggers.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Fundraising, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, nptech | Comments (2)

Are We Killing Our Grantees?

November 27, 2007 – 11:13 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Suzanne Walsh. Suzanne is a program director at the Lumina Foundation for Education. She previously worked as a program officer at The Heinz Endowments. Says Suzanne, “Before joining the world of philanthropy I was on the “other side”, working in non-profits where my job entailed writing grants and working on a large capital campaign. I have also served as the fundraising chair for boards on which I have served and have had to make those dreaded calls to prospective donors so I have seen this issue from all sides. I was even a telemarketer for an opera company!” Suzanne’s views do not necessarily represent those of the Lumina Foundation for Education.

By Suzanne Walsh

Are we killing our grantees?

Is there such a thing as too much money? Here is what has been bothering me lately: we give and we give and we give…to the same organizations. Is there ever a moment when we have given too much? Yes, you heard me, too much.

What happens when every local foundation discovers the hot new leader? We all want to invest in her and her organization for anything and everything. And then we wonder a year later why she is overextended and drowning and why she can’t do the core things she used to do. [I want to now pause to apologize for trying to kill my grantees, I didn't mean it. It was out of admiration for your talent.]

What happens when national foundations discover hot intermediary organizations to help them make grants and run programs? The same thing, every foundation invests in those few for all their work and then those organizations become overextended and start to drown not able to do the basics well any more.

Sometimes there is an executive director who says no thanks to the money but it’s not easy to say no to millions when you aren’t sure if by saying no now, you have ruined your chances forever with that foundation.  The dating game between foundations and non-profits is awkward at best. It’s nice to be courted by the rich suitor and hard to say no when that large grant means the ability to hire new staff, pay the bills without worrying about writing more proposals for a while, becoming one of the “chosen” of an important foundation, and being able to take your work to scale.

That all sounds great but what I am still trying to figure out is can an organization maintain the same level of excellence if it is working with not just one foundation but if every foundation brings its large projects to bear on a single organization. Because now, there are the idiosyncrasies  of each foundation to contend with: funding cycles differ, reports are due at different times, the kinds of data needed by each foundation are different, the way each foundation wants to be treated is completely different…And if you thought that is only in instances where each foundation is funding a different project, think again. Even when foundations come together to fund projects, each foundation may still have its own requirements. So, yes, an organization may have more staff but it must also spend a lot of time killing itself responding to the various needs of the various foundations. When and how can any work get done?

Maybe it is time for foundations to do what we have asked of our grantees. Maybe we should start to work together so that we can give but make it OK non-profits to say no when they have reached capacity. Maybe we can work together to have common reporting requirements, at least when we jointly fund projects. Otherwise, I do think we are going to kill our grantees and we need them perhaps more than they need us.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Grantmaking, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (6)

Blogs Aren’t For Everyone

November 26, 2007 – 9:19 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from an anonymous writer named “S”. S works in communications at a large California-based foundation and has worked in the philanthropy sector for more than a decade.

By “S”

You know what? Blogs aren’t for everyone. I get so tired of hearing how important it is to start a conversation online and care for it and feed it and make it go. Blogging can be a great tool, but has anyone thought about the fact the blogging may not be the greatest thing to ever come to philanthropy? How is posting a blog and receiving comments really a conversation? I post, you post, I post…

Paul Brest needs a blog. Really? What for? Let’s step back and think about this for a moment. Paul Brest needs a blog why? So that his completely scrubbed words can help philanthropy make its mark on the world? Let’s be real. Not only is Paul Brest too busy to have a blog, but the honest truth is, people don’t crave news about philanthropies, they just don’t. I work for a foundation and we share about our work only as much as we want to. Other than that, no go.

This blogging community in philanthropy is tiny. The only people who regularly comment on others’ posts are the bloggers themselves. When you need to ask people to Digg it or to StumbleUpon it, what are you doing? Skewing the result of what normal people might do. People aren’t Digg-ing it or StumblingUpon it because it’s not what is on their agenda.

Philanthropy is a great thing and helping out all kinds of people is a great thing. But foundations get so wrapped up in trying to tell everyone about their work and how great they are. Who cares about what the general public thinks? We are important and we are doing great work. We are so convinced that we need to get out there with our message.

The foundation I work for has spent nearly four decades doing good work. And before the Internet and blogging and Digg and StumbleUpon and other avenues online, we have been able to get the word out as necessary.

I am not against an online conversation or building the interest around philanthropy. We just need to think about it and not assume that everyone should be interested. They have their lives, too.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, Media, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency, nptech | Comments (11)

I Really Can’t Have It Both Ways?

November 20, 2007 – 11:14 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Suzy Meneguzzo. Suzy works at a community foundation based in the Midwest.  Her work in the philanthropic sector has included grant making, programming, evaluation and governance.

By Suzy Meneguzzo

I really can’t have it both ways?

A great deal has been written recently about the appropriateness of foundations existing in perpetuity, level of payout and the desired life span of foundations.  Arguments seem to run to one extreme or the other: Everything should be paid out now or keep the endowment growing and maintain the 5% payout so that we can continue to work on these problems as the solutions evolve in the future.

It makes me wonder, though, if the discussion shouldn’t be framed differently.  Shouldn’t the question be, given the outcome we are trying to achieve (insert mission here); it is most effective if we spend, don’t spend (insert action here)?  Isn’t it really about which tactic will accomplish the goal?

I can envision situations in which an “all in” investment makes sense- disease eradication pops to mind.  However, I can also imagine funds with goals that lend themselves to existing in perpetuity: empowering girls and young women as an example.  The most interesting cases may be foundations with missions and strategies that fall cleanly into neither category.

Working in an organization that supports economic development in a specific geographic area, I can envision an approach that both spends and saves.  We might invest 3 million dollars from the endowment in an investment fund here, invest a million in an innovative business concept there, make grants to our communities to support their economic development projects.  All of this, while at the same time sitting on funds with an eye for next year’s or next decade’s opportunities.

Perhaps not as clean as a 20 year drop dead date or fattening up that endowment but the environment in which we live isn’t always neat and clean either.  And shouldn’t it really be about what we’re trying to accomplish?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Grantmaking, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (1)