Great Next Generation Training Opportunity

Emerging Practicioners in Philanthropy is one of my favorite groups and one of my frustrations with the Next Gen track at the Council on Foundations conference last year was that too many of the Next Gen sessions were at the same time, so you couldn't attend the full track. This year EPIP is addressing that concern by hosting an amazing pre-conference for the next geners. From EPIP:

INNOVATION & LEGACY:

The Place of the Next Generation in Philanthropy

A High-Value, Low-Cost Training for the Next Generation of Foundation Leaders

Preceding the Council on Foundations 60th Annual Conference

In these economic times, investing in the next generation of foundation talent remains a critical strategy for sustaining the legacy and innovation of our field. Yet, for understandable reasons, professional development budgets are being slashed. In response, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) is pleased to provide a new type of training that is highly affordable and offers a unique value proposition for foundation professionals and trustees in the under-40 demographic. This two day pre-conference offers in-depth skill-building workshops from some of the premiere educators in our field such as GrantCraft; semi-structured intergenerational learning featuring esteemed foundation CEOs and leaders; and personalized career services from Idealist.org. This pre-conference is being held in partnership with the Council on Foundations, Resource Generation, and 21/64.

Separate registration is highly affordable at $200 per person, with a $150 discount rate for dues-paying EPIP members. Scholarships will be available for dues-paying EPIP members, including from the Professional Development Fund, which supports conference travel for young foundation professionals of color. Email precon@epip.org to request scholarship information. Under-employed foundation professionals, as well as those from public foundations, are encouraged to apply for scholarships. With a start-time after lunch Saturday and adjournment Sunday afternoon, participants need not miss work days and will only need one hotel night. Participants are strongly encouraged to attend the Council on Foundations 60th Annual Conference. Atlanta-based colleagues are strongly encouraged to attend. Information and registration is available on the EPIP.org website here. Online registration is reached directly here.

Declines: The Necessary Evil

Normally, after one grant cycle concludes, acceptance letters as well as declination letters get mailed. When my grantees receive acceptance letters they’re so excited and grateful, their thank-you calls make my day. The recipients of the declination letters……not so much. I find myself fumbling and being put on the defensive as to why we didn’t fund this or that program. In my tenure as a program officer, I have been on the receiving end of a few not-so-pleasant phone calls. To prevent them from getting under my skin, I started categorizing them:

• Immediate declines. This is very succinct: The proposed program just did not fit within our guidelines. Do not pass “GO” and do not collect $200.
• “Maybe but…….” With these we weigh the qualitative component of the proposal and ask a few pertinent questions: Is this organization the strongest and the best to undertake this program? If other organizations are doing similar work, why reinvent the wheel? This came up with a recent decline and the organization phoned me. They proposed a capacity grant for an advocacy and policy staff position. A noble enough endeavor to be sure. But I had to point out that two much larger and better equipped organizations in the city were doing the same work with a stronger policy team. This organization seemed surprised when I mentioned this bit of information. But she was very understanding of our position and thanked me for taking the time to explain the declination. This was actually one of the nicer calls I received.
• Don’t shoot the messenger. These are declines from our board of directors. At this point I have done all I can to get a program funded but, for whatever reason, our board decided otherwise. It is truly out of my hands.
• Blind-sided declines. These declines are the toughest. These proposals have you the most invested emotionally because you have built a relationship with the potential grantee. After all due diligence is performed and it passes the staff vetting process, something crops up that you could not have anticipated. This was the type of call I received about a week ago. This organization had proposed a phenomenal science education program for disadvantaged youth. It was the kind of program that had me more excited than any other I had participated in before. They were partnering with another local non-profit which was to provide them with the teaching staff needed to carry out said program. Unfortunately, disturbing news came to light about this partner organization’s financial stability. My Executive Director said it was my call. So, due to the questionable circumstances and the current economic climate, I decided it was not prudent to move forward with this grant. Fortunately, the grantee understood my foundation’s position. I think it upset me more than it did her.

With so many nonprofits chasing so few dollars, it’s impossible to fund every worthy proposal that lands in my lap. With the economy circling the drain, a staggering number of organizations desperately need foundation dollars to fund the vital services that often fall by the wayside in down economies. I am proud of the fact my foundation has decided to maintain our level of giving as much as possible.

I still believe my days of saying “no” have just begun.

Paulette Pierre is a Program Officer intern at The Field Foundation of Illinois. She has a graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy from Loyola University and is currently pursuing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University.

I is for Innovation

I've been recently reintroduced to the wonders of Sesame Street through my four year old son who saw it for the seemingly FIRST time last week. I refuse to believe that it really is the first time because I believe that getting to know this little utopia of a street, where diversity is celebrated and being smart if fun, is the birthright of every child and for some reason my child stared at Big Bird in confusion when we were flipping through channels. "Wow, that's a funny looking bird", he said. When I asked him what the bird's name was he said, "how would I know?" Yikes! It has now become my personal mission to throne the Sesame Street muppets as the preferred characters in my house. I'm sick of that smug little SpongeBob anyway, with his fancy square pants and pineapple house.  This all being said, I started to wonder where the idea of Sesame Street came from? Did some bigwig exec at PBS have a meeting where he said, "I need a show with an infinite amount of marketing opportunities and a lock on the preschool demographic?"  I highly doubt it. Today I was reading an article about the roots of Sesame Street and found that the show was the result of a conversation between a Carnegie Foundation exec and a producer. From the article:

"The idea they came up with was kind of radical: If you can sell kids sugared cereal and toys using Madison Avenue techniques, why couldn't you use the same techniques for teaching counting, the alphabet and basic social skills? And it works."

Indeed, as Davis notes in "Street Gang" (Viking), the genesis of Sesame Street was when the 3-year-old daughter of a Carnegie foundation executive was fascinated by television, waking up to watch the broadcast day begin and memorizing commercial jingles. He talked about his daughter with a friend, producer Joan Ganz Cooney. In the liberal ferment of the mid-'60s, both wondered whether educational TV could go beyond the staid classroom shows of the era.

Foundations are perfectly positioned to encourage this kind of innovation. Foundation staff meet with experts from a wide variety of fields and can bring  ideas from one sector to another. This foundation exec had the interest in improving children's education and the connections with a producer to ensure that this innovation happened.

How are you expanding your network to make sure that you have the right experts in your network to make the next Sesame Street Happen?

Advice to New Foundation Staff

In the coming week I'll be at an Association of Black Foundation Executives convening. After I return, I hope to have new posts about their work encouraging foundations to support special initiatives for black men and boys. While I'm gone I'll be posting some of the most requested posts of this blog. As a side note, this post is the one that has gotten me in the most trouble since I began writing this blog. For some reason foundation staff don't like to be told that their opinion of themselves might be a little bit inflated. Oh well.

Advice to New Foundation Staff- Originally posted April 2007

I have just completed my first year as a program officer at a community foundation. Being a new Foundation staff member is really uncharted territory. There isn’t a handbook that tells you how to be an effective program officer and everyone seems to approach his or her position from a different perspective. I’ve made it my personal mission to try to demystify the foundation field for new foundation staff, prospective foundation staff, grant seekers, and most importantly for myself. In that vein, I have developed 6 pieces of advice for those new to the field that I hope makes your entrance into the foundation field a little less hazy.

1. Don’t believe the hype- Positions at foundations are few and far between. There was probably a very talented applicant pool for your position and you must be very intelligent and knowledgeable about the nonprofit sector since you were chosen for your position. With that said I can pretty much guarantee that you are not as smart, funny, or as handsome (or pretty) as nonprofit and foundation staff alike may have you believe. Your program ideas are not suddenly brilliant, you are just sharing these ideas with a captive audience. False flattery is an unfortunate by-product of being in a position where you can make decisions about large amounts of money. You can handle this newfound access to wealth with grace and wisdom or you can act like a lottery winner. Please choose wisely.
2. Treat grantees with the respect and reverence that they deserve- You get to spend your days with grantees and possible grantees that are the best and brightest of the nonprofit sector. They would make a lot more money if they used their immense talents working in the for profit sector but they are so passionate about the mission of their organizations that they choose to work for. Count yourself among the lucky few that get to spend most of your workday with passionate, idealistic people.
3. Expand your professional network- The best ideas come from having a diverse professional network of people that have different opinions and experiences than you do. Join an affinity group of a different racial group, program area, or geographic interest to learn new approaches to issues that you face in your position.
4. Get some support- This may be a circle of friends that you can bounce ideas off of, an affinity group like Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, which is designed to provide support and guidance to people new to the field of philanthropy, or a kickball team, where you can burn off some of the stress of your position. Figure out what kind of support would work the best for you and seek it out. If you can’t find that network of support, create your own.
5. Never stop learning- The nonprofits that you interact with depend on your access to best practices in the field to improve their own work. Thoroughly read the reports from previous grantees. Are there lessons learned that might be applicable to other organizations that you are working with? Then share that information, within the limits of confidentiality. Scrupulously read about areas that your foundation makes grants in. Read about cities or states with similar demographics as your foundation’s geographic area. Are there any best practices from other locations that might be useful for the work that your foundation or grantees are doing?
6. Extend your hand to those that are interested in the field- When you were thinking about entering the field of philanthropy you either had a wonderful mentor that guided you through the process or you wish that you had. Be that mentor to someone else. There are many students and professionals that just need a few minutes of your time to figure out if the foundation field is a good fit for them. Be open to informational interviews, speaking at sessions about the work of program officers, or being a mentor informally or through a program at your alma mater. You may have also noticed that since you have entered the field you now know about position opening that you never would have heard about when you weren’t in the field. Share those opportunities with your network of people that are interested in starting a career in philanthropy.

Now it’s your turn. What advice would you give to new foundation staff?

When blogs hit the airwaves

I was recently on Rosetta Thurman's blog talk radio show. Rosetta is a fabulous blogger who had the recent fortune of meeting at the COF conference. The description of the show and a link is below, you can listen to the show there or download it as a podcast:

We're gonna shine the spotlight on 3 emerging leaders in philanthropy: Melissa Johnson at
NCRP, Trista Harris at the St. Paul Foundation, and Faith Bynoe mostrecently at the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. We'll discuss how they alllanded jobs at foundations and what the grantmaking experience is like.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rosettathurman/2008/05/12/How-to-Get-a-Job-in-Philanthropy

Philanthropy 2.0

I'm blogging live from the philathropy 2.0 event sponsored by the Case Foundation, EPIP, and 3rd Wave. Packed, hot, techie. About to break a sweat hot.

Just a quick observation. In today's session on faith and feminism, the director of the Women's Funding Network, Chris, pushed me to present my small group's discussion points. Although the rest of the group urged her to speak, she clearly indicated that she wanted me to present because I am an emerging voice in the feminist movement.

This is not the only time this has happened. Today, in the session I co-designed, Luz gave way to Charles and Trista to allow them airtime. This level of collegiality and respect for the voices of young people in philanthropy is new to me. Just by creating it as a focus area of the summit and by hearing leadership frame the conference on Sunday, people are already taking action.

We are not just here to learn, existing leadership is not just here to teach. It is an exchange.

Knowledge Sharing in the Field

In my last post on advice to new foundation staff, I said that there isn’t a handbook that tells you how to be a good Program Officer, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of tools along the way that will make your job a lot clearer. One of this blog’s readers, Donald, suggested The Insider's Guide to GrantMaking by Joel Orosz as a good starting point for new grantmakers. I have found Grantcraft’s articles to be very useful as well.

There is a lot to be said for written resources but there are also the “unwritten” rules of grantmaking. These are the rules that exist in the heads of our boards and presidents. Rules in this category are things like “we don’t fund that type of organization”, or “we can only invest our endowment in traditional investments, not community development projects”. One of my purposes of creating this blog was to begin to bridge the generational gap that exists in the field of philanthropy. Part of that generational gap is the younger generation’s lack of experience doing the business of grantmaking. There is a lot that can be learned in this job by experiencing it firsthand. You make an unsuccessful grant, you learn from that experience and make a better grant next time. But another part of this gap is more experienced grantmakers not taking the time to share the lessons that they have learned. Until we learn as a field to share our lessons learned within our organizations, and more importantly throughout the field, we will never make true progress on the issues that are impacting our society.

Advice to Those New to the Foundation Field

I have just completed my first year as a program officer at a community foundation. Being a new Foundation staff member is really uncharted territory. There isn’t a handbook that tells you how to be an effective program officer and everyone seems to approach his or her position from a different perspective. I’ve made it my personal mission to try to demystify the foundation field for new foundation staff, prospective foundation staff, grant seekers, and most importantly for myself. In that vein, I have developed 6 pieces of advice for those new to the field that I hope makes your entrance into the foundation field a little less hazy.

1. Don’t believe the hype- Positions at foundations are few and far between. There was probably a very talented applicant pool for your position and you must be very intelligent and knowledgeable about the nonprofit sector since you were chosen for your position. With that said I can pretty much guarantee that you are not as smart, funny, or as handsome (or pretty) as nonprofit and foundation staff alike may have you believe. Your program ideas are not suddenly brilliant, you are just sharing these ideas with a captive audience. False flattery is an unfortunate by-product of being in a position where you can make decisions about large amounts of money. You can handle this newfound access to wealth with grace and wisdom or you can act like a lottery winner. Please choose wisely.
2. Treat grantees with the respect and reverence that they deserve- You get to spend your days with grantees and possible grantees that are the best and brightest of the nonprofit sector. They would make a lot more money if they used their immense talents working in the for profit sector but they are so passionate about the mission of their organizations that they choose to work for. Count yourself among the lucky few that get to spend most of your workday with passionate, idealistic people.
3. Expand your professional network- The best ideas come from having a diverse professional network of people that have different opinions and experiences than you do. Join an affinity group of a different racial group, program area, or geographic interest to learn new approaches to issues that you face in your position.
4. Get some support- This may be a circle of friends that you can bounce ideas off of, an affinity group like Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, which is designed to provide support and guidance to people new to the field of philanthropy, or a kickball team, where you can burn off some of the stress of your position. Figure out what kind of support would work the best for you and seek it out. If you can’t find that network of support, create your own.
5. Never stop learning- The nonprofits that you interact with depend on your access to best practices in the field to improve their own work. Thoroughly read the reports from previous grantees. Are there lessons learned that might be applicable to other organizations that you are working with? Then share that information, within the limits of confidentiality. Scrupulously read about areas that your foundation makes grants in. Read about cities or states with similar demographics as your foundation’s geographic area. Are there any best practices from other locations that might be useful for the work that your foundation or grantees are doing?
6. Extend your hand to those that are interested in the field- When you were thinking about entering the field of philanthropy you either had a wonderful mentor that guided you through the process or you wish that you had. Be that mentor to someone else. There are many students and professionals that just need a few minutes of your time to figure out if the foundation field is a good fit for them. Be open to informational interviews, speaking at sessions about the work of program officers, or being a mentor informally or through a program at your alma mater. You may have also noticed that since you have entered the field you now know about position opening that you never would have heard about when you weren’t in the field. Share those opportunities with your network of people that are interested in starting a career in philanthropy.

Now it’s your turn. What advice would you give to new foundation staff?