A Great Foundation

A legend at my foundation passed last week.  I'm not sure how well Terrence Keenan is known outside of the health foundation world, but his amazing work in philanthropy became the basis of an award created in his name at Grantmakers in Health.  He worked in philanthropy for 40 years and though his focus and committment was to the health and health care of Americans, his leadership in philanthropy spans all areas in the field.  Last week I wrote about what makes a perfect 21st Century foundation.  Here are Mr. Keenan's thoughts on what makes a great foundation altogether:  

 A great foundation is informed and animated by moral purpose.

 A great foundation accepts responsibility and stewardship for pursuing these purposes.

 A great foundation walks humbly with its grantees—it acknowledges that their success is the instrument of its own success.

 A great foundation is deliberate. It is guided by judgment. It acts where there is a need to act. It takes necessary risks—and proceeds in the face of great odds.

 A great foundation is a resource for both discovery and change. It invests not only in the identification of answers, but also in the pursuit of solutions.

 A great foundation is accountable. It functions as a public trust—and places its learning and experience in the public domain.

 Finally, a great foundation is self-renewing. It adheres to a constant process of self-reflection and self-assessment. It knows when it needs to change and to adopt measures to improve its performance.

More about Mr. Keenan's philosophy on health philanthropy can be found at: http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/other/ThePromiseAtHandByTerranceKeenan.pdf

Make Better Mistakes

Tagging onto Trista's post on philanthropy's New Year's resolutions, I'm posting an entry from Tactical Philanthropy about making better mistakes. As you know I am a big fan of learning from mistakes and don't think philanthropy does enough 'looking back' to ensure that past mistakes are not repeated. I agree with Sean on 2 points: 1) I too have a stack of books on philanthropy that still need to be read and 2) even though philantrhopy is over 100 years old, we still have a lot to learn. From Sean's post:

The field of philanthropy is a bit like an uncharted wilderness. Unlike most 100+ year old fields, there is no real set of “best practices” in philanthropy. There is no agreed upon way to evaluate a charity. Most donors have never even heard of some of the basic tools of giving like charitable trusts and donor advised funds.
Recently I’ve been discussing with a pretty esteemed group of philanthropic leaders what “strategic philanthropy” even means and how we can tell if someone is practicing it.
As a field we still have an aversion to admitting that philanthropy ever fails at anything. But as everyone knows, admitting a problem is the first step to fixing it.
Personally, I’m still in the thick of learning about philanthropy. I have a large stack of books about philanthropy next to my desk that I have yet to read and another large stack of those I have. But with One-Click ordering from Amazon, it seems that my “To Read” pile grows faster than I can keep up.
So let’s be ambitious and work hard to build a new and better philanthropy. But let’s also be humble and realize that we all have so much to learn. Philanthropy as a field of practice is still in its infancy. So rather than resolve that next year we will do more, do better, do faster. Let us humbly resolve that in 2009 we will make better mistakes than we did in 2008. Let’s make mistakes that are the result of daring, well informed risks. Mistakes that demonstrate our willingness to embrace the unknown and try things that other people tell us can’t be done. Let’s make mistakes that we can be proud of, the kind of mistakes that we brag about over a beer with friends, “Remember that time when we….?!”
And who knows. Maybe we’ll all create something wonderful.

2009 Resolutions for Foundations

Here are the 5 things I would like to see foundations do in 2009:

Unrestrict grants that you have already given to nonprofits for project-specific activities so that they are able to make mission driven choices about their activities in 2009. Too many nonprofits can't make good decisions about what programs to keep, expand, or scale back during tough economic times because they have specific funding tied to those programs. Unrestrict those grants to make sure that organizations can focus on core programs.

Use 5% as a guideline, not a rule. When times are tough be there for the organizations that you financially support, even if it means that you are spending over 5%. Foundations do not exists to make sure that they continue to exists. Their donors got a tax break to have a positive impact on our communities.

Collaborate with other foundations to achieve impact. This is not a time for us to go at this alone. Turf battles are so 2008, so find some foundations with a common vision and figure out how you can coordinate your funding for maximum impact.

Think about your non-financial resources that would be useful to your nonprofit partners. Things like lobbyists, communications expertise, space, or information. Find new ways to get these resources to nonprofits.

Release your staff from the 9 to 5. I've never been a fan of arbitrary time schedules that don't match employee or community needs. Now is the time to figure out how to realign your foundation to measure results and not just hours clocked.

They say people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. As a new foundation head, I'm working on implementing all of these ideas in my foundation. It isn't easy, but it's necessary.

What other things would you like to see foundations implement in 2009?

A Reminder of Why I Do It

My husband works for Habitat for Humanity in Newark, NJ. We'd both heard a lot of negative things about Newark but through his interest in real estate and his work at HH, he has witnessed the extreme dearth of development and lack of hope among many residents in this city. There was even a shooting right in his building but thankfully no one was killed.

But in early December, we both were present at an event that reminded me of why I love philanthropy and why I am committed to it. We participated in the dedication of houses for two local families right around the corner from the HH office. These families worked with Habitat and many volunteers for long hours to complete these houses that they recieved keys for that day. It was probably 30 degrees outside but a large crowd gathered to support the families and cheer them on as they cut the ribbon at the front doors. Afterward we congregated in a local church, eating food and singing Christmas carols. I got a chance to meet a few volunteers, talk to one of the families and just share in the excitement of a new chapter in the lives of these community members.

Were it not for philanthropy these houses would not have been built. And I'm not just talking about the money and corporate sponsorships. I'm also talking about the philanthropy of time--the hours and days committed through volunteerism to build these houses and work with the families. One of my favorite things about philanthropy is seeing the final "product" of the dollars and time given. The smiles on the families' faces just made my day and I recommitted myself to both my professional and personal work in philanthropy.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Let's ignore effectiveness (just for today)

Image courtesy of the Star Tribune

A few days ago an apartment building near my house burned down. It was one of those tragic stories that makes you hold your family a little bit closer and count your blessings. As a nonprofit geek, it also made me think about the current financial state of the Red Cross and hope that they would be able to provide services to the 64 families left homeless by the fire just days before Christmas.  Then something completely unexpected happened, an anonymous donor gave $1,000,000 to the victims of the fire. No strings attached and with the insistence that the money be disbursed immediately, so that the families would have it before Christmas. The generosity brought tears to my eyes because all I have been hearing for the last few months is how bad the economy is and that nonprofits  and the people that we serve will be left out in the cold. This donor's generosity reminded me that giving is a basic human instinct and we will continue to support each other, especially during hard times. 

It can be argued that, especially in these tough times, there are better ways to use that money. The donor could have leveraged it as a challenge grant to get more funds to the Red Cross, they could have offered to pay two months of rent for each family (and spared the families from the tax burden and other financial implications of a cash gift), they could have started a public information campaign about the need for sprinkler systems in older apartments or the benefits of renters insurance, or they could have build more affordable housing to replace the building that was lost. They could have done a lot of things but they helped in the way that they thought would be the fastest way to meet the needs of these families. As a professional philanthropist, I often get caught up in the how of the giving. This donor reminded me that the why is even more important because that is where our humanity is.