Denver

After a round of dating, will the budding romance between foundations and government amount to much?

Several participants used the metaphor of a relationship at a Council on Foundations session here focused on public and philanthropic partnerships.

"We've spent a year letting each other know how much we love each other," said Chris Gates, executive director of Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement, a Denver group. "As we get over that crush moment, we're getting to much harder questions."

Among them, he said, is the increasing accountability that foundations will face as they collaborate with government and use more public dollars to finance their projects. Questions will rightly be asked, he said, about who is making decisions and what might be motivating board members.

Likewise, said Lance Lindblom, president of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, it is too early for government to...

Denver

The author Chip Heath urged foundation officials to turn their burgeoning interest in measuring outcomes and effectiveness toward “finding the bright spots,” in a breakfast speech at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations.

Mr. Heath, a professor at the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a co-author with his brother Dan of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, cited an example from his new book that focused on malnourished children in Vietnam.

Jerry Sternin, working for Save the Children in 1990, knew the conventional explanations for malnutrition: poor sanitation, nearly universal poverty, lack of clean water. He dubbed such facts TBU -- “true but useless.” So he went to a village and found children who were a little taller and healthier than others and looked for things they were doing differently.

All mothers were feeding their children ...

Did foundations do enough to respond to the economic crisis?

Foundations have made grants worth $443-million to respond directly to the economic crisis since the stock market plunged in fall 2008, Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center, reported during a session on the topic Monday afternoon at the Council on Foundations annual meeting.

Emmett D. Carson, president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and the moderator of the panel discussion, pressed Mr. Smith for a qualitative assessment: Was it enough?

"I think foundations did a pretty good job," Mr. Smith said.

Over the same period, total grant making by foundations has added up to $60-billion or more. That's well under 1 percent of total grant making going to respond to the crisis.

Mr. Carson contrasted the numbers and was not impressed. "You say that's a helluva job?" he asked Mr. Smith.

Aaron Dorfman,...

Denver

To respond to the frustrations that many grant makers face in trying to give money overseas, the Council on Foundations is creating a new committee to develop suggestions for how to make global grant making easier, its president, Steve Gunderson, said on Sunday night.

Along with the European Foundation Centre and Wings (Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support), the Council will focus on three areas: improving the legal and regulatory climate for international giving; developing models for working with nonprofit groups in other countries; and finding ways to work with governments and institutions like the United Nations. 

Currently, it takes foundations about twice as long to process an international grant as a domestic grant, said William White, president of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and a co-chair of the new effort. He talked about how the Patriot Act, with its ...

Denver

As the one-year anniversary of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act approaches Wednesday, stories are appearing in the press noting that little of the money set aside to create volunteer opportunities has yet been distributed.

At a luncheon speech here, Patrick Corvington, the new head of the Corporation for National and Community Service, may have been alluding to the slow process when he said he’s thrown out his earlier views about philanthropy’s plodding pace and has come to appreciate the sector’s “gazelle-like” agility.

“The turning-on-a-dime ability of philanthropy is something that I miss,” Mr. Corvington said, in a remark that elicited plenty of laughs.

Even if the pace may be slow, Mr....

Denver

Former Vice President Al Gore called on the nation’s foundations to steer more of the expected wealth transfer between generations toward efforts to combat global warming, in a keynote address here at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations.

He argued that foundations have an important role to play in combating the problem -- which he described as “by far the most serious problem facing our civilization” -- and in encouraging the nation’s young people to get involved.

“How can we appropriate for ourselves all of the benefits of the generations who have come before, and then give the back of our hand to future generations?” Mr. Gore asked.

He envisioned future generations looking back in...

 Denver

"Social innovation" is not about dreaming up new concepts but is rather about taking existing ideas and putting together a network to make a new venture successful, Andrew Hargadon, a professor of entrepreneurship at University of California at Davis, said at a session here today.

He urged foundations to look to create networks, much like venture capitalists in Silicon Valley do, so that when the right social entrepreneur comes along, the grant maker will be able to put together a team to help the individual bring the idea to fruition.

"Are you creating the Rolodex so that when the right program comes along, you can make the connections?" Mr. Hargadon asked.

Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation, another speaker, said new innovations in financing should make it easier to get funds in the hands of successful charities. The new approaches can emphasize financial...

Denver

Polls show that Americans are dissatisfied with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in January that lifted restrictions on corporate campaign spending, and foundations that share that sentiment should act now to try to thwart the impact of the ruling, a panel argued at a session at the Council on Foundations meeting here today.

Stephen B. Heintz, president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the moderator of the panel, said that if the 100 largest U.S. companies spent just 1 percent of their profits on campaigns, it would double the current spending by political-action committees.

"We're talking about an overwhelming influence of money coming into a system already influenced by money," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that a law prohibiting corporations from using money from their treasuries for "express advocacy" -- to urge that a...

Denver

Gara LaMarche, president of Atlantic Philanthropies, began a session on social-justice philanthropy here today with a lighthearted nod to what he called the "not uncontroversial" nature of the term social justice. 

The conservative talk-show host Glenn Beck recently likened social justice to communism. Mr. LaMarche had this message for people he joked might share Mr. Beck's views: "I'm giving people who feel that way and thought they'd wandered into a different panel an opportunity to leave." 

But despite the beating the term "social justice" might be taking among conservative talk-show hosts, Mr. LaMarche said today was a "potent moment" for grant making devoted to promoting equality by creating structural change. 

Grant makers like Atlantic and the Ford Foundation are putting more money into social-justice grant making, he said, and groups like the Foundation Center are...

Denver

As foundation boards reach out to recruit younger trustees, they should recognize the differences between Generations X and Y and be willing to learn from the ideas the newcomers bring, said two young presenters at a session of the annual Council on Foundations meeting today.

Sharna Goldseker, who said she is a member of Generation X (people born from 1965 to 1980) and a vice president at the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, and Jos Thalheimer, a 28-year-old graduate student at New York University's Wagner School of Public Service, said that while people their age may appear to be flighty opportunists, that is simply because their generations are so much smaller than the baby boomers and therefore each person has many more opportunities for career advancement.

Many young people are busy with families and careers, and some may be looking for ways to get involved in...