Over the years a wide variety of people have called on foundations to make grants for general operating support. Add to that number the actor Wendell Pierce, who played Detective Bunk Moreland on the HBO series, The Wire.

A native New Orleanian, Mr. Pierce formed the Pontchartrain Park Community Development Corporation to help the historic African American neighborhood where he grew up rebuild after Hurricance Katrina.

He told grant makers gathered in New Orleans that foundations and nonprofit organization have distinct roles to play in rebuilding.

"If you are that interested in telling us what to do, then by all means join us on this side of the fence," said Mr. Pierce. "Otherwise, help us do what we're doing."

He urged foundation officials to listen to a wide range of voices along the Gulf Coast and not to automatically support the status quo players.

"Please do not come here and ...

Foundations need to resist the temptation to give during the emotionally-charged days and weeks following a catastrophe, speakers told participants at the Katrina @ 5: Partners in Philanthropy conference, in New Orleans.

"When disasters hit domestically, it's impossible to overestimate the CNN effect that happens," said Brad Myers, a program officer at the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation. "Even people who should know better, professional philanthropists and board members of these large foundations, get caught up in the pathos of it all."

If foundation officials wait and make more measured decisions, their grant making will be more successful, John G. Davies, chief executive of the Baton Rouge Area Foundation told conference participants.

"The early philanthropic investor needs to be satisfied that some portion of that gift is not going to be effectively used," he said. "And you have to be...

New Orleans

On Tuesday afternoon, grant makers and nonprofit officials attending the Katrina @ 5: Partners in Philanthropy conference ventured out of the French Quarter hotel where the meeting is being held to see for themselves how the region is recovering from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Participants could choose from among six site visits—four neighborhoods in New Orleans; the United Houma Nation, an American Indian tribe about an hour outside the city; and Bay St. Louis, Miss.

The Rev. Vien the Nguyen, pastor at Mary Queen of Viet Nam Catholic Church, was one of several community leaders who welcomed conference participants to New Orleans East.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the Vietnamese community in New Orleans East was like many Asian enclaves in the United States—it preferred to keep a low profile, Father Nguyen told the visitors.

"We have a saying that means, 'It would be...

New Orleans

Foundations that are working together to try to revitalize Detroit are borrowing from New Orleans's playbook, Wendy Lewis Jackson, a senior program officer at the Kresge Foundation told participants here at the Katrina @ 5 conference.

"The contraction of the U.S. auto industry has been our Katrina," she said. "It's an economic catastrophe that has permeated every corner of our city, but just like New Orleans, we're trying to build back better."

New Orleans's rebuilding effort has shown grant makers in other parts of the country the importance of having a "compelling vision that captures people's imagination and spirit" and thinking big, Ms. Jackson told the audience.

"Tinkering around the edges is no longer an option," she said. "We have big problems to solve in our community, and philanthropy has to both push and pull with audacious, bold strategies that work on multiple...

Partnerships with local foundations have been critical in the Ford Foundation's post-Katrina grant making, allowing Ford to do things that it couldn't do on its own, said Jerry Maldonado, a program officer at the New York philanthropy.

"Our major challenge was that we didn't have the agility" to make the small grants that were so necessary after the disaster, he said. "They helped us get money where it needed to go."

In Ford's post-Katrina grant making, the foundation has awarded grants at local, regional, and national levels, Mr. Maldonado said. It wasn't enough to just focus at one level.

"Ultimately change happens at the neighborhood level," he said, but it is informed by policies at different levels. 

Grants are not the only way that foundations are providing financial support to nonprofit groups on the Gulf Coast. A handful are also offering loans and other tools known as program-related investments.

The Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation has made $2-million in program-related investments -- usually in the form of loans, but also one loan guarantee—ranging in size from $25,000 to $500,000.

Program-related investments are also part of the Ford Foundation's response the 2005 hurricanes and the main focus of the Isaiah Fund's work.

The Good Work Network, a charity in New Orleans that helps minority and women-owned businesses get a start, is putting together the financing to renovate a historic building it will use to create a business incubator and provide low-cost retail space.

Program-related investments will cover the gaps in financing created by historic-preservation tax...

New Orleans

Nearly 300 foundation officials and nonprofit leaders have gathered here this week to discuss the grant-making lessons that have come out of philanthropy's efforts to aid the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The meeting, Katrina @ 5: Partners in Philanthropy, was organized by more than 30 foundations and coalitions of grant makers, led by the Association of Small Foundations, in Washington.

New Orleans

New Orleans' neighborhoods are at a critical point in their recovery, LaToya Cantrell, president of the Broadmoor Improvement Association, told foundation officials and nonprofit leaders gathered here to discuss the lessons grant makers have learned since Hurricane Katrina. Now is not the time for foundations to stop making grants in the still struggling city, she said.

"Without an influx of capital, we are at risk of not acheiving neighborhood sustainability, even with large increases in community-development efforts," she told the audience.

The city's neighborhoods are making great progress, she said. In Broadmoor, for example, a new public school building opened in the fall, which houses the charter school that the neighborhood association started after storm, but there is still much work to be done.

Without additional disaster-recovery contributions, two things could ...