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Conference Notebook

May 07, 2008

Council on Foundations
Different Approaches Needed for Poorer Communities

Foundations that want to help the poor need to abandon short-term thinking and be much more flexible when they analyze grant applications.

That message was delivered repeatedly at a session here led by foundation officials who specialize in grant making in low-income communities.

“We have to be willing to take some risks,” said Kafi D. Blumenfield, chief executive of the Liberty Hill Foundation in Los Angeles. “This is a risky area of grant making. Not all of the seeds are going to sprout.”

The risky nature of working with small organizations in poor communities prompts many foundations to pour their grant making into more established charities.

But Ms. Blumenfield says foundations that take the time to get to know the people who work in those neighborhoods make smart investments and produce meaningful improvements.

The Liberty Hill Foundation, for example, has created boards of people in Los Angeles’ most downtrodden neighborhoods to help advise its program officers and board members on which charities are most worthy of support.

The foundation has also decided to take steps such as accepting grant applications in Spanish to help it reach out to organizations that otherwise do not receive attention from foundations.

But its biggest investment, by far, is time.

“The key is investing and waiting to take the time for change to happen,” she said.

— Peter Panepento

Wednesday May 7, 2008 | Permalink

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