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Conference Notebook
May 2009
May 17, 2009
European Foundation Centre
Immigration Issues Draw Attention From Grant Makers
One backdrop to the conference was the topic of immigration in Europe, and in Italy in particular.
Last week, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s government continued its crackdown on illegal immigration, making an arrangement with Libya to deport migrants to Libya before they arrive on Italian shores.
Those actions have been met by dismay and anger by human-rights activists in Italy and elsewhere.
The controversy was evident at the European Foundation Centre’s conference, when, during the opening plenary, Giorgio Napolitano, president of the Italian Republic, spoke about the dangers of xenophobia and intolerance.
That sentiment was underscored two days later at the conference’s closing session, where Emílio Rui Vilar, the newly elected chair of the European Foundation Centre, read a statement on behalf of conference participants that Europeans must work together to defend the human rights of immigrants.
The statement, which was met with enthusiastic applause from foundation officials in the audience, said: “It is with great regret that we witness the emergence of a climate in Italy, which is symptomatic of a general trend throughout Europe, which leads to measures relating to undocumented migrants that undermine people’s basic human rights….”
“We recognize that migration is a complex and challenging issue for all European member states…. We strongly encourage the governments of all member states to work individually, together and with the institutions of the European Union to build a framework for addressing migration in ways that truly respect the dignity of all human beings as defined in the European Convention on Human Rights.”
— Marty Michaels
European Foundation Centre
Coping With the Recession: Grant Makers Consider Options
Like their counterparts in the United States, grant makers in Europe are also wrestling with how best to carry out their missions during a global recession.
At one session, grant makers from Belgium, Denmark, and elsewhere described their experiences as their assets have fallen.
Speakers explored options in the current economic climate, including mergers, spending all their assets to help meet immediate needs, and increased collaboration across borders.
Luc Tayart de Borms, managing director of the King Baudouin Foundation, in Brussels, said that his foundation — which plans to spend $47-million this year — has decided to spend that sum every year through 2011, but that he knows doing so could eventually dig into the fund’s endowment.
“We have set aside cash for three years of expenses, but we will have to also consider given scenarios, and work with them,” said Mr. Tayart.
And when it comes to dealing with the crisis constructively, Nicolas Borsinger, executive director of the Pro Victimis Foundation, in Geneva, said too many small, poorly equipped, and inefficient funds operate in Europe.
So just as nonprofit groups are sometimes told by grant makers to consider mergers, Mr. Borsinger said that the possibility should also be an option for struggling organizations of any type.
Mr. Tayart reminded his colleagues that foundations have an “ethical obligation” to not merely perpetuate their assets, but rather ensure support for international and other critical needs.
“We have to show that we are there and sensitive to the needs of society.”
— Marty Michaels
May 16, 2009
European Foundation Centre
Legal Barriers Present Significant Hurdles for European Foundations
More than $100-million worth of grants probably don’t get made each year because of legal barriers that make it hard for foundations in one European country to award money in another one, according to a study released at the meeting.
Some 110,000 foundations operate in Europe, according to the study conducted by Helmut Anheier, academic director of the Centre for Social Investment, in Germany, who presented the findings, and others.
To make it easier for those foundations to make grants across borders, the European Foundation Centre, and other philanthropy advocates, have been pushing for a law that would remove most of the legal difficulties.
The process of drafting and adopting such a law has been fraught with concerns as to how it would be carried out, exactly how it would be phrased, and whether it would even be relevant. Of particular concern is how the differences in tax treatment of foundations in various countries would work.
Marjut Leskinen, a policy officer at the European Commission, noted in a panel discussion here that the statute would have to be approved by the commission’s 27 member states.
Said Ms. Leskinen: “We can’t twist their arm to make them accept it.”
May 15, 2009
European Foundation Centre
Promoting Social Innovation in the Middle East and North Africa
A session on social entrepreneurship in the Arab world highlighted the work of the Synergos Institute’s work with its new Arab World Social Innovators Program.
George Khalaf, director of the Middle East and North Africa programs run by Synergos, reported on the program’s experiences since it was created in October 2007. It is the organization’s first formal foray into that region.
Since then, 22 “social innovators” from Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and the Palestinian territories have received money and management assistance to help them carry out and expand existing community-development and social-justice projects.
Mr. Khalaf said the 22 grant recipients were chosen from among 200 applicants, about half of whom were women. He said that he was disappointed that only four women received the money, but that he hoped women in the Arab world would benefit through the work of participants in the program.
One of the recipients, Ali Abu Awwad, a Palestinian activist, spoke on the panel. Mr. Awwad began Al-Tariq (the Way), a group in the Palestinian territories that incorporates the teaching of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi on non-violent resistance and promotes dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr. Awwad told pertinent parts of his life story, including his experience growing up in a refugee camp and learning that an Israeli soldier had killed his brother at a checkpoint near his village. Also, Mr. Awwad himself was shot in the leg by an Israeli settler and spent four years in prison during the first intifada.
After these losses, he said he started out “with a victim mentality.” But his mindset changed, he said: “It’s easy to grow up with hatred. But ultimately it’s poisoning your body, mind, and life. “
Mr. Awwad spoke to the difficulties of working with a nonprofit group that advocates nonviolence in a region rife with deep ethnic, political, and social enmities, and the challenge of “building a social movement without hatred, without violence.”
He also works closely with the Parents Circle-Families Forum, a grass-roots group of bereaved families who have lost family members to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and promote reconciliation as an alternative to continued violence in the region.
The Oslo accords and other peace efforts have yet to include community members, said Mr. Awwad, and that must change if the situation is to evolve.
“Peace will be based on inclusion,” he said, “when the killing of every human being is a crime.”
European Foundation Centre
Venture Philanthropy Grows More Popular in Europe
The terms “venture philanthropy” and “social entrepreneurship” continue to gain greater coinage in Europe, and one conference session presented case studies of such efforts in Estonia and Germany.
Artur Taevere, managing director of the Good Deed Foundation, in Tallinn, Estonia, discussed his organization’s effort to create “Youth for School,” a program that deploys outstanding college graduates to teach in schools in impoverished neighborhoods, much like Teach for America does in the United States.
“Why would some of the university graduates go to teach in some of Estonia’s worst schools?” he asked. “What is the incentive?”
In his group’s case, the Ministry of Education endorsed the idea, and the program has proved to be a good fit both with the young teachers and students.
But it hasn’t been easy, says Mr. Taevere. “We’ve had to focus on achieving very tangible results, and it’s been a challenge to find partners who fit well with Good Deed both as a grant maker and as a partner.”
Peter W. Heller, executive director of the Canopus Foundation, a family foundation in Freiburg, Germany, also told of his fund’s efforts looking for projects that teamed “market intelligence with high social impact.”
For example, his foundation’s “A Solar World for All” project seeks to make solar energy affordable to the estimated two billion people without access to electricity, and Canopus is working on the effort with Ashoka, in Arlington, Va., and other groups. Mr. Heller said that the project has already brought down the costs of solar panels needed to provide electricity for poor families in Brazil by 40 percent.
He added that his foundation is looking for $80- to $100-million in grants over the next several years in order to make it feasible for low-income people worldwide to pay for solar-based homes.
And while he remains hopeful, Mr. Heller added: “Venture philanthropists are restless, with an almost endless capacity for frustration.”
May 14, 2009
European Foundation Centre
Glitzy Setting Sparks Criticism at Foundation Meeting
One topic of discussion on the conference’s opening day was the planners’ choice of a gilded, opulent conference site set high above Rome on 15 acres of gardens. The European Foundation Centre says that the Hilton Rome Cavalieri was “chosen because it is one of the only hotels in Rome capable of hosting such a large conference.”
But many participants had misgivings about the issue, or had discussed it with fellow attendees. The choice of venue was somewhat ostentatious given the conference theme of ending poverty, said Haki H. Abazi, a program officer at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Mr. Abazi is also a board member of the Trust for Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe, in Sofia, Bulgaria, and said that when that organization searched for its next conference site, it chose an old factory in Bratislava, the Slovak Republic.
Meanwhile, Marilyn D. Clancy, senior consultant to the Headwaters Group, a philanthropic-services company in St. Paul, said she felt the hotel and the lunch with wine and all the perks served to participants were apropos. “Italy is about eating and drinking well, and to Italians, this isn’t decadent,” she said, referring to the conference hosts, the Fondazione Rome.
Ms. Clancy added: “Most people here today aren’t suffering, but they are working for those who do. This could be taking place in a tent in the desert, but the mindset would still be, how can we lift others up and give the poor more?”
— Marty Michaels
European Foundation Centre
European Foundations Focus on Ways to Fight Global Poverty
Grant makers and philanthropists worldwide have a great deal to learn from each other, particularly from those in poor countries, said speakers at the annual conference of the European Foundation Centre here.
The theme of the conference, which has drawn some 700 participants from dozens of countries, is “Fighting Poverty: Creating Opportunities.”
The opening plenary, set in a state-of the-art hall in Rome’s Parco della Musica, featured a videotape of José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, who gave good wishes to the conference.
But the session’s most fiery talk by far was by Sibongile Mkhabela, who has served as chief executive of the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund, in South Africa, for the past 10 years.
“The world continues to be in a terrible state despite our efforts—are we making any progress?” she asked.
Ms. Mkhabela expressed “a heightened state of anger at the situation.” “We are sometimes like madpeople,” she said, “using the same development and antipoverty methods again and again.”
While Ms. Mkhabela said that she and other activists are tired of “the old, tired entrenched traditions [of development aid]”, indigenous groups—including community foundations, mutual-aid associations, and the like—in South Africa and other democratic countries can provide both inspiration and critical guidance on what poor communities actually need.
Ms. Mkhabela said that nonprofit groups in poor countries need control over their own destinies, and that grant makers everywhere should heed the warning. She said that groups would resist being “moved from HIV/AIDS, to malaria, to women’s issues” at foundations’ whims.
“I want to create a new generation of leaders,” said Ms. Mkhabela. “While it’s extremely important, I don’t want to just feed a few children.”
— Marty Michaels
May 06, 2009
Council on Foundations
Foundations Should Find Creative Solutions in the Recession, Says Bill Clinton
While the economic recession is hurting nonprofit groups, they must respond by being more creative and working with businesses, government agencies, and one another, Bill Clinton told members of the Council on Foundations.
Mr. Clinton said his own charity, the William J. Clinton Foundation, is not immune from the downturn. Since September, $15-million in pledges have been unfulfilled due to the financial crisis. He added that thanks to cash reserves and trimming its operations budget, his organization has not had to cut back on AIDS projects in Africa or other charitable efforts.
Small nonprofit groups are also facing deficits, added the former president, saying he is helping the Methodist church he attends in Westchester, N.Y., raise money to run a food bank.
“This economy has hit this philanthropic sector pretty hard,” Mr. Clinton said. “I see this everywhere, large and small.”
He added: “The civil society of America is hurting.”
To survive and even expand their work, he encouraged grant makers to innovate and create cost-efficient programs. For example, he is working with companies and the New York City mayor’s office to make the Empire State Building more environmentally friendly.
The move will cost $33-million, he said, but will reduce the building’s energy expenses by $4.5-million a year, practically paying for itself in less than a decade.
He said such efforts need to continue and encouraged grant makers to persevere during the recession.
Said Mr. Clinton: “The role of the nongovernmental sector is essential.”
Council on Foundations
Grant Makers Urged to Be 'More Muscular' in Advancing Public-Policy Ideas
Several Obama administration officials spoke at the Council on Foundations meeting this week about their interest in working with foundations to fight the nation’s most urgent problems.
While the discussion at the event focused primarily on how foundations can influence the White House, Ralph Smith, chief executive of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, and chairman of the council, wondered how a closer relationship with government would change philanthropy.
He said that foundations would need to be more agile, confident, and willing to work hand-in-hand with each other.
In terms of speed, he said grant making is usually akin “to giving birth.” The decision to make a contribution can be a “nine-month process” as a staff member makes a recommendation to a chief executive, he or she then deliberates with the board of directors, and finally a decision may be made.
In contrast, the Obama administration is making spending decisions about the economic-stimulus money in a matter of weeks, Mr. Smith said.
He also said that foundation leaders can no longer “mumble” about what they want from policy makers but need to strongly assert their requests and be “more muscular.”
Council on Foundations
Federal Government May Revise Voluntary Guidelines for Giving Overseas
The U.S. Treasury Department wants to work with grant makers to revise its voluntary guidelines that seek to prevent charitable dollars from inadvertently flowing to terrorists, a department official said at the Council on Foundations meeting.
Michael Rosen, a policy adviser in the department’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, said the office wants to work with foundations “to better refine the guidance.”
While saying that the Obama administration is still very concerned about the possibility of philanthropic money helping organizations like Hamas and other militant groups, he said the office’s guidelines can be “more responsive to your needs.”
Foundations have said the guidelines are too onerous and prevent some donors from making grants overseas.
Mr. Rosen also promoted the American Task Force on Palestine as a possible model to make grants in “high-risk areas” like the Palestinian territories. In August, the charity signed an agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development in which the government aid organization would vet the Palestinian charities the task force would want to support.
Ziad J. Asali, president of the task force, in Washington, said it has raised at least $500,000 in products and cash donations for schools, hospitals, and other charitable institutions.
He cautioned, however, that the approach has its challenges. The charity has to not let the government pick what groups to support and the partnership should not be the starting point for a “more intrusive” government role in philanthropy abroad.
Council on Foundations
Mayor Bloomberg Outlines Steps New York City Is Taking to Ease Strain on Nonprofit Groups
Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City’s mayor, told a session at the Council on Foundations meeting today that New York City has made a concerted effort to help nonprofit groups struggling because of the poor economy by employing a “three-pronged strategy.”
First, the city is testing a “group purchasing” program for organizations that get city contracts.
If successful, Mayor Bloomberg said, he hopes to expand the program to all of the city’s 30,000 nonprofit groups as a way to help them reduce their overhead costs by offering discounts on supplies, insurance, and other purchases.
City agencies are also making it a priority to pay nonprofit groups quickly for services provided. “Too often, too many nonprofits in New York have suffered because New York City hasn’t paid them as promptly as we should — but not anymore,” he said, to applause.
Thirdly, Mr. Bloomberg said the city is helping charities share “best practices” and get access to advice from business leaders. As part of this effort, the city has created a project called NYC Service to encourage volunteerism.
Mr. Bloomberg said he recognizes and values philanthropy’s role in paying for experimental solutions to social problems.
“The public demands in advance answers to questions that do not exist when you innovate,” he said. “That’s why governments don’t innovate very well.”
Once a nonprofit project becomes successful, however, it “becomes something the public can understand and is willing to pay for,” he said.
Mr. Bloomberg said New York City has striven to “set a new standard for how cities can use philanthropy to advance innovative public policies” through efforts like the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York.
Since 2002, he said, the fund has raised more than $167-million and paid for projects such as giving eyeglasses to schoolchildren, planting new trees, financing domestic-violence centers, and paying for public art projects, including the creation of several waterfalls within the city.
Philanthropy at its best, he said, is “inspirational, entrepreneurial, needs-driven, and, whenever possible, data-driven.”
Council on Foundations
'Trust Deficit' Erupts After Madoff Investment Scandal
In a session billed as “CSI for foundations,” speakers at the Council on Foundations meeting in Atlanta dissected the Bernard Madoff investment scandal, which resulted in the deaths of 51 foundations and left 143 others “seriously injured,” according to Jeffrey R. Solomon, president of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, in New York.
Speakers noted how many of the organizations that were hurt by the scandal missed signs of potential problems when investing with Mr. Madoff because officials relied on personal, religious, and social connections that they shared with him.
Melissa Berman, president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, said one lesson that has emerged in the scandal’s wake is that such relationships and a sense of trust are no longer enough.
The “acid test” for financial advisers, she said, must now be, “Can you fire these folks comfortably?”
The violation of personal relationships, she added, has fed into a broader “trust deficit” that is now a major issue for philanthropy.
“If we’re in a situation in which foundations can’t be trusted as appropriate stewards of private resources for public good, then the very sort of ‘license to operate’ that everybody in philanthropy enjoys is under threat,” she said.
Mr. Solomon said Bronfman Philanthropies considered investing with Mr. Madoff but did not after its chief financial officer investigated and discovered four factors he found troubling:
- The returns looked too good to be true.
- Mr. Madoff’s group did not welcome an office visit.
- The group would not disclose how the investments worked, and wouldn’t answer the chief financial officer’s questions.
- The auditors for the effort were “two guys at a strip mall,” Mr. Solomon said.
He added, “Having procedures in place and simply doing the kind of due diligence does result, in this case, in avoiding the problem.”
May 05, 2009
Council on Foundations
Foundations Urged to Offer Ideas for 'Social Innovation Fund'
President Obama is asking Congress to provide $50-million to support creative and successful nonprofit groups as part of a new Social Innovation Fund, Melody Barnes, director of the White House domestic policy council, told a session at the meeting here Tuesday.
“The Social Innovation Fund reflects the president’s new governing philosophy: finding and investing in what works; and partnering with and supporting others who are leading change in their communities,” Ms. Barnes said. “We are also working with federal agencies across the government to identify new solutions to problems that have resisted traditional approaches.”
She asked foundations to give her advice about how the fund should operate, what charities it should support, and how the White House can evaluate whether it makes any progress.
Council on Foundations
Obama Official Calls Proposed Change to Charitable Deduction a 'Tough Choice'
President Obama’s plan to limit charitable tax deductions for wealthy people was “hotly debated” in the White House, but ultimately the administration decided that the government should hold onto more tax revenue to improve health care, Melody Barnes, director of the White House domestic policy council, told foundation officials at the Council on Foundations meeting.
During a question-and-answer session after her speech, which focused on the creation of the Social Innovation Fund, she acknowledged the concerns that the tax plan, which would go into effect in 2011, may hamper charitable giving. “It’s certainly an issue we recognize,” she said.
However, she said the money the change would generate is a key facet of President Obama’s agenda — it would be used to support a cash reserve to make the country’s health-care system more affordable and accessible.
The decision was a “tough choice” in the White House, said Ms. Barnes, describing scenes in the White House Roosevelt Room where the issue was debated along with other budget changes.
The robust discussions were dubbed “Project Dave”, a reference to the 1993 movie in which the actor Kevin Kline played the president and tried to curb government spending by recruiting his accountant friend to go line-by-line through the federal budget.
“When we’re addressing tough issues,” she said, “everything’s on the table.”
Ms. Barnes also responded to a foundation official who raised concerns about the fate of projects that are started with money from the $780-billion economic-stimulus package when that cash flow dries up.
Ms. Barnes said the administration wants to make sure there is not a “dramatic cliff” in government spending in the years ahead, although it faces an historic deficit.
“I won’t deny that is a very real problem,” she said. “It’s part of the conversation we need to have about how we can leverage the work that you all are doing and the work that we’re doing to try mitigate that and continue the progress that we hope will be made in this period.”
Council on Foundations
Foundation Officials Debate Watchdog Recommendations
A recent report from the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy has roiled the foundation world, and during the Council on Foundations meeting several philanthropy officials debated the committee’s recommendations for good grant making.
The foundation watchdog’s contentious report, which was released in March, encouraged foundations to award at least 50 percent of their grants to disadvantaged populations, to provide a total of 6 percent of their assets to charities each year, and made other recommendations for “philanthropy at its best.”
(Read The Chronicle’s article about the publication.)
William W. Ginsberg, president of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, said adopting the committee’s benchmarks would hurt his organization’s ability to encourage charitable efforts by a broad group of Connecticut donors.
While he and the foundation are concerned about poverty in New Haven, “the criteria missed the mark on how community philanthropy really works.”
He later noted that only one community foundation has endorsed the report. He and Aaron Dorfman, the executive director of the committee, pledged to start a discussion with community foundations about how the standards could — or could not — apply to them.
Sherece Y. West, chief executive of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, in Little Rock, supports the recommendations, although her organization does not meet all of them. She said her foundation is using the report as a tool to measure its social-justice work.
“It enables us to reflect on our grant making,” she said.
During the session, the participants argued about whether the report will influence lawmakers, whether the committee should have tried a softer approach to pushing donors, and whether the committee used solid data to conclude that only one-third of foundation grant dollars go to “marginalized people.”
Ms. West acknowledged the latter issue was important because better information is needed to track grant makers’ progress in trying to help the poor and others. But she emphasized that what foundations really need is a bigger discussion about the racial inequities facing America. The report, she hoped, would help trigger that conversation.
“Philanthropy hasn’t reconciled itself with institutional racism,” she said.
Her idea was echoed by Janine Lee, chief executive of the Southern Partners Fund, in Atlanta, who wrote an opinion article for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published Tuesday that backed the committee’s report.
Council on Foundations
Donors Helped Response to Flu Outbreak
With encouraging signs that the H1N1 virus may not be as dangerous as first believed, Richard E. Besser, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said foundations and philanthropists helped the agency prepare for a potential pandemic.
“Foundations play a critical role during emergencies,” Dr. Besser, a pediatrician, told members of the Council on Foundations.
For example, in 2001, as the agency, in Atlanta, worked frantically to trace the anthrax attacks on journalists and members of Congress, it set up a make-shift emergency-response center in an auditorium.
Bernard Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot and a board member of the CDC Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps the agency, visited the somewhat jury-rigged facility and began raising money for a state-of-the-art operations center to monitor health emergencies. Mr. Marcus’s foundation also gave $2-million to help build it.
What’s more, Dr. Besser said, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in Princeton, N.J., has helped to organize summits between government, business, and nonprofit officials to discuss how America should response to a disease pandemic.
“Those summits are the reason I believe we can respond efficiently” to outbreaks like the swine flu, Dr. Besser said.
Council on Foundations
Top Federal Official Enlists Grant Makers In Changing Health Care
Kathleen Sebelius, the new secretary of health and human services, called on foundations to be the “research-and-development arm” of her agency as it seeks to improve health care.
During a speech at the Council on Foundations, Ms. Sebelius said the Obama administration wants to work with foundations to change the nation’s health system to be more efficient and inclusive.
While the money grant makers provide is key to this, she said perhaps more important is their ability to work with grass-roots charities and needy people to create a discussion about how health services should change.
These “communications connections” will be critical to the success of President Obama’s health plans. “Health-care reform won’t work if the only people engaged are inside the Beltway,” she said. “Help us help all Americans.”
Ms. Sebelius, the former governor of Kansas, said she learned about the important role foundations play in a society from her sister, who is a vice president of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. As her agency faces problems like the H1N1 virus, she said it will need the aid of the nonprofit world.
“I see this as the beginning of a very good dialogue,” she told the audience. “You have experience we need to tackle the challenges ahead.”
May 04, 2009
Council on Foundations
Foreclosure Crisis Presents Role for Local and Regional Grant Makers
The home-foreclosure crisis represents a huge and complicated challenge for the United States, but local and regional grant makers of even modest size can make a big dent in the search for solutions, speakers at a Council on Foundations session said.
Laurie Latuda, a program officer at the Goldseker Foundation, in Baltimore, said her organization has spent $640,000 in grants on foreclosure issues from 2005 to 2008 and given roughly an equal amount to neighborhood groups for broader use.
Goldseker has gathered nonprofit, government, and for-profit leaders in the city to devise solutions to the foreclosure problem and has provided “seed money” to test experimental solutions. The foundation has paid for research to identify the scope of the problem in Baltimore as well.
And Goldseker has dedicated some of its staff members to play the “worker-bee” role of coordinating and tracking issues related to foreclosures in the city, she said.
George McCarthy, director of urban regeneration and opportunity at the Ford Foundation, in New York, said that while significant federal money will ultimately be needed, there’s a crying need for local and state models of what works to avert or respond to foreclosures.
He pointed to an effort in Chicago to organize local housing and foreclosure commissions, led by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, as an example of “stellar achievement” in this area.
While most of the foundation money has been focused on preventing foreclosures, conference speakers said philanthropy also needs to figure out how best to help families that have already lost their homes.
Susan C. Keating, president of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, talked about an experimental “families stabilization” project involving her group and the Alliance for Children and Families.
The idea, she said, is to provide a centralized way to give families who have lost their homes access to a wide range of financial, mental-health, job-training, and other services to help them regain their financial footing.
The project will probably be tested in Michigan and Ohio, with the goal of building on what works and applying it on a national scale, she said.
She urged foundations to consider “transitions” as an important part of the solution.
Ms. Keating added: “The longer-term costs to all of us if we don’t figure out a way to do this are going to be enormous.”
Council on Foundations
Black Foundation Executives Urged to Support Education
The grant-making world’s black leaders were urged to support education and pay special attention to the plight of young men during a lecture and awards ceremony on Sunday for members of the Association of Black Foundation Executives, as reported by Rosetta Thurman on her blog, Perspectives from the Pipeline.
The association, an affinity group of the Council on Foundations, gathered this past weekend in Atlanta as part of the council’s annual conference.
Beverly Tatum, president of the historically black women’s institution, Spelman College, urged grant makers to direct more of their organization’s support to colleges that primarily serve minorities. “Millions of dollars go to heavily endowed organizations – dollars that could do so much at Spelman, Morehouse, Tuskegee,” Ms. Tatum said.
Another speaker — Loren Harris, formerly of the Ford Foundation — pointed out that more black women than black men are currently enrolled in higher education.
”Our First Family provides a high profile example of what it means to be successful,” he said. “That reality has to be made tangible for the ordinary black men who for them, this success is as far as the moon. “
He continued, “Our young men have an absence of unconditional love — when they make mistakes, they are punished harshly . . The odds are high that one mistake can derail a young black man’s entire life trajectory.”
Amina Dickerson,who in February announced her plans to step down as the leader of Kraft Foods’ philanthropic arm, spoke about the need for careful succession planning Among her tips: “Don’t replace you with yourself.” Ms. Dickerson said she told her bosses at Kraft why she thought Nicole Robinson would make her ideal successor, and subsequently Ms. Robinson was chosen for the job.
Council on Foundations
Congressman Wants Foundations to 'Get in The Way'
Grant makers need to emulate the civil-rights movement and challenge Washington and the country to fix national problems, said Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, during the Council on Foundation’s annual meeting.
As the head of the Ways and Means Committee’s panel on oversight, which oversees tax-exempt organizations, he is looking for foundations “to be creative, to be daring.”
Mr. Lewis, a former civil-rights leader himself who helped organize sit-ins in the 1960s, said his parents discouraged him from pushing for social change. “They said, ‘Don’t get in the way, don’t get in trouble,’” he said. “I got in trouble, I got in the way.”
He said nonprofit groups should do the same and push members of Congress to change public policies to help the poor and other issues.
“Don’t be afraid of us,” he said. “We need to hear what you’re doing to help the common good and make this a more perfect union.”
Council on Foundations
Obama Official Wants Foundations Involved With Economic Stimulus
With more than $780-billion made available by the Obama administration’s stimulus package, foundations can help federal, state, and local government agencies decide how to best spend that money so it creates jobs and helps the economy, said G. Edward DeSeve, a senior adviser at the Office of Management and Budget.
Mr. DeSeve is the government official in charge of tracking how the hundreds of billions of dollars in the package are used. During a speech at the Council on Foundation’s conference, he said grant makers can help in three ways.
- Foundations can make sure that the poor and other disadvantaged people have a say in stimulus efforts. As part of this, he said that foundations should assist small charities that want to apply for government funds but do not have the training or expertise to do so.
- Grant makers can make sure that separate government streams of money are connected and the efforts they support work together.
- Charitable funds can suggest what “metrics” the government uses to figure out whether the stimulus package achieves any of its goals.
To be involved, however, he said foundations must move quickly because a lot of the stimulus money is required to be used this year.
“The speed that this recovery act is rolling out is incredible,” said Mr. DeSeve.
Council on Foundations
Attendance Down at Grant Makers' Conference
The economic downturn appears to have hurt this year’s annual meeting of the Council on Foundations, with attendance lower than what it has been in previous years.
About 1,200 nonprofit officials have come here to Atlanta for the meeting, while about 1,900 attended the event in 2007. Last year, the council held a meeting near Washington, which combined all of its yearly meetings into one. More than 3,000 people attended that conference.
The council expected less people in Atlanta in part because of its big event last year. But the economy is also having an effect as foundations cut their travel costs to save money.
During a speech at the start of the conference, Steve Gunderson, the council’s chief executive, said that given the economic concerns the number of people at the event is “incredible.”
He said several conference goers have traveled to Atlanta on their own dime and he thanked them for their “personal financial sacrifice.”
Council on Foundations
Foundation Investment Managers Urged to Consider Impact of Inflation
Foundation investment managers are struggling to figure out what advice to follow, speakers at a session conceded.
“Listening to gurus about what the future holds is really a challenging task for all of us,” said Arun Sardana, senior vice president of investments for UBS Financial Services, referring to how predictions for the past year and months far exceeded actual market results.
But Mr. Sardana said foundation investment managers do have several indicators to help guide them. He urged foundation investors to pay close attention to the effect inflation would have on their investments. While inflation is unlikely to be an immediate concern, he said, inflation is likely to rise once companies stop shedding jobs.
“Chances are that inflation will really be a problem starting in 2011,” he said. In anticipation of that, he said, foundations should have investments in their portfolios that are likely to rise in value with inflation.
For example, he said, foundation should look to industries that will grow based on demographic changes, including those that focus on water, agriculture, infrastructure, energy, and “hard assets.” He advised foundations to look for exchange traded funds, or ETFs, in those areas, so long as those funds do not rely on any one or two companies for too heavy a percentage of the fund.
Mr. Sardana also said one little-used but effective indicator foundation investment officers should pay attention to is the Baltic Dry Index, or BDI, which reflects the price to ship raw materials around the world. When the index improve, he says, that is an early sign that international trade is improving.
Mr. Sardana and other speakers urged foundation officials to review their investment decisions frequently, and to document the process they followed to come to their decisions. They also said that in making predictions about risk, officials are likely to make better decisions if they look at the dollar amounts involved, rather than looking at percentages.
Speakers at the session also talked about ways they were adjusting their approaches to giving based on the steep declines their foundations have already seen in the values of their investments.
Andrea M. Dobson, chief financial and operations officer at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, in Arkansas, said the foundation’s assets have been hit hard by the recession, so it is making very few multiple-year grants. Its prior commitments for 2009, for example, are $4.7-million, while it will award just $2-million in new grants.
And she says new grants are almost exclusively for general operating support.
John Hoover Sr., chief financial officer of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, in New York, says his fund has started to work with other foundations to offer “standby letters of credit” that grant recipients can use as collateral to secure lines of credit from banks. The move is especially attractive because it doesn’t require selling assets at a time when they may have lost substantial value.
The letters help charities get approval for loans to meet short-term cash-flow problems. For example, Birthright Israel, which organizes educational trips for young adults, must make financial commitments for services a year in advance, he said, but many of its donors have asked for extra time to pay their pledges.
By offering standby letters of credit, foundations can help groups like Birthright Israel secure loans to cover that short-term shortfall, he said.
“Essentially it’s a letter saying I promise to pay X in the event that a bank calls for it,” Mr. Hoover said. The amount, he said, is backed by future grant allocations to the grant recipient.
Council on Foundations
Keeping Up Online with the Council on Foundations Meeting
Just how popular is Twitter?
Popular enough that the Council on Foundations is using the tool to provide updates this week from its conference in Atlanta.
The organization will be tweeting the conference on its Twitter page.
For those who are looking for news in more than 140 characters, the council is also running a conference blog.
And if you’re looking for more perspectives on the annual conference, the Chronicle columnist and blog writer Sean Stannard-Stockton has assembled a team of 12 volunteers to offer their accounts of the event on the site Tactical Philanthropy.
Council on Foundations
Foundation Official Envisions New Role for Foundations in Society
While foundations have lost around $200-billion in assets last year, the economic recession and the Obama administration present an opportunity for grant makers to innovate and forge new relationships with federal, state, and local governments, said Steve Gunderson, the chief executive of the Council on Foundations.
Speaking on the first day of the council’s annual conference, Mr. Gunderson said there is an opportunity today to “transform philanthropy’s role in society.”
“We are at a place in time unlike any other in our recent history,” he said.
To help curb the economic fallout and assist other national problems, President Obama has called for greater collaboration with the nonprofit world — and foundations need to respond, Mr. Gunderson said.
He expects new “public-philanthropic partnerships” with the administration to improve American schools, expand job training, and help the poor gain access to adequate health services.
As a sign of this, he said the council has expanded its Washington advocacy efforts on Capitol Hill. While the organization has traditionally tried to influence congressional panels that work on tax policy, it is now working with committees that oversee federal spending, education, and other issues.
He suggested grant makers take a similar lobbying approach with state and local legislatures.
He also said the council would be working more closely with other associations of grant makers and charities, like the Philanthropy Roundtable and the Independent Sector. The tough times require that the nonprofit world “seek unity in our message,” he said.
While the recession and other pressing problems, like the threat of a flu pandemic, may be cause for concern, Mr. Gunderson said he is optimistic about the future and the positive role foundations can play in it.
Quoting Ralph Smith, chairman of the council’s board of directors and executive vice president of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, he said: “You know, we do not schedule leadership moments.”
May 03, 2009
Council on Foundations
Foundation Leaders Gather in Atlanta
More than 1,200 foundation officials are here in Atlanta to attend the Council on Foundation’s annual conference.
Sessions will focus on how grant makers can help charities during the recession, how to stem the home foreclosure crisis, improving access to health care in America, and how foundations can work with government to fight poverty at home and abroad.
Among the speakers will be Melody Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; former President Bill Clinton; Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services; and Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia.
Copyright © 2009 The Chronicle of Philanthropy