The BCBSM Foundation provides about $3 million per year in grants focused on quality, costs, and access to care. We fund research—as well as community initiatives designed to improve access to care for the uninsured. Under our Investigator Initiated Research Award Program, we supported a project to examine whether a medical error disclosure program affected liability claims and costs. The research was recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The authors conclude that the University of Michigan Health System was able to implement a program of full disclosure of medical errors without increasing its total claims and liability costs. They found that legal costs went down, as did the number of new claims for compensation, the number of claims compensated, and the time it took to resolve a claim.

At some intuitive level this makes perfect sense. People sue physicians for a number of reasons. They sue because they feel they are entitled to receive compensation for mistakes or malpractice. They sue to supplement their income. They sue to stop poor medical practices and they sue because they are angry—at bad care and at not being told the truth.

I’m told that Americans are understanding about mistakes—even medical errors that cause the injury or death of a loved one—if they are told the truth. We understand that everyone makes mistakes—although certainly there’s a big difference between the mistakes I make and those made by a neurosurgeon.

But lie to a person about what really happened or fail to disclose the entire truth and apologize for the mistake and look out. Anger results in litigation. Litigation results in defensive medicine. Defensive medicine results in unnecessary and invasive procedures. All of this adds to the costs of care without contributing to better care. In this case, the old adage is certainly true: Honesty is the best policy. It also saves money.

Ira Strumwasser is executive director & CEO of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation.

Pressed on all sides by a troubled economy, stagnating wages, and a very competitive global marketplace, America’s workers are finding it harder to acquire the skills they need to fully contribute to our nation’s economy and provide for their families. These challenging times, however, present a real opportunity for philanthropy to help strengthen how we support the American worker.

As the economic recovery fitfully emerges and new business models and technology become clear, workforce development programs need to be built on a foundation of a deep understanding of both employer needs and the challenges facing workers. A 21st century approach to helping job seekers and workers build sustainable careers requires a comprehensive analysis of multiple industries.

Innovative and flexible strategies must be in place to address the ever-changing challenges facing employers. This approach must be able to help adults who have been laid off or otherwise disadvantaged to acquire the skills and credentials that are truly valued by the industries in their market. And it must be locally owned. Employers, policy makers, practitioners, and funders who work and reside in a community are in a better position to develop worker training and career development programs that meet the needs of workers and employers in that community.

This is the philosophy that guides the work of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions. We are organized around several strategic principles that form the basis for the approaches being developed and implemented by our 23 regional workforce collaboratives. A collection of local funders come together to fund workforce development projects—to decide, in partnership with employers and practitioners, how and where these investments should be made.

The strategies being promoted by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions are not simple. Getting Americans on successful career paths to long-term employment with family-supporting wages is a complex challenge. But the crux of our message is this: philanthropy, both national and local, can and should partner with employers and workers to develop talent development programs that create a direct link between what we are training workers to do and the skills businesses need to compete.

Fred Dedrick is executive director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

At the Council on Foundations Fall Conference for Community Foundations, I am most looking forward to exploring new ways of thinking about this conundrum. What’s more, I get to start my exploration first thing Monday morning with the compare and contrast between the opening plenary with Charles Best of DonorsChoose.org (and others) and the morning concurrent session called Measuring Progress, Inspiring Action Through Key Indicator Projects. I had the pleasure of attending the Community Foundations of Canada Conference in 2008 where I first learned of the Canadian Vital Signs projects (here’s a great example from the Victoria Foundation). I’m intrigued to see how they are using data to inform and help guide donors giving decisions—seems like great customer service.

I’m also looking forward to the concurrent session titled Not Your Mom’s Engagement Strategy: How to Connect With Your Community in New Ways. I’ve done some research on crowdsourced philanthropy and want to hear more about how other community foundations are using technology in this way and most importantly, making it part of their community leadership work.

On Tuesday, I plan to bounce new ideas from Monday’s sessions around with some of my communications colleagues during the mini-concurrent session titled Meeting Your Community’s Information Needs. This sounds like a great opportunity to learn from one another and talk with technical assistance providers about the steps to move our ideas into action.

If any of this interests you, let’s connect in Charlotte!

Amanda St. Pierre is the public relations and marketing specialist of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation

For some, it may be difficult to reconcile the immediate need for alleviation from suffering and the perception of Pakistan being a dangerous and untrustworthy country to give to. We must put aside those perceptions and focus on the tremendous needs of our fellow human beings. Is one disaster more qualified than another? It is an opportunity and a responsibility for philanthropy to demonstrate the action and compassion of providing relief and rebuilding a country that is being destroyed before our eyes.

Many foundations have already stepped up in recent days, and the Council is tracking these efforts on our United States International Grantmaking (USIG) website. Many of these efforts are financial in nature, but that is just one of the many ways to make an impact. Tell us how you are collaborating with other funders, sharing ideas and information, and partnering with stakeholders to make a difference in communities here and around the globe.

We encourage you to let us know of your response efforts by sending them to disasterresponse@cof.org. We will make updates to the web page on Pakistan as we receive new information.

Andrew Ho is manager of global philanthropy for the Council on Foundations.

“Powering Communities” is a fitting theme for the conference given the increasingly vital role that community foundations play in addressing some of our most persistent civic and economic challenges. Here in the Charlotte area, we have a unique program that should resonate with conference attendees.

In the spring of 2009, in the depths of the recession, Foundation For The Carolinas convened a group of community leaders to discuss the challenges facing nonprofits and to determine if and how philanthropy should respond. Everything was on the table—from a Darwinian “survival of the fittest approach” to a massive bailout of the sector. We quickly realized that neither extreme was best for the community. It would have been impossible to make up the huge reductions in government funds, annual giving, and endowment income.

To improve the long-term health of the sector, it would take incentivizing strategic collaborations, innovations, and business transformations. Think of it as a venture capital fund for the best ideas the nonprofit sector can develop.

With the help of The Bridgespan Group, we spent most of last summer developing the Community Catalyst Fund (CCF), a program that leverages engagement with grantmaking to help bring collaborative theories into practice. We raised nearly $4 million, with more than $1.5 million distributed to date. We have also taken important steps to ensure the ongoing strength and sustainability of our nonprofit sector.

One of the hallmarks of the CCF approach is the active engagement of the nonprofit sector on several levels. We conducted a number of open training sessions at community forums, as well as smaller, more focused private sessions.

Earlier this year, The Bridgespan Group worked with 12 organizations in a “cohort” learning process, which culminated in detailed collaboration plans. Several of the plans will soon be presented to CCF for investment consideration, while others can be implemented without further grants from the fund.

The grantmaking side of the program also continued to evolve over the last year. The blueprint for CCF was developed to ensure that vital community services would not be lost due to the economic downturn and organizations would proactively develop innovative ideas and strategies that would merit investment. However, the “on the ground” experience turned out to be quite different. As a result, we made a number of significant refinements to ensure that our investments achieve the greatest impact.

The groundwork we laid this year will soon combine with calls for increased quality and external funding to yield new innovative approaches. We look forward to sharing our experience and perspectives at the fall conference.

Brian Collier is senior vice president for community philanthropy at Foundation For The Carolinas

It eventually became a monster storm bearing down on the people of New Orleans.

Residents were ordered to evacuate the city. Many—some who had experienced big hurricanes before and survived—decided to stay and wait out the storm. Some wanted to leave but couldn’t.

New Orleanians who were carefully tracking Katrina breathed a sigh of relief on August 29 when it became clear the storm would not score a direct hit on New Orleans, although it had devastated Louisiana’s southeastern parishes and then a large area to the east.

Then the levees broke.

There were 53 levee breaches, putting 80 percent of the city under water. The floods devastated tens of thousands of homes and other structures. We lost two thousand souls to the storm. The water covered whole neighborhoods in some areas, with nothing to indicate that life had once stirred underneath.

What has shaped the City of New Orleans since Katrina has been the heroism of countless people—of every class and color—who have used all the means at their disposal to save their neighbors from the floods. There were some who lost everything and often took it upon themselves to rebuild their neighborhoods and their lives as best they could.

I’m ashamed to admit that during the time of Katrina, New Orleans became for me a kind of screen onto which I projected my own prejudices about the South, my caricatures of powerless victims and heartless government officials, and my self-righteousness about matters of race.

I was grateful when New Orleans finally became a mirror rather a screen, when I understood my own complicity in the events that were unfolding on my television set many miles away in Washington, D.C.

Even though people in New Orleans still refer to events as “pre-K” or “post-K,” the city has come a long way both physically and psychologically in the last five years. The Gulf oil spill did little, in my view, to temper an increasing hopefulness about the future of the region. While the deep poverty and racial divisions remain, long-time residents and newcomers, young and old, have rolled up their sleeves to create a more equitable, more vibrant, more sustainable city.

A Super Bowl victory, a new mayor committed to healing our divisions, improved public schools, high levels of civic engagement all buoy our spirits. We remember also the thousands of people—individual donors and volunteers, nonprofit leaders, foundation staff members, and CEOs—who gave so much to help us rebuild and who have stuck with us these past five years.

This August 29, on the fifth anniversary of the hurricane’s landfall, the world will recall the most harrowing images from Katrina. I’ll gratefully remember those acts of generosity and kindness. Your sacrifices have meant the world to us. From the very bottom of our hearts, thank you.

Albert Ruesga is president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation

A great way to reflect on what this means for our sector’s future is to read the profiles of those who made the pledge. Some talked about how they give and what they want to achieve by making their contributions. All this should prompt a few thoughts for anyone working in a philanthropic organization in America and around the world:

1. Reading the letters from the 40 pledging billionaires constitutes a philanthropy education. We talk often about the diversity of giving strategies, styles, and motivations. These letters provide a revealing spotlight on how this group answers questions about transparency, perpetuity, strategy, and social change. What they say and do will no doubt influence others.

2. The pledge by these 40 billionaires represents one of the most significant moments in philanthropy’s history. For the last decade, ever since Paul Schervish made his prediction about the intergenerational transfer of wealth, the question of “Is this real?” has been out there. Now we’re seeing a major transfer of wealth. In the last two decades—while a lot of these individuals were starting to make their money in the private sector—our philanthropic sector doubled (and assets grew even faster than that). This continuing growth may well change philanthropy’s trajectory for the next 30 years.

3. The pledge will reverberate far and wide. That is, of course, what the Giving Pledge effort intends. When major forces like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates do things, it’s like E.F. Hutton speaking—people listen. Throughout the last decade, predictions of intergenerational transfer led to significant amounts of philanthropic activity. This produced some impact, but without the power of names like Buffett and Gates and their ability to galvanize peers, some of these projects were ahead of their time.

As members of the philanthropic community, we need to stay informed and wrestle with the question of what this potential tectonic shift means and how we can best leverage it. Will the pledge drive more media scrutiny? Will it encourage more donors to follow suit, even if it is at less astronomical levels? What conversations will be provoked about transparency and inclusion? About engaging communities and other stakeholders as donors invest in solutions? Will it create an industry of consultants who want to participate in the next golden era of philanthropy? Will this new wave of activity circumvent organized philanthropy or connect with it?

What is your opinion?

Kristin Lindsey is executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Council on Foundations

In the same way the playing field has leveled for commerce, it is easier than ever for nonprofits from around the world to attract donors globally. Global Giving, Kiva, Nothing but Nets, and Charity Water have redefined what it means to engage donors – and they have flattened philanthropy in the process. Any organization that is viewing these new giving options as novelties or add-ons is underestimating their importance.

Our own efforts to wrestle with these challenges have been shaped by three principles:

1. DO NOT fight the rise of borderless philanthropy.

While they are a “competitive threat,” these new, exciting, and engaging ways to give are good for philanthropy—and probably unstoppable. Trying to fight the trend would be a fruitless, strategic error and contrary to the larger mission of our sector.

2. DO make giving locally as compelling as giving internationally.

With a few notable exceptions (like Donors Choose), domestic giving platforms lag far behind their international counterparts in fun and functionality. Our board is committed to making giving in Minnesota as easy and compelling as giving elsewhere. We partnered with Razoo.com, the very best domestic giving platform, to create GiveMN.org. While donors can give to any of the 1.6 million U.S. nonprofits on the site, the default search is Minnesota. We’ve also worked with nonprofits around the state to create rich, compelling program level content that could capture donors’ heads and hearts. We’re only nine months old but it seems to be working—3,500 nonprofits have received donations through the site and virtually all have gotten new donors from the site.

3. DO capitalize on your strengths—local, trust-based relationships.

Our launch event for GiveMN’s Give to the Max Day raised over $14 million in 24 hours for Minnesota nonprofits from 38,000 donors. We are not aware of any national online giving promotion like it that has raised more. We believe our success was not in spite of the fact we are local but because we are local. We combined cutting edge technology with real-world, trust-based relationships.

We believe this is the winning model for domestic e-philanthropy, and local players are extremely well positioned to compete in global philanthropy, if they seize the moment.

Jennifer Ford Reedy is vice president of strategy and knowledge management for Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation

The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta and the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta have been partners and leaders addressing HIV and AIDS for the past 30 years. While the foundation and United Way have granted more than $11 million in the past 20 years to support AIDS service organizations in Atlanta through the Atlanta AIDS Fund, they realized they needed a game-changing approach to move from containing the epidemic to ending the epidemic.

In 2007, they enlisted the creative, expert advice of an all-star AIDS Leadership Team co-chaired by Dr. David Satcher, former U.S. surgeon general, and Sandy Thurman, former White House AIDS czar. After several community-led forums with Atlanta’s AIDS service organizations and community leaders, the AIDS Leadership Team conceptualized a bold vision of “A Community Without AIDS: No New Cases.”

Thus, the Atlanta AIDS Partnership was born to carry out the vision of No New Cases. This group is bringing together AIDS service organizations, philanthropists, community leaders, policymakers, and others to create a collaborative approach to achieving this goal. With the insight of visionary leaders like Dr. Satcher and Ms. Thurman and the experience of more than 20 years of grantmaking through the Atlanta AIDS Fund, the No New Cases campaign is bold and brilliant in its simplicity: Get Smart. Get Tested. Get Treated. Get Involved. But the Atlanta AIDS Partnership is about more than a campaign – it’s about moving Atlanta’s communities into passionate action to prevent a disease that affects all of us.

While the challenge of getting to No New Cases is extraordinary, it is far from impossible. A few weeks ago, the White House released its long-awaited national strategy to address HIV and AIDS. This plan represents the first comprehensive approach to stopping the epidemic through broad-reaching, evidence-based prevention strategies and community-driven collaboration. The agenda for the Atlanta AIDS Partnership seamlessly aligns with the vision and benchmarks outlined in the national strategy. How is your work changing the game around HIV and AIDS? Is your community ready to sign on to No New Cases? For more information, visit us at www.nonewcases.org or join us at www.facebook.com/nonewcases.

Ray Knott is director of the Atlanta AIDS Partnership

We held a series of community meetings in which we invited local nonprofits to talk to us about their issues, how they were coping, and how we could help. We also increased flexibility in our grantmaking, shortening our response time to proposals, and directing a greater portion of our grants to organizations dealing directly with the aftermath of the
recession.

We were pleased to be recognized by the Center for Effective Philanthropy for our response to the economic downturn. In a June 2010 report, A Time of Need: Nonprofits Report Poor Communication and Little Help from Foundations During Economic Downturn, we were rated as one of the top 10 funders in the way we communicated both our increased flexibility and mission in the community.

But for us, our increased responsiveness was a no-brainer. We always want to be ahead of the curve when it comes to our relationships with grantees. We recognize we have a lot to learn from the community about how we can do a better job as a leader, a partner, a funder, and a friend.

We are continuing with our community meetings, reaching out for more in-person contact with grantees, and keeping everyone in the loop with special initiatives like our Greater Cleveland Pulse webpage, which shows the human impact of the recession and how our grantmaking responds to the needs of the community.

This feedback loop isn’t new for the Cleveland Foundation. In 2009, we commissioned the Center for Effective Philanthropy to seek out meaningful feedback from 400 of our grantees. They gave us positive grades in many key areas, most notably our impact in the community and its job climate.

But despite our overall high ratings, we note that we have room to improve. Smaller grantees say they need more of our guidance and time. We took advice on how to make our procedures more efficient.

No one person or organization can create lasting change alone. We believe that partnerships have the power to transform our region’s greatest challenges into its biggest advantages.

Ronn Richard is the president and CEO of the Cleveland Foundation

I was hired as CEO when YVCF was established in 2004. Quite literally, from my very first day on the job, all I heard from my new-found colleagues around the state of Washington was this: “Comply with the National Standards as soon as you can.” They knew something I didn’t know, and I was eager to learn what it was.

Six years later, I am happy to share some advice. Despite its age, think of your community foundation as a newly christened ship about to embark on a long journey. Destination: better tomorrows.

How do we get there from here?

Think of the standards as the most up-to-date and easy-to-read map that charts the safest, fastest, and smoothest course to guide you on your voyage—an assemblage of best practices to steer you toward excellence and success.

Why do I think this is good advice?

Donors are impressed by the “seal of excellence” YVCF earned, confirming our compliance with the standards. After reading what one donor (Helen Jewett) had to say in the YVCF 2008 annual report, a gentleman dropped by my office a few months later to say he had named YVCF as the sole beneficiary of a very large estate. When I asked him why, he replied: “Helen told the community you run a tight ship. If you’re good enough for Helen, you’re good enough for me.”

Nonprofit colleagues also comment on the organizational qualities they see in YVCF. When they do, I am quick to note that we owe a great deal of our speedy advancement to the decision to act in accordance with those 35 Tabs that the Council’s Community Foundations Leadership Team forged on our behalf.

And, at a recent board meeting, a member commented that our first six years have been marked by a “squeaky-clean” record of achievement. Not two seconds went by before our director of programs added “Let’s hear it for those National Standards!”

At YVCF, everyone brags about “the standards.” We look forward to adjusting them when needed because it means we are continuously learning and expanding our horizon. And with the Council on Foundations helping us navigate toward better tomorrows, we know we are on the right course.

John Colgan is president of Yakima Valley Community Foundation

Last Friday, Philanthropy Northwest convened the Human Services Funding Collaborative to host Washington State policymakers and members for an in-depth briefing about the Washington State Benefit Portal Partnership Project. We are enthusiastic about hosting events like this one—as a membership organization, our mission is to connect funders to each other so that they can achieve more with their giving. (Increasingly, this means working with government officials, as well as our foundation and corporate members.) The Boeing Company, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and United Way of King County co-sponsored the event which, in addition to providing valuable information about an exciting project, also offers insight into the collaborative process.

Governor Chris Gregoire and the Department of Social and Health Services, along with a network of community partners, have spent the last year designing a public-private partnership which will expand access to federal, state and local benefits for eligible populations in need. This idea, simple in the telling, but complicated in its implementation, has required a serious commitment of time, energy and patience by all involved. The group has persevered because the creation of an electronic portal, coupled with community outreach, has the very real potential to significantly help families and children and to bring millions of new dollars into Washington State. This kind of project has been successfully implemented in other states, including Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, and Colorado, reminding those involved that they are driving towards an achievable goal.

About 25 members and community partners attended the meeting here at Philanthropy Northwest. Department of Social and Health Services Secretary Susan Dreyfus thanked funders for their interest and involvement and reiterated that this project is a priority for her department. She reviewed the funding gap that remains—explaining that philanthropic dollars (with partial matches from the federal government) will be needed to close the budget gap and begin building the portal this year. State House Representative Mary Lou Dickerson underscored the legislature’s commitment to the project and several grantmakers explained why they are prepared to invest in it: David Okimoto of United Way of King County, Gina Breukelman of Boeing and David Bley of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

True partnerships are not easy, and this one is no different. There were people in the room who have been working to streamline access to benefits for ten or even fifteen years. Now that the project is closer to reality, it’s important to reflect on how it achieved this level of partnership. Simply put, funders, community groups, state agencies, city governments and the legislature worked hard to overcome uncertainties about each other. They made a time-intensive commitment to work openly and collaboratively, recognizing that the project could not be achieved any other way. In short, they took risks.

While efforts to close the funding gap are ongoing and success, while within reach, is still uncertain, I think there is reason to celebrate. Public and private funders are learning to work together. While the true measure of the effort will be improved support for families and children in Washington State, the lessons we learn in this effort will guide us as we address other social issues deserving our combined efforts. This is good news for those of us who believe we are all, truly, better together. If you are interested in learning more about the Benefit Portal Partnership Project or connecting with the project’s experts please let me know.

Mindie Reule is the Program Manager for Public Policy at Philanthropy Northwest

The needs are enormous. Detroit ranked third among cities, after Los Angeles and New York, in the total number of homeless and had the highest number of homeless per 10,000 residents, according to the Homelessness Research Institute at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Mental health services have been drastically cut, including the near-elimination of Detroit’s primary street outreach program. And within city government, there is no office advocating for—or accountable to—homeless constituents. The city operates no shelters, placement centers, or warming centers. The responsibility is left to nonprofits.

Against great odds, a handful of best-practice agencies have emerged as leaders in providing supportive housing for the chronically homeless. Supportive housing provides comprehensive, integrated services for homeless individuals and families who face serious, persistent barriers to staying housed, such as substance use, mental illness, and HIV/AIDS. Studies have shown the net public cost of providing permanent supportive housing for homeless people with mental illness and/or addictions is the same or less than allowing them to remain homeless.

When HUD and the Michigan Housing Authority required 10-year plans to end homelessness, Detroit’s leading agencies came together with complementary projects and programs, a shared philosophy of Housing First, and a commitment to strengthening Detroit’s continuum of care for the homeless. To be successful, a collection of projects and services, some new, many old, would need to be fashioned into a system that worked toward community-wide goals for improving outcomes for the homeless.

And that’s what is happening. The Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND), the continuum of care organization, is quietly, steadily building capacity to become a Unified Funding Agency to manage federal and state dollars for housing and services to the homeless. HAND, which is supported by the McGregor Fund, will be in a position to truly prioritize community-wide strategies over the efforts of individual, sometimes competing, agencies. This work will be further reinforced by Opening Doors, a new federal strategic plan of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

This became possible when several things came together: talented and tireless volunteer leadership, a strong, embedded partnership with the Corporation for Supportive Housing and a state housing agency wielding both carrots and sticks to encourage more collaboration.

Building systems takes resources, and foundations often are in a unique position to see and know all the moving parts –people, organizations, policy, funding streams. From this position, we can see that the stars are about to align, and changing the status quo and engineering success is possible.

Kate Levin Markel is the program director for the McGregor Fund

As the Council on Foundations strengthens and grows its Public-Philanthropic Partnership Initiative (PPPI), it’s a good time to take stock of where public-philanthropic partnerships originate and why there is such a heightened interest in them now. For starters, the Obama administration’s Social Innovation Fund is shining a spotlight on new ways to leverage public and private dollars to expand the impact of limited financial resources. But the concept goes back further than many may realize.

The 1992 book, “The Politics of Knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, Philanthropy, and Public Policy,” chronicles public philanthropic efforts preceding the Great Depression when the Carnegie Corporation capitalized private organizations to increase the government’s capacity for governance.

Former President Ronald Reagan incubated the modern idea of public-philanthropic partnerships when he proclaimed his vision to “get the private sector in the driver’s seat,” using market incentives and philanthropy to solve community problems.

In 1982, Reagan created the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities to increase private sector support. Three years later, he created a successful Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives and appointed C. William Verity, a leading corporate philanthropist, to direct it.

President George H.W. Bush invoked the vision of a “thousand points of light.” The Points of Light Foundation and the HandsOn Network went on to become the Points of Light Institute, the largest volunteer management and civic engagement organization in the nation.

President Bill Clinton and the National Endowment for the Humanities convened the first-ever White House Conference on Philanthropy to explore the changing face of the sector. The Clinton administration also leveraged the “21st Century Community Learning Centers to develop comprehensive public-philanthropic partnerships for after-school programs. The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and the J.C. Penney Company provided significant leadership and support for this initiative.

President George W. Bush launched the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) in 2003 to bring effective HIV/AIDS interventions to scale and fully integrate the initiative into the health and development plans of partner countries. PEPFAR has achieved remarkable success in expanding access to HIV prevention, care, and treatment in low-resource settings.

While there may be a heightened awareness of public-philanthropic partnerships right now, the past reveals a rich tradition of partnerships that have resulted in the creation of many successful programs. To help continue that tradition, the PPPI is working to connect the innovations and best practices of foundations with the government agencies looking to broaden the reach of philanthropic investments.
If we follow Steinbeck’s line of thinking, we should see even greater proliferation in the future.

Rene Cabral-Daniels is director of public-philanthropic partnerships for the Council on Foundations

This year, more than half of the 135 foundations that responded to our survey— conducted by FSG Social Impact Advisors in conjunction with the Council on Foundations—said they were funding news and information projects for a total of $165 million. Interestingly, more than a third said they had increased their funding in the area in last three years and expected it to increase in the future.

The survey found that foundations also viewed this funding as a critical ingredient to effecting meaningful social change. The portfolio helped foundations reach their objectives in areas like health, education, and economic development.

We’d heard similar perspectives from winners of the Knight Community Information Challenge, a matching grant program to encourage community and place-based foundations to invest in news and information projects.

The views of the wider field suggest that local foundations are increasingly important components in helping communities meet their information needs.

Eric Newton is vice president for journalism at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Alice, a single mother, works in human resources at an auto dealership. Her lack of formal education inhibits her earning potential. As a recovering alcoholic, her low Grade Point Average (GPA) from her drinking days prohibits access to valuable financial aid, although she now earns straight As.

Bea, also a single parent, worked her way up to a good job in county government. But she lost her job when the economy declined. Her lack of formal education is keeping her from finding a similar position.

Because of Juan, Alice, Bea, and countless other adults in similar situations, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County began its scholarship program for adult learners—men and women who return to a university, college, community college, or vocational school to get a degree.

Ensuring America has more college graduates is vital to our economic and civic future. A USA Today series highlights the fact that our nation will have a shortage of three million workers with the required postsecondary degrees to fill the jobs of the future. Additionally, individuals with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to volunteer and contribute to community improvements than are those with less education, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

According to the Association for Non-traditional Students (ANTSHE), two out of five college students are now 25 years or older and the number of single-parent undergraduates has doubled in the last decade. ANTSHE also reports that single mothers now make up 45 to 60 percent of the adult learner population.

The circumstances and needs of this growing population of students are quite different than traditional conceptions of students. Many adult learners can’t attend school fulltime because of financial and family responsibilities. Unfortunately, their part-time status can make them ineligible for their school’s financial aid.

Many suffer from an information deficit, having only earned a GED. Others may have dropped out of higher education years ago and have poor GPAs that adversely affect their ability to get scholarships today. Many cannot receive a federal grant, such as the Pell, if they earned a degree previously or earned too many credit hours in pursuit of a degree, even if they can no longer find a job in that field and are trying to retrain for new
career.

It’s important for scholarship funders to understand the special circumstances of the adult learner. According to a Sloan Consortium Survey, short-term, for profit and non-credit and online classes are often the easiest and most direct path available. Recognizing the particular challenges adult learners face, we take into consideration the impact that work and life challenges have on their education. Our scholarship funding sometimes pays the rent or childcare so a student can attend school. If necessary, we also pay for individual course hours rather than entire semesters.

In 2009, the Community Foundation of Sarasota County gave 110 scholarships valued at more than $175,000, and we are adding another $80,000 this year.

The journey is not easy for most adult learners and funders should be willing to make the necessary concessions to help them succeed. We must acknowledge the challenges and sacrifices adult learners and their families make. This population may present a greater risk, but it is our responsibility to support their efforts to attain financial stability and productive careers. The reward is a new force of graduates and adults with certificates and degrees prepared for a much brighter future – theirs and ours.

Mimi Goodwill is scholarship manager for the Community Foundation of Sarasota County

The setbacks in capturing the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico make us all feel helpless to act. For philanthropy, there are complex questions of roles and niches associated with this catastrophe. It is damaging an already beleaguered region, in which many invested after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

This week, Hurricane Alex added insult to injury by bringing more oil to the shore. We cannot sit by and do nothing. This calamity requires us to collaborate across multiple funding networks, including the Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) and the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity (CGBD).

EGA’s oil disaster matrix and upcoming retreat are two opportunities to explore innovative ways funders can work together on strategies related to energy, marine conservation, toxics, environmental justice, and many other cross-cutting issues.

EGA has created a constantly developing BP oil disaster matrix on its website, which presents an opportunity to learn about collaboration, projects, and grantees that foundations recommend.

The fall retreat will be held in California, October 5 to 8. Acclaimed oceanographer Sylvia Earle will kick off the event. Her extensive experience as former chief scientist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) makes her a trusted expert in this time of confusion. Earle testified to the House of Representatives that “the Gulf of Mexico is not, as some believe, an industrial wasteland, valuable primarily as a source of petrochemicals and a few species of ocean wildlife that humans exploit food, commodities, and recreational fishing. These are assets worth protecting as if our lives depend on them, because in no small measure, they do.”

At the retreat, EGA will release new data that map funders’ responses to the BP disaster as of September. We will explore how conceptual and geographic mapping can help move funders forward. Additionally, the influence of corporations on our politics and strategies will be part an important discussion at the retreat with award-winning journalist and bestselling author Naomi Klein and others.

We know the implications of this disaster will be with us for years to come. EGA’s oil disaster matrix and retreat can help funders collaborate on solutions. This disaster may turn into the moment in time where real change is possible for green energy and climate change.

Rachel Leon is executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association

As the changes were taking hold, two major developments unfolded.

One was the articulation of values that helped define community foundations. It led to the standards that shape and guide the field today. The other was the creation of courses designed to provide staff and board members a solid knowledge base regarding community foundations. This professional development program is called the Center for Community Foundation Excellence.

Basic Fundamentals was the first course developed. Other specialized courses were created in the areas of finance and administration, resource development, and community leadership. The course Basic Fundamentals is designed to provide newer staff and board members key information about the field, as well as a review of the legal issues relevant to all community foundations.

Mary Jalonick, president of The Dallas Foundation, and I, as president of Grand Rapids Community Foundation, recently had the pleasure of again teaching the two-day Basic Fundamentals at the Council on Foundations offices in Crystal City, Virginia. We shared a mountain of critical information through presentations and interactive exercises that brought to life the experiences and scenarios facing community foundations.

The class members were from every corner of the United States and represented both small and larger community foundations. The group actively participated and presented thoughtful and enthusiastic questions.

The Basic Fundamentals course implies an introduction to community foundations. It is anything but. It represents a firm foundation to start any career in the dynamic field of community foundations.

Diana Sieger is president of Grand Rapids Community Foundation

The retreat was well worth the time. It reminded me of the importance of reflective practice and the power of a frank, substantive, and creative exchange with knowledgeable colleagues on issues that are front and center for our organizations.Dean Ellen Schall of the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University introduced me to both concepts many years ago.

The call of work and the commitment to generating impact too often challenge our ability to create the right balance between action and deliberative planning and reflection. In work and life, like in sports, the best move for gaining an advantage can result from strategically calling a timeout to assess the situation and plan next steps.

For me, the opportunity to get together with a group of philanthropic leaders – whose experience and expertise stretch across numerous disciplines and whose thoughtfulness and creativity know few boundaries – was invaluable.

As the saying goes, “If you want to go quickly go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This retreat was a definitely a go-far experience.

Chet Hewitt is president and CEO of Sierra Health Foundation

To that end, 16 leaders from organizations across the nation gathered earlier this month in Los Angeles for the Council on Foundations’ first-ever Summer Retreat for Foundation CEOs. The gathering was an opportunity for leaders to explore how their organizations can respond to and weather economic difficulties, reconnect with the ideals that drive philanthropic success, and share best practices with peers.

The retreat struck the right balance of presentation, discussion, brainstorming, and reflection. The sense of collegial sharing, collective problem solving, and animated debate on issues ranging from investment portfolios to succession planning made for a rich and enlightening two days. The retreat generated ideas that can immediately be put to use.

Retreat attendees heard from Andrew Zolli, an expert in global foresight and innovation who studies complex trends that are shaping our future. Zolli spoke about the impact of science, psychology, economics, and technology on society and the role they play in driving philanthropy. His discussion allowed retreat attendees to step away from the daily responsibilities associated with running an organization and look at their operations as part of a bigger picture.

Attendees also benefited from group’s diversity of geography, size, type, tenure, and focus. Many participants said they plan to return next year to take advantage of new opportunities for frank discussions with their peers.

The Council’s CEO summer retreat is a promising approach to providing philanthropic leaders support in their efforts to run effective charities and grantmaking organizations. When individual organizations function at their best, philanthropy as a whole excels.

Anita DeFrantz is president of the LA84 Foundation. Myrna Deckert is president and CEO of Paso del Norte Health Foundation.  Amina Dickerson is founder and president of Dickerson Global Advisors, LLC.

How our health care system responds to the needs of its frontline workforce will affect not only the sector, but also higher education, workforce development, and, of course, consumers.

At its recent annual conference, the Council on Foundations presented its Critical Impact Award to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Hitachi Foundation for their Jobs to Careers initiative, which is testing new ways to train and build careers for low-wage, frontline health care workers, while improving the quality of care given to patients. Recent evaluation data shows the initiative’s significant impact: the median hourly wage was $11.80 for all program participants and $13.54 for the top-third of wage earners participating in the program. This compares to $11 per hour for non-participants. Fifty-two percent of program participants received certification, and 47 percent received a raise.

The Hitachi Foundation recently launched the online Employer Perspectives Series, snapshots of how some institutions are successfully addressing the challenge of creating better career opportunities for nursing assistants and medical coding specialists as well as medical, surgical, and respiratory technicians, and other staff responsible for direct patient care. The first installment in the series looks at Good Samaritan Hospital in Baltimore, which has joined with the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare (BACH). With support from Jobs to Careers, the hospital is building career paths for frontline workers using in-house employee “coaches.”

The Jobs to Careers initiative is a prime example of the critical impact philanthropy can have in addressing one of America’s greatest needs: a health care system that delivers quality care at affordable costs.

Barbara Dyer is the president and CEO of The Hitachi Foundation.

This symbolic day is a chance to reflect on what “civic health” means in our field and how philanthropy can help build and sustain a foundation for strong communities.

The McCormick Foundation views a healthy society as one whose citizens are well informed and actively engaged in their communities. Through our grants and programming, we aim to make quality civic education and civic engagement opportunities widely accessible to all Chicago area youth ages 12 to 22. We believe that by exposing younger generations to the knowledge, skills and experiences necessary to fully participate in civic life, they will be prepared and inspired to be engaged adults.

In this area we seek to support work that ties knowledge—traditional civics and government courses, current affairs, to action—volunteerism, democratic participation, and civic leadership. We hope that when knowledge and action are connected, both become more meaningful and youth can realize their individual power to contribute to the greater good.

Philanthropy can bolster civic health in many ways. For example, ensuring that basic human needs, such as jobs, nutrition, healthcare, education, and security are met can create a springboard for civic action. Supporting organizations that advocate for transparency and ethical behavior in the public sector can restore confidence in our elected officials and system of government. Strengthening the capacity of local nonprofit partners to guide new immigrants through the citizenship process gives them the tools to become active community members.

As a field, we have a great role to play in supporting access to information and knowledge, and in engaging everyone in the democratic process, regardless of age, race or socio-economic background. As individuals, we can make an enormous contribution to our communities by choosing long-term, meaningful and impactful engagement over episodic action.

Diversity, empowerment and innovation are at the very heart of philanthropy and our great nation. By strengthening the capacity of America’s youth to take responsibility and contribute to their communities, we are creating a stronger country.

A measure of our nation’s civic health, then, might be the extent to which our diversity is reflected in the voices that lead our civic dialogue. This is one of the values that might resonate as we celebrate Flag Day.

Andrea Jett is a citizenship program officer for the McCormick Foundation (www.mccormickfoundation.org).

Participating in the European Foundation Centre (EFC) meetings last week gave me an opportunity to discuss global relief efforts with my philanthropic colleagues around the globe. Based on our conversations, I see three ways philanthropy could better prepare for future global disasters: 

1. Collect and set aside funds that can be built up over time, available on an emergency notice.

Ideally, this “disaster release fund” could be a function of the Council on Foundations, and the management of the fund overseen by representatives from the Council on Foundations and the European Foundation Centre. Donations received would be invested in safe, short-term securities to ensure that donors’ money is preserved and protected. Contributions would be received now for deployment as crises and accompanying emergency needs emerged. 

2. Establish an independent management team to oversee the distribution of funds.

This strategically selected team qualified to disburse the funds would be independent and composed of representatives from the Council on Foundations, the EFC and other global actors such as the Clinton Initiative, Synergos, etc.

3. Establish a global team of individuals and organizations “on the ground” who are the experts on each continent and region, and who currently are the best at delivering services now.

This database of “local actors” to be called on in an emergency on a moment’s notice will have critically important in-the-field experience in the particular location that the disaster occurred. They would be well-positioned to advise on the best ways to apply the funds immediately.

With this process set up ahead of time, we will be in a much better position to be effective with our philanthropy when an event of significant magnitude occurs. These three functions provide for a quick and transparent channel for effective disaster relief philanthropy. It could be promoted and made available to donors of all types who could rely on the process to maximize their caring to help others for immediate, short-term emergency needs.

Jim Harrell is the President of the World Giving Community Foundation.

During this graduation season, why should we care about increasing the nation’s college attainment rate? Raising this rate would reap widespread public benefits, including significant positive impact on wages, tax revenues, and the ability of states and regions to attract new businesses. Even the primarily personal benefits of further education would redound to the public good: college graduates live longer and healthier lives than those without degrees, are overall more civically engaged (as measured by voting, volunteer work, blood donations, and other indicators), and earn approximately $1 million more over their lifetimes than those with only a high school degree.

We know that a college degree pays off for individuals and for our society—but how much of a difference does it really make?

The nonprofit CEOs for Cities has done some fascinating research on the economic benefits that accrue to cities that raise their college attainment levels. They’ve determined that “Nearly 60 percent of a city’s success, as measured by per capita income, is explained by the percentage of college graduates in a city’s population.” Small improvements in this regard make a big difference. Even a one-percentage point increase, which they call the Talent Dividend, can mean billions more dollars in economic activity.

If cities do get serious, creative and collaborative about achieving the Talent Dividend, the collective effects could be enormous in cities across America. To quote CEOs for Cities, “An increase in college attainment rates by one percentage point in the largest 51 metro areas yields $124 billion in additional personal income each year for the nation.” Achieving the Talent Dividend could also help insulate cities from future economic tumult.  According to a recent Brookings Institution report, a city’s percentage of college graduates helped predict how it fared during the recent recession.

The U.S. used to be the best-educated nation in the world, but while our attainment rates have mostly flatlined for decades, other nations have committed to accelerating degree attainment. A disconcerting number has passed us by: we now rank roughly 10th among developed countries, just ahead of Finland.  We don’t even let Finland beat us in Olympic ice hockey or curling—why should we let them beat us in the much more critical realm of educational attainment?

A recent, wide-ranging report by the National Center for Education Statistics shows an increase in the number of Americans earning college degrees, which is good news. The bad news on this front is that we’re not on an aggressive enough trajectory to accomplish President Obama’s goal in ten years. In addition, racial gaps in attainment (already quite significant between whites, blacks, and Hispanics) have actually increased. That is part of the reason why The Kresge Foundation has chosen to focus its education grantmaking on improving the attainment of students who have not traditionally been as well-served by higher education: students of color, low-income students, and those who are the first in their families to attend college.

The U.S. cannot hope that our storied tradition of innovation or old-fashioned American exceptionalism will enable us to somehow remain on top, while so many of our citizens are prevented from reaching their full potential. Government, philanthropy, private industry, and the education and nonprofit sectors all have important roles to play in increasing attainment. It is an economic, civic, and social justice imperative to strengthen the pipeline of people who make it into and successfully through postsecondary education. 

Caroline Altman Smith is a program officer at The Kresge Foundation in suburban Detroit, Michigan. She chairs the National Board of Advisors of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP), a Council on Foundations affinity group, and serves on the advisory board of the Michigan College Access Network.

I’m not impressed with the cleanup effort I witnessed; two guys with questionable personal protective clothing and rakes in their hands. Were they mixing the brown and white sand together? Today is unlike any other day I have witnessed at the beach. An ATV with island authority personnel on board passed me and told me not to touch any tar balls, just call in the location to the Department of Environmental Protection, #DEP on any cell phone.

I walked down the pier on the sound side. It is not as sad here, because the oil has not yet reached the inland waterways. Some days I am joined here by dolphins or a Great Blue Heron. They don’t join me today, and I wonder if they will ever return. For every one that washes ashore, others will die out in the waters.

A claim center is set up inside a beach business. The unemployed file in and out - the bait store owner whose business is down, the waiter, the charter boat captain. I saw an interview with one of the claimants, and he stated that the BP representatives were very nice to him. When asked if they gave him a check, he stated no, just a promise, and even then it wouldn’t be enough. The next line may be the food bank.

We grieve for those who died in the fiery beginning as well as for those who have lost their jobs. We are grateful to so many who want to help. The Greater Escambia Community Foundation, Inc. has opened the Pensacola Environmental Relief Fund to support efforts to protect the fragile coastlines and to aid the long-term recovery work in the community. The fact that some costs of clean-up and damages are billable to BP may have slowed the philanthropic response, but new needs are arising every day for area nonprofits helping those affected by this disaster.

Brenda Camper is the executive director of the Greater Escambia Community Foundation, Inc.

I doubt when the European Foundation Center (EFC) organized this conference and designed the “Foundation Week” session titled “Walking you through the EU maze” they had any idea of what was to come. But, on Wednesday morning Janis Emmanouilidis of the European Policy Center began a most important conversation on the impact of the current credit and political crisis in the EU on philanthropy’s role in society – especially European society.

But his remarks, most of them rather pessimistic about the ability of European nations to rise above domestic politics for the good of the European Union, set the stage for an incredible set of conversations at this conference. At the opening session of the EFC Conference, Rui Villar (Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian) began by saying, “These are, indeed, times of uncertainty.” He was soon followed by the Program Committee Chair, Luc Tayart de Borms (King Baudouin Foundation), who made clear, “This conference is not business as usual.” As if these two comments were not sufficient, Gerry Salole, the EFC’s Executive Director was even more direct. He said bluntly, “This is not the moment for foundations to be shy; to withdraw. Europe is in a deep crisis and it needs civil society to engage.” All three voices displayed the appropriate leadership we now seek from philanthropy in today’s world. Good for them!

But, I couldn’t help wondering if this crisis and philanthropy’s response isn’t the next chapter in our tepid walk towards a more global definition of philanthropy’s role in society. Over the past two years, we in the United States have witnessed a more activist federal government taking a careful look at what is the appropriate level of the public sector safety net and protection for our citizens. As we all know, the U.S. has long supported both a stronger market-based system and limited government, with philanthropy playing a larger role in the social lives of our citizens. I suspect that today we are beginning to see a recognition within Europe that governments are limited, by resources if not desire, in how much they can/should do for their people. And as European governments begin a difficult era of fiscal discipline, I suspect that European philanthropy will be pressured – by its social conscience if not for political reasons – to do more in support of the common good of its fellow citizens.

In some ways, Europe and the U.S. are again taking a step towards more common definitions of the respective roles of the public, private, and philanthropic sectors. I’ve long suggested that the early years of the 21st century will define philanthropy’s history as one growing in size, service and scrutiny. Now, after two consecutive economic crises those words remain true. Philanthropy will grow in size – both in Europe and the U.S. Philanthropy will do more. And as the informal, if not formal, partnership between the pubic and philanthropic sectors continues to grow we must accept the fact that the scrutiny of our sector – both in what we do and how we do it – will also grow.

Steve Gunderson is the CEO and president of the Council on Foundations

The story has been a simple one, incremental in nature, a flexible strategy… but we have made progress. Our staff is more diverse than it was when I arrived. Recruitment strategies now focus on creating diverse candidate pools, and we are more intentional in addressing and discussing diversity as it affects our philanthropic work.

Given this experience and the foundation’s interest in diversity, I participated in the webinar, and humbly told our story. The years of work have not left us experts on the topic or the implementation. Our approaches have been more common sense than rocket science, but we have slowly changed the culture of the Foundation to make diversity much more a part of the fabric of who we are as a working community…and there is a lot more to do.

By far the greatest lesson for me is the issue of starting and not stopping. Whatever we have done, successful or not, we have not let our intentional focus on diversity diminish. It has remained unwavering through leadership transitions, high-profile attention to other work, and other potential distractions. We never stopped paying attention. We may not have done things in the “right order” (we just published our broad-based diversity statement on our website this year), but we have created a culture where diversity is part of the ongoing discussion at all levels of our work. 

For example, RWJF’s New Connections program works to develop and retain a diverse, well-trained leadership and workforce in health and healthcare to meet the needs of all Americans. Created in 2005, New Connections is designed to expand the diversity of perspectives that inform RWJF program strategy and introduce new researchers and scholars to the Foundation. More information can be found at www.rwjf-newconnections.org

Strategy is always important, but execution often trumps strategy. We have started and won’t stop…

David L. Waldman is the Vice President-Human Resources and Administration for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Therefore, to influence the budget debate, we decided to partner with the California Budget Project (a well respected budget analysis organization) and fund research for policy makers and advocates to make the economic and human case for preserving the small safety net that still remains in California. Over the past few years, as California’s budget crisis has deepened, the budget has been disproportionately balanced by cutting resources for low-income families. No amount of philanthropic support can replace the services lost by these public-sector cuts.

The Women’s Foundation of California holds a vision of California as healthy, safe and economically secure. This cannot happen without public policies that are based in these values, and a state budget that provides sufficient safety net services. For the past 10 years, we’ve had an approach of supporting systemic/policy solutions implemented by those who are closest to the problems. In addition, as a public charity that does grantmaking, we have greater latitude in our ability to be involved in the public policy process, i.e. funding and participating in lobbying. Because we can lobby, we do.

Last week, we released the three reports to legislators, advocates and journalists. Articles have appeared online and in print. The research was particularly welcomed by the Legislative Women’s Caucus, the bi-partisan caucus of women in the State’s Assembly and Senate.

Here are a few examples of news and blog coverage of the research:

http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_15063780

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judy-patrick/to-balance-californias-bu_b_575672.html

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15081584?nclick_check=1

For copies of the reports, please go to the California Budget Project: http://www.cbp.org/

Judy Patrick is the CEO and President of the Women’s Foundation of California.

Ralph Smith of the Annie Casey Foundation facilitated the discussion among Ruby Takanishi of the Foundation for Child Development, Sterling Speirn of the W. J. Kellogg Foundation and myself, Lois Salisbury, of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. With only a short preparation call, we were remarkably in sync – which I think reflects the independent processes we each pursued to come to the same results-oriented conclusion. Of course, no specific legislation was discussed. But the philanthropic representatives shared a vision of how much more effective state and federal policy could be if an overarching results-oriented question was asked every time: will decision X about policy Y move Z percent of children to kindergarten readiness and 3rd grade reading proficiency and by when? If not, it’s not good enough. Similarly, we look at our own decisions through that lens, and are working through grantmaking, relationships, and complementary activities to persuade others at the community, school district and state levels to do the same.

Ralph compared our joint strategy to a pool game. You can enjoy the opening break shot and the possibility that some balls will go in somewhere, or you can perfect your bank shot – knowing you’re going for the red ball to the corner pocket. It’s focused, not dispersed.

The informal feedback I received was gratitude and enthusiasm for our strategic vision. The tempo of Washington D.C. doesn’t always invite such discussions. The policymaker audience for this briefing valued it. I had feared that our message would be taken as off point, unreal, perhaps even naïve. Instead, I learned what we sometimes forget:  philanthropy has the privilege of a longer term, bigger perspective that others crave. Our voice is respected and influential, precisely because of that perspective, as well as our ability to focus resources behind such a vision. We probably underutilize this voice in policy arenas. I look forward to joining my philanthropic partners again in future educational sessions for policymakers.

Lois Salisbury is the Director of the Children, Families and Communities Program at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Many may think that the form only matters to those who work in the accounting or finance department.

Think again.
The revisions to the form should also serve as a reminder of its importance as a tool in communicating and advancing our work.

The new form focuses on the numbers, but also on policies and practices, particularly related to governance issues and compensation calculations. And with the wide-spread availability of your organization’s Form 990 on the Internet, it is also important to remember that the Form’s impact goes beyond your accounting department. In addition to serving its purpose in providing important tax information, you should make sure that it also conveys your organization’s mission and impact.

Your organization’s form should be considered as an outreach tool, and the completion process should also include representatives from your marketing and communications department—every step of the way. They should be involved in the form’s preparation and sign off on the final product, even before the auditors do. Current and potential donors will be reading it, charity ‘watch groups’ will be using it to rate you.

The Council on Foundations and its Fiscal and Administrative Officers Group’ Accounting Practices Committee recently worked with Deloitte Tax LLP to create a guidebook to help community foundations navigate their way through all the intricate (and even some of the not-so-intricate) features of the new form and to try to help create consistent reporting across the field. The guidebook also addresses additional tax reporting issues that may affect community foundations. So, it’s hoped that the resource will be immensely helpful to all.

What is the lesson with the new form? In addition to the numbers, get the marketing and governance people involved, and tell your story.

Cheryl McKenna is the Chief Financial Officer at the Community Foundation of Lorain County. She is Vice-Chair of the FAOG Accounting Practices Committee (Council on Foundations), Finance Committee and Audit Committee member (Ohio Grantmakers Forum), and Not-for-Profit Section Leader (Ohio Society of CPAs).

The catalytic role refers to the initiation of change that stimulates others in the public and private sectors to act collectively for social change, especially to bring different sectors, or silos to the table around a common concern. The framing role refers to identifying neglected problems and to taking a new look at issues that should be on the public agenda.

Philanthropy’s role in integrating early learning with K-12 education is a prime example of the catalytic and framing roles of philanthropy. This will be the focus of my presentation at the Council on Foundations, Grantmakers for Education, and Grantmakers Children, Youth and Families hosted Capitol Hill briefing on May 21, 2010.

In 2003, the Foundation for Child Development created its pre-K through 3rd initiative. Back then there were many children that came to kindergarten way behind. We also knew that while quality pre-K programs can have a strong effect on learning outcomes for low-income children, these gains are not typically sustained when low-income children go to poorly-resourced elementary schools.

We recognized that quality pre-K programs must be followed by quality K-12 education experiences. Public investments in early learning programs must be sustained by continuing investments that extend up the education pipeline, but especially in elementary grades.

We now know that every year of quality education and quality teachers counts–they count most for low-income children. This will be a major part of our message at Friday’s Hill briefing. Lawmakers have the opportunity to provide incentives that strengthen teacher quality and provide the students who need the most help with the highest-quality teachers.

In addition, research shows that third grade is the first crucial turning point in educational trajectories. That case has been well-argued in the KidsCount May 2010 report, which shows that what happens to children before the fourth grade – in their families and communities, in early learning programs they attend, in Kindergartens and in grades 1-3 – matters a great deal for their futures.

Despite the research and evaluations, the current K-12 education system frame does not pay much attention to what happens during these first six years of education from pre-K through third grade. Pre-K through 3rd aims to change this situation of neglect, and to put the focus squarely on the first crucial link in the pre-K through 16 education pipeline. 

We’re looking forward to providing members of Congress with this important information and hearing their responses. Stay tuned for an update report right here on the Council’s RE: Philanthropy blog.

Ruby Takanishi is the president and CEO of the Foundation for Child Development.

But for today  . . . the beaches are open, the water is clear, and air quality is good.

The oil continues to seep into the eco system, as chemical dispersants are sprayed to break it up. We are still waiting for analysis from scientists regarding how harmful these chemicals are to fish and sea life. Tar balls washed ashore in Perdido Key, but the State Department of Environmental Protection has reported that these were not a result of the Deepwater Horizon event. Really? And now we read that tar balls were found off the coast of the Florida Keys.

The media attention has prompted vacationers and visitors to re-think their destination. Hoteliers have reported cancellations, and as a result many have lost their jobs as a result of the decline in the tourism industry.

Claim centers and SBA disaster loan locations are being set up across the region. The Sunshine State is depressed, yet motivated. We are motivated to show our support for organizations focusing on environmental issues and calling for change, so that this threat does not happen again.

Brenda Camper is the executive director of the Greater Escambia Community Foundation, Inc.

As thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of gallons of oil continue to spew daily just seventy miles away from land for the fourth straight week, our wetlands face the prospect of catastrophic damage at a time when they can least afford it. After being cut off for a century from their source of riverine sediment and nutrients, the wetlands have been disappearing at an alarming rate, the equivalent of a football field every forty minutes. This has led to a slew of unintended but far-reaching consequences: natural hurricane protection provided by our marshy “speed bumps” has been dramatically reduced, and the future of our fisheries (which provide a full one-third of all seafood caught in the United States) has been placed into serious doubt./p>

Faced with such a large-scale disaster, philanthropy has responded in quick but thoughtful ways. Just days after the Deep Water Horizon initiated this latest environmental crisis, the Greater New Orleans Foundation created its “Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund” with the intention of capitalizing both short- and long-term recovery efforts. We have also diverted some resources from our Environmental Fund to enable Seedco Financial to increase staffing levels immediately at its Commercial Fisheries Assistance Center so that fishers can access low-interest loans, grants and best practices in disaster mitigation and recovery. Commercial fishing organizations in Prince William Sound, Alaska, the site of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, have graciously offered to teach to their counterparts in Southeast Louisiana the lessons that they have learned in how to rebuild their businesses and how to continue their increasingly endangered way of life.

Our ability to react promptly to our fishers’ needs in this evolving crisis was due in large part to the existing regional work that we have been engaged in since 2005, the year that Hurricane Katrina reminded us of how interconnected all of us along the Gulf Coast are. In that time, we have created the framework for a more coordinated philanthropic approach to addressing how we adapt to our changing environment in a manner that respects the diverse social and geographic contexts in which our coastal communities find themselves. We have established strong partnerships with many excellent nonprofits and the populations they serve. It is with these groups that we are crafting the blueprint for an effective response to this latest challenge.

We have yet to know what the ultimate effects of this tragedy will be, or what long-term strategies we will employ to deal with them. We only know that all signs (as well as the sad history of similar spills) point to a long and difficult recovery.

Marco F. Cocito-Monoc is the director of Regional Initiatives Greater New Orleans Foundation.

The immigration debate has always been complex and polarizing, because it is intrinsically tied to the changes in economic, political, and social forces happening across the world. The demographic composition of communities across the country, and increasingly in newer gateway states is changing. Welcoming communities are often caught off guard and unprepared, creating fear and anti-immigrant sentiment. What happened in Arizona illustrates what happens when this fear is not addressed, and is allowed to fester. Laws are created to institutionalize policies that criminalize an entire population. The problem with S.B. 1070, all politics aside, is that it will only end up perpetuating the cycle of criminalization and marginalization that will drive the immigrant population in the state further into the shadows. 

Philanthropy can help work to create welcoming communities, in which both the native and newcomer populations work together to create a more vibrant and cohesive community. There is a lot of work to be done from policy changes at the federal and local levels to increasing the number of ESL programs for adults and opening the pathways to civic engagement. Philanthropy must work together and become leaders in this social change.

If you would like to learn more about what philanthropy can do in this area, I invite you to join Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation and Four Freedoms Fund on a timely teleconference on Arizona and immigration reform this Friday, May 14th at 10 a.m. PDT. To find more information about this program visit and register here: http://www.gcir.org/programs/2010/05/reform.

Vanessa Cedeño is a research and program associate for Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees.

We are all following the story of the BP oil explosion on April 20, 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. As a resident of Pensacola Beach, Florida, I will have a front row seat to the ecological and environmental impact.

The trajectory maps predict the oil is less than eighty miles away and in some communities along the Gulf Coast the smell of salt water has been replaced with the stench of petroleum. Sadly, the seabirds, the dolphins, and all of our wildlife are especially vulnerable and while they may know something is amiss, they have no knowledge of the imminent danger. As federal waters are being closed to fishing, scores of cancellations for vacations and charter fishing trips are being received. Damage has already been done to the commercial fishing industry, and the poor who have to fish to eat.

As the river of oil continues to flow, threatening our environmental human rights, we are also watching philanthropy’s response to a manmade disaster as opposed to natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, and hurricanes. In the coming days, as we read stories of blame and responsibility, and see media coverage of oil covered pelicans, there will also be stories of philanthropy from compassionate people motivated to be socially responsible and help asses and protect our coastal communities and endangered species.

Federal agencies, local businesses, nonprofits, and assemblies of volunteers continue to prepare for the worst, and hope for the best - for our environment, our heath, and our livelihood.

Brenda Camper is the executive director of the Greater Escambia Community Foundation, Inc.

These themes were explored and attacked
Through three days of provocative tracks
Social justice included
No opinions excluded
With much focused on greater impact.

Demystifying social justice is key
To philanthropic inclusivity
More democratization
For the good of our nations
And advancing humanity.

How do we get there we asked?
Breaking down silos of gender and class,
Racial and ethnic discrimination,
And sexual orientation -
All barriers that we must get past.

Policy change must occur
Inequity in societies to deter
Since mere public awareness
Of the need for full fairness
Isn’t sufficient for rights to ensure.

And it isn’t enough just to talk
Foundations must walk the walk
Lofty goals won’t be reached
If internally breached
With hypocrisy others will mock.

On the Social Justice Track wisdom abounded
And calls to commitment redounded
But ‘being in it to win it’
May take years and not minutes
And on unlikely alliances founded.

We also sought artistic expressions
Both of freedom and social repressions
Performers tempered heavy discussion
With their creative percussion
Leaving unforgettable impressions.

Many whom social justice had frightened
Said they left Denver feeling enlightened
And through more blogs and proceedings
Plus follow-up readings
We hope more foundations’ interest is heightened.

Suzanne E. Siskel is the director of Social Justice Philanthropy at the Ford Foundation.

Feelings of helplessness turned to action as our members started debating and reaching out to each other on our listserv and the phone rang, with the Louisiana Disaster and Recovery Foundation calling to ask if we could help get some funders to engage, especially on advocacy needs and to hear what is already evolving among local funders.

Environmental Grantmakers Association, with multiple partners, is organizing a Webinar tomorrow Thursday, May 6 that is the first in a series to begin a conversation about the role and response of philanthropy to what could emerge as the worst U.S. oil spill disaster on record. So join us for the Webinar on Thursday, May 6 from 4 to 5 p.m. EST to hear immediate needs, and to begin strategize on long term funding possibilities. RSVP to jkb@ega.org.

The philanthropic community is seeking to plan and coordinate its role as the details of this awful BP Oil spill disaster unfold. On the webinar, in addition to the scientific perspective, we will also have a local leader from Louisiana reviewing short-term needs and opportunities for helping with the response and recovery plans and a national environmental leader discussing implications for climate and energy policy and plenty of time for funder Q&A.

Again, please join us tomorrow (May 6) for the Webinar from 4 to 5 p.m. EST to hear immediate needs, and to begin strategize on long term funding possibilities. RSVP to jkb@ega.org.

Rachel Leon is executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association. To date, co-sponsors of the Webinar are 444S Foundation, Association of Small Foundations, Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, Environmental Grantmakers Association, Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, Greater New Orleans Foundation, Gulf Coast Fund, Health Environmental Funders Network, Kresge Foundation, Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, Magnolia Trust, Marine Conservation Program, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Rachel’s Network, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region.

The “Hard Skills”—due diligence, research, communications, metrics, etc., and the “Harder Skills”—honest listening, quiet leadership, good citizenship, and honest engagement.

At these kinds of meetings, we’re torn between the two dynamics—how do we learn both in a way that makes us better technical functional specialists, as well as better generalists.

This struggle was articulated in the session “Next Gen: What Else Do I Need for the Journey? Skills for Leaders Aiming for the Top.”

What I particularly appreciated was Richard Woo’s reminder—there is power in being invisible. When you are the person who actually writes up the agenda or crafts the reports, the way you think about word choices or statistics to highlight means that you get to define the parameters of the conversation, and move it to a place that you might think is important. Embracing the different strengths of each part of the ladder is important, and something I think we, as ‘next gen’, can often lose track of.

That begs the question, though—where are we learning these lessons?

Who is talking to us about where our strength lies, where we can still grow, and who we should be striving to become within the field?

When professional development opportunities are presented to emerging leaders (which is rare to begin with), they are often about technical proficiency. While I think the technical proficiency is valuable, what about being a good leader, teammate, partner, and philanthropist (in the lover of mankind way)? Can’t we find more space for some of the less concrete but very important skills that often get overlooked in the process of creating good program officers, executive vice-presidents, and the like?

Mary Galeti is the vice-chair of the Tecovas Foundation

I attended an awesome town hall on public-private partnerships. It had smart and interesting speakers, vibrant audience participation, a dynamite moderator, and it was fast-moving and hard-hitting—really.

The topic of public-private partnerships fascinates me, because I spent the first 15 years of my philanthropic career promoting democracy in the former Soviet Union, where governments are still getting used to not controlling everything.

When it came to philanthropy, simply having a pluralism of funding flowing to address social issues was an important battle. Which brings me back to the public-private partnership session—I want to celebrate that there is a pluralism of ideas, opinions, approaches, and models on the relationship between philanthropic actors and government entities. Kudos to the Council on Foundations for bringing diverse voices and views together in this session and at the annual conference overall.

We struggle for impact, scaling, critical mass, transformations, paradigm shifts (the Social Innovation Fund, which came up many times). It’s all good, as long as the voices of the communities being served are heard. Still, there certainly is and should be room for different people trying out different things in different places on different levels. That is where philanthropy usually does better than government. But if government wants to be in on the cross-pollination of good solutions, why not invite diverse voices and partners? Our democracy in America is still plenty vibrant enough to accommodate a lot of various public-private partnerships without us worrying about Big Brother. If some of these partnerships can make a visible dent in some serious challenges for the common good, well then, let’s go for it. There is room for us all. Kumbaya.

Nick Deychakiwsky is a program officer at the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

I agree with Hernandez that it is through the pursuit of alternative spaces that those who have a sincere desire to see a change, not only in approach but in results, can engage in a productive conversation about the future of Cuba, and the roles of the United States and the Cuban diaspora in that future.

If, as Hernandez indicated, philanthropy presents such an alternative space for this type of engagement, then I think it is an opportunity that our sector should explore with vigor. In doing so, the philanthropic sector in this country can tap into the wealth of knowledge and experience gained in the pursuit of social justice in the U.S. to work in collaboration with the philanthropic sector in Cuba. This collaboration could assist Cuban philanthropy in the development and strengthening of this alternative space and the pursuit of social justice for the island’s 11 million residents. Engagement by U.S. foundations in this process could mark a historic turning point for civil society inside Cuba and for the role of philanthropy in promoting this change.

Javier Soto is the president of Dade Community Foundation.

When I woke up this morning, I switched on a light. Did you? (Don’t worry, this isn’t a post on energy conservation—I’m not judging you.)

But when I switched on that light, the switch didn’t really happen in my brain. The room was lit, but I was not really awake.

My brain needed something big, something powerful to get it going, to motivate it. Well, for me, this was caffeine. But for Chip Heath, it is something much more transformational. 

If we can make the transition from ketchup to salsa as the top-selling condiment in the United States, we can change anything.

Here at the Council on Foundations annual conference in Denver, we’re about BIG change.

To get there, we need to flip some serious switches in society. Some of these will be harder and some will be easier than others.

We must be aware of our tendency to over-plan and remember to motivate. To direct those we want to influence toward a specific goal—the “bright spots” that make us feel good, that represent the true solutions out there. This is not what we naturally do. We tend to focus on the bad.

These bright spots exist throughout our sector and our society. I challenge each of you to put these successes at the top. Talk about them. Put them out there in front of your peers.

And be emotional about it. Tap into what drives us all: passion, commitment, the drive to make a difference.

Chip Heath presents this to us brilliantly. This is certainly how we approach our lives—our families, our children, our partners. Why are we afraid to do it in our philanthropy, in our programs, in our leadership for change? Imagine a marriage proposal with a metrics analysis as part of the convincing argument. Not very compelling.

“See, feel, change”—this needs to be our new mantra. And we need to do everything we can to make the environment that we operate in more likely to act on our direction for change, to take away the barriers.

The truth is that we are dealing with some really difficult issues—inequality, poverty and violence among them—and it will not be as easy as waking up with a new outlook on life. If it were this easy, we would have changed many of these things already—but we haven’t. However, we’ll take all the help we can get.

And so: When you get up tomorrow, I urge you to not just switch on the light, but to take that change you strive to create and do everything you can to make it easy. Direct, shape, motivate.

Chet Tchozewski is the founder and president emeritus of the Global Greengrants Fund.

Moderated by Bob Giloth of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and featuring: Doris Koo of Enterprise Community Partners, Clifford Johnson of the National League of Cities, Orson Watson of Garfield Foundation and myself, the panelists and the audience sought to come up with concrete work-force solutions. The workshop was a fast-paced incubator of solutions that ranged from a call for a permanent public jobs program, to large-scale green retrofitting of cities as a means to create jobs, to helping people in need of jobs move to where the jobs are, to a push for stronger collaboration between employers and the people training workers to ensure that training and available jobs (now and in the future) match (my suggestion).

If we can be as focused and creative when it comes to developing policy, we might have a chance to once again build a strong and vital economy.

Fred Dedrick is the executive director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions.

Now it’s time for the Council to blow up its traditional conference model and begin exploring new formats for the annual conference.

A few ideas:

• Moderated debates over specific propositions between leaders in the field
• 20-minute TED-style presentations on fascinating topics from energetic and inspiring people in the field
• Three-hour working groups on issues that the field must confront together
• Nonprofit showcases featuring 15-minute presentations by grantees nominated by Council members

During last year’s conference, I wrote: “The opening plenary of the Council on Foundations conference was fine. It was interesting. There was a nice musical piece by a local group to kick things off. But it wasn’t a rock concert. The Council on Foundations conference should be philanthropy’s Woodstock. It should be our Octoberfest. It should be our MacWorld. It should be the type of event where people who are passionate about philanthropy and foundations come together to celebrate, learn, share, and laugh. It should be fun.”

I feel the same way this year. We don’t have to be bound by the traditional format of conferences. We are free to experiment.

If the Council wants the annual conference to be a “can’t-miss” event that attracts the very top people in the field, it needs to blow up the conference model and start experimenting with new approaches.

Sean Stannard-Stockton is CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors.

The verdict is still out—the crisis is far from over.

But the Foundation Center reports that $443 million in grants and program-related investments directly related to the crisis have been tracked in the last two years. That’s not bad for a sector that has “not been built for speed,” according to panelists of Monday’s town hall session “Did Philanthropy Do Its Part in Response to the Economic Crisis?” On the other hand, 60 percent of foundations reduced their payouts. How can we defend that?

So here are a few takeaways from the Council on Foundations’ annual conference town hall:

• Things will not return to “the way they were” before the crisis.
• Foundations are thinking differently—with more attention to mergers, back-room operations, entrepreneurship, and technology.
• We also are, however, thinking too narrowly—we should be leveraging our collective strengths to advocate with Congress for a safety net for those most in need.
• The Foundation Center’s maps are a fabulous resource—check them out! They are great examples of foundations responding. Community foundations ROCK!

Stay tuned. This question of whether philanthropy is doing its part in this crisis is not going away—and our nimbleness and responsiveness will continue to be tested.

Robert S. Collier is president and CEO of the Council of Michigan Foundations.

The theme of this annual conference—Intersections: Social Change, Social Justice, Social Innovation—was a perfect match for the former vice president’s passionate words.

I watched the more than 1,000 Council members who represent so many different passions (children, social justice, education, innovation) respond to Gore’s message—that he wished he could take what is in his heart and pass it to all of us, so we would have the will to act on climate change and vital democratic concerns. I wondered: How do we connect when this conference is done?

The pitting of immigration reform against climate change is a perfect example. It can’t be an either/or proposition—one but not the other. We all need to stand together and figure out how to layer our work to include climate in our own focus but support vital debates like immigration reform. One movement should connect to the other.

I met a family funder after the Gore talk who told me she doesn’t consider herself an environmental funder. She primarily funds women and girls in her community, but she also funds sustainability and, more and more, is seeing the connection rather than the silos. That is how we will all win, when we connect and find ways to complement our own missions with that of the world.

I invite you to check out the Environmental Grantmakers Assocation (www.ega.org). We are a membership organization of funders who focus on the environment. But many of our members have other focuses; they believe part of their docket should go to protecting our future. Check us out if you want to explore that path.

And it’s reflected back to us in the data. A recent survey of Americans holding leadership roles at organizations involved in community and social issues showed that only 15 percent could name an example of a way a foundation has benefited their community. Only 19 percent had seen anything in the news about how foundations are responding to the economic downturn. And a 2006 study of how the news media covered foundations found that 99 percent of the 38,000 articles tracked were about dollars not impact. Foundations are not communicating their value to critical audiences and it shows.

Monday’s session “Beyond Cash Machine: Communicating the Value of Foundations,” hosted by the Communications Network and the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative, took up the challenge of how can foundations take action. The three panelists—Lisa Dropkin, Rich Neimand, and Vicki Rosenberg—and moderator Daniel Silverman all had distinct vantage points to offer from researcher to communications strategist to regional association leader to foundation communications professional. The overwhelming solution they offered? The best way to communicate value is through direct conversation with influential leaders, especially those in the policy arena and news media.

So, what do you say in these conversations? This is where some real concrete ideas for action kicked in. Dropkin, of Edge Research, shared that her interviews with 50 state policy-makers revealed the foundation role that most resonated was that of partner. Her advice was for a foundation to take every opportunity to communicate its partnership potential and tell a story about how it has worked with the public sector. Neimand, of the Neimand Collaborative, emphasized that foundations can best communicate value by talking about how they are people—not institutions—who are working for the public good. Foundations also show their value, he said, when they talk about their strategic giving. This helps distinguish philanthropy from charity.

The messenger is also crucial in this work. The Philanthropy 3D project in Michigan, which is a partnership between the Council of Michigan Foundations and 14 member foundations, has worked over the past year to develop a new and adaptable communications model for Michigan foundations. What makes this particularly new? The foundations are engaging their trustees as ambassadors and equipping them for direct conversations with their informal and formal networks. Rosenberg, of the Council of Michigan Foundations, shared how this and the power of foundations coming together to communicate are key takeaways from her work.

Silverman, of the James Irvine Foundation, closed with an important and I think uplifting point for all foundations and that’s that they don’t have to start from scratch when it comes to better communicating value. You can improve your existing communications vehicles before creating new ones. And as Dropkin emphasized, this work does not have to be relegated to your communications department—but can and should be a part of all functions from executive to program to communications.

Foundations have the opportunity today—some would say imperative—to communicate a new narrative that goes beyond the cash machine. This session was a good start in getting us there.

Courtney Spalding-Mayer is the project coordinator for the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative. You can reach her at courtney@philanthropyawareness.org.

The session was not titled “Demanding Power or Tightening Your Grip on Power” for a reason, although from observing the role-playing scenarios of the speakers, one could be excused for thinking so. The fictitious yet grounded scenarios revealed much, particularly about how body language tips off the interest (or as in the negative case, defensiveness and false assumptions about the Next Gen) of seasoned leaders in engaging the next generation of leadership.

Humility and grace definitely play a role in next-generation leadership. Sometimes, filling the sidewalk cracks is easier than paving a new path. So commented a seasoned participant on how a Next Gen leader can add organizational value, by looking for ways to improve existing processes and projects through skills and leadership—not merely by demanding leadership opportunities without humility. It takes humility to recognize the strengths of the other, to learn from one another, and to acknowledge when there are complimentary relationships that make philanthropy stronger.

For the power trade to work, both parties have responsibility. It is up to the Next Gen leader to develop a plan for what they want and how to get it. For a seasoned leader, having a succession plan and thoughtfully executing it over an extended period of time and offering leadership opportunities and increasing responsibility gives the Next Gen leader a path to succeed in leadership and continue the philanthropic legacy. We are all in it together to grow, learn, and to make philanthropy better.

Andrew Ho is the member services manager of Family Philanthropy Services at the Council on Foundations.

We’d love for you to share your ideas on how we might move forward individually or collectively to meet the challenges posed by our Monday plenary speakers. What can philanthropy do about these issues, together? What can a single foundation do? Within your own foundation, are there functions you are moved to do better, to do more, or to do over a longer term?

Please post your reactions, recommendations, and responses to our three impressive guests here. Don’t wait until you get home. Use a few minutes at upcoming conference breaks. Use your waiting time in the airport. Head to the Cyber Café before you leave the conference. Use your iPhones or laptops. Get the dialogue going. We want to hear from you!

Michelle Obama is teaching about gardens, vegetables, and healthy eating. Cameron Diaz is teaching about trees. Three- and 4–year-olds (and their families) are learning about science and math from some of the world’s most effective teachers—Elmo and the gang at “Sesame Street.”

Engineering is showing up in the statewide education standards in Massachusetts and Tennessee, and is ‘coming soon’ in Oregon and Washington. It may even make it into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) bill moving through Congress now.

Engineering—the process of designing and making real stuff that solves real problems—is gaining traction as the entry point into STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education and careers for young students around the country, thanks to the tireless efforts of Yannis Miaoulis and the Museum of Science, Boston. These are some important lessons for those fortunate enough to attend today’s session, “It IS Rocket Science: The Imperative of STEM,” during the Council on Foundations annual conference on Monday in Denver.

But the learning didn’t stop there. Some additional takeaways:

• We do our children a grave disservice when we spend our energies getting them excited about STEM careers, but fail to give them the rigorous education that allows them to pursue those aspirations.
• We remember things from experiences that are highly emotional or highly significant, or with lots of repetition. You can’t teach math every day as though it were a first kiss; some repetition is required.
• A concentrated STEM program is not enough—the overall school culture and rigor is key to success.
• Public engagement to change the conversation around STEM education is critical. We can’t expect our kids to love and do well in science and math if all the adults around them are saying, “Oh, I was never any good at math (or science)! And I haven’t really needed it anyway. …”
• We are in trouble when a brand-new teacher qualified in history is assigned to teach biology at an inner-city Washington, D.C., high school, for which he is qualified solely because he was a finalist in a high school science competition. (Full disclosure: the competition was the Intel Science Talent Search, but even so …) Both the students and the teacher deserve/require better.

Wendy Ramage Hawkins is the executive director of the Intel Foundation.

Corvington isn’t daunted by this challenge because, in his view, people truly want to volunteer—we just have to ask! Volunteering is an idea, and an ideal, that is fundamentally American. In Corvington’s own words, “there is a lot of opportunity to make a difference right now,” and service is the fuel for social change. However, Corvington reminded us that “good effort is not good enough. We must not only try, we must succeed” in our efforts to make sure people have every opportunity for a quality education, a good job, and a meaningful life. His advice for all of us: “Step into the current of history, live lives that matter—of service.”

U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, the 17th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke aloud the audience’s silent question: “We’re hearing from the military. What’s that all about?” When chuckles subsided, Mullen enlightened the audience not only about the importance of military service but also the importance of military servants post-discharge, to the future of America. Did you know that the average age of the 2.2 million enlisted men and women is 20 to 21? Or that many of these young people return home to their communities after discharge still in their 20s with potential for many future contributions, including service to communities? Here’s the issue: Veterans are often invisible in our communities.

Despite a robust new GI Bill, and the traditional services of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, vets can get lost in the shuffle of government programs and community services when they are discharged and return home. Perhaps those with physical challenges are more visible. But Mullen shared these sobering statistics: an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 individuals and families suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome; the number of homeless men and women has escalated well beyond what our country experienced after Vietnam; and the number of suicides has doubled since 2004. His advice to foundations and nonprofit organizations: Reach out to veterans, include them in service delivery programs that already exist in most communities to deal with housing, mental health, education access, workforce development and more. Use colleges as a point of access. “We all want the same thing: to raise our children to a higher standard of living, and to do it in peace,” Mullen said.

Kathy Merchant is the president and CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation.

Here at the Council on Foundations annual conference, corporate grantmakers have been discussing taking traditional CSR further. We’ve discussed how we can use the power of all of our corporate assets—our products, processes, and people as well as philanthropy—to maximize our business goals as well as make lasting changes for the better in society. 

Some companies are leading the way in aligning philanthropic giving with CSR efforts. Others are just beginning this process. We discussed ways in which we can move toward this vision. Those that have had success indicate that moving toward “authentic CSR” is by no means an easy process. It takes a willingness to change. It may be easier if driven by the business rather than the foundation. It may take a new governance structure to coordinate various aspects of the business to achieve broad CSR goals, and community engagement staff may require new competencies.

As our colleague from Hitachi Foundation—Barbara Dyer—pointed out, while we seek to align CSR and business goals, one should not forget the value our more traditional philanthropic giving has and the impact it has made. For example, Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation has used its modest funding to support the inclusion of young people with disabilities in U.S. society for nearly 20 years, with notable success. There is seemingly no direct connection to Mitsubishi Electric’s business of making social infrastructure, energy and environmental products, and our philanthropic focus on the social welfare of people with disabilities—but does that matter? Our executive leadership and employees believe in the tradition of helping people with disabilities, so we would not aspire to give up that philanthropic focus. 

However, there are ways in which we could direct our giving without conflict of interest to support broader company CSR objectives. Vice versa, the company could strategically adopt policies and practices that could help meet this societal need in other ways than just through traditional philanthropy. In fact, we are already engaged in some of these “shared value” activities. The company makes products, such as elevators, that are universally designed so people with disabilities can be included. The foundation provides grants to organizations that are helping prepare people with disabilities for employment in the green economy. And, Mitsubishi Electric employees mobilize to further both company goals of improving the environment and foundation goals of helping people with disabilities by doing volunteer environmental preservation activities at camps for young people with disabilities.

As corporate giving programs move down this road of aligning CSR with philanthropic activities to achieve maximum impact, we must track best practices and lessons learned to share with the field. We must document outcomes achieved—beyond just philanthropic giving—with the overall impact our companies make in the communities in which we live. Foremost, we must work to achieve shared value as companies focused on growth, and giving programs focused on improving society.

Kevin R. Webb is the director of Mitsubishi Electric America Foundation.

The themes emerging from the session have stuck with me. They include a recognition of our obligation to those who are the most vulnerable; equal opportunity and equal protection; structural change; moving from transaction to transformation; giving a voice to the underrepresented; creating spaces for conversation outside the constraints of our own institutions; and empowering people to engage in civil disobedience. The session was successful in providing some profound reflections while enabling participants to engage in digging more deeply into some of the major questions regarding philanthropy’s role. It was not an easy task for the facilitators to then come back with some common themes, yet they rose to the occasion.

I was struck by the forward-looking attitude of the activists who have dedicated so much of their lives to addressing intractable problems. Rather than looking around in angry despair, their message to the philanthropic community was clear: Look at this moment as the intersection between the past and the future and seize the opportunity to rearrange philanthropy to effectively deal with the problems of poverty, land rights, immigration reform, climate change, human rights, etc., through a more sustained and comprehensive approach. They urged us to envision the world we want to live in, in 10 years, and ask, “What is it going to take to get there?” They also acknowledged that tackling these critical issues will indeed require us to get out from behind our own protective walls and engage with “unlikely bedfellows,” those unlikely allies that are necessary for the approach to be more comprehensive. 

One last item of interest was the recognition of the importance of messaging and investing in more visible and constant communication. In addition to supporting the work of reform, philanthropy ought to also invest more heavily in getting the message out there and keeping it out there. Interestingly, some of the organizations that are putting the “wrong” messages out there are spending 30 percent of their operating budgets on communications and marketing. This question was asked: “How many of our foundations are doing that today?” Not one hand went up.

Eliana Vera is the managing director of Global Philanthropy for the Council on Foundations.

The role for philanthropy in addressing climate change is one for which we all struggle. And it is particularly relevant for this conference’s theme of intersections. There is no other issue that embodies this concept of intersections more aptly than climate change.

Many of the people here are concerned about the controversy in the Senate and the de-prioritization of the upcoming climate-change bill behind immigration reform. We need to move this legislation forward, and it will take our combined efforts to make it happen, at all intersections possible.

In my conversations with Al Gore yesterday evening at a special reception, and this morning at his keynote address, he made clear that there has never been greater urgency on this issue, despite the lack of political will. But, as Gore noted, political will is a renewable resource.

Philanthropy must be creative to chart our new course and overcome the challenges in front of us. Gore points out: “We are in the midst of the greatest intergenerational transfer of wealth in the history of civilization.” This is no small moment of opportunity.

So, the question still stands: How are we to be the best stewards of the resources we have at hand?

One thing is clear. We must remain steadfast to a long-term vision for social change, social justice, and social innovation. Gore noted our tendency toward the quarterly or annual time frame. This is just not going to do it. We must change this cycle, and the rewards attached to it.

Climate change is ultimately an issue of justice, and its “intersectionality” affects each of us in our missions, no matter what the particular theme. Tasteless, odorless, difficult to define. This is a crisis that requires immediate and coordinated, integrated action.

Gore stressed that our role as philanthropists is to bring people together, to unlock the fire that feeds the drive for social change, justice, and innovation. We must reason and communicate together to reach a shared understanding—to create the platform for action that is required of us all.

There are many resources available to us in this journey. For example, the Climate and Energy Funders Group of the Consultative Group on Biological Diversity. I hope you will connect and plant the seeds for more innovative ways forward during your time here.

“Make no mistake,” Gore says, “This intersection of change is present right now.”

Chet Tchozewski is the founder and president emeritus of the Global Greengrants Fund.

The moderator was Gara LaMarche, fresh off his closing plenary address at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy National Conference. (Gara, my latest Facebook friend, should be made an honorary millennial for his zeal for technology and obvious fluency with social networking tools.)

My initial big draw to this session was green movement rockstar and Green for All founder Van Jones (don’t try to deny it, it was for you, too!). Turns out, Van was only one of nine bright lights on stage, part of an incredible lineup of passionate and brilliant activists, advocates, and philanthropy folks. Any one of them would have made a terrific plenary speaker, and hats off to Council on Foundations and session designers for convening such an inspiring group. All had varying views of what social justice meant to them.

Van, who is “hanging out at Princeton” after an all-too-brief stint in the Obama administration, believes it is enshrined in the Pledge of Allegiance: “liberty and justice for all.” Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change believes the three pillars of social justice philanthropy are:

1. A moral focus on people who are most marginalized in society
2. A commitment to organizing and empowerment
3. A commitment to structural change

This session was packed with thought-provoking conversation, but I’ll hit a few highlights that stood out for me:

• Connie Rice of the Advancement Project said we need to give marginalized communities the power, capacity, and lawyers needed to make change. She challenged us to think of how we can connect the provision of direct service with the bigger picture of the need for comprehensive social change. This idea of helping philanthropy move from being transactional to transformational sparked much debate about the value of funding direct service versus policy and advocacy change.
• Kumi Naidoo, the South African head of Greenpeace, said philanthropic dollars disproportionally go to micro-level service delivery instead of macro issues of fundamental transformation.
• Akwasi Aidoo of TrustAfrica offered an interesting counterpoint that you can’t neglect context; direct service can be a critical part of the social justice continuum. The example he offered was of enabling Nigerian girls to go to school, which sets them on an entirely different life path. Helping may start as service delivery but doing so can be transformative, depending on the strategy used.

The panel offered advice to funders wanting to support social justice:

• Take your allies where you can find them, no matter how unlikely.
• Figure out what type of world, 10 or 20 years from now, that you want to live in—and think about what it will take to get there. What does it mean to play to win?
• Invest in the vision of strong leaders and organizations and stick with them over the long haul; only “foolanthropy” would think we can make meaningful change in the short term.
• Fund more strategic media outreach and training for progressive organizations.
• Read the ubiquitous “Change Philanthropy” book.

There was also a heated discussion of the use of metrics in the social justice field. Is it appropriate or fruitful to use metrics to measure social progress? Kumi said that social justice is a process, not the delivery of a set of products. Akwasi shared that in his native Ashanti, the word for measurement is both a quantitative and qualitative concept, and that we should look beyond the numbers to determine what the new narrative or story or reality is. Eboo Patel of the Interfaith Youth Core urged us all to focus on the bigger picture of determining what success looks like. What are the strategies to get to it, how long will it take to reasonably get there, and what will it cost?

Keep looking for the blue “SJ” symbol for more great sessions in this vein throughout the annual conference!

Caroline Altman Smith is the program officer at The Kresge Foundation and board chair of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy.

Is that the question our grandchildren will be asking us in 30 or 40 years—after climate change has continued to wreak havoc across the planet? Or will they be thanking us for our foresight and commitment to long-term thinking and vision? So asked former Vice President Al Gore in his keynote address to Council on Foundations annual conference attendees on Monday morning.

Gore issued a challenge and had advice for funders. While his greatest passion was reserved for a discussion of climate change, Gore sounded a broad theme about the collective challenge facing democratic capitalism and spoke of the need to think long-term. From a riff on the pre-Gutenberg era, through the Enlightenment, to the rise of the television age, Gore focused on long-term vision and the perils of focusing short-term.

His criticism included not just shortsighted energy and environmental policies, but a campaign finance system run amok, investment bankers who pursued short-term gain over long-term societal needs, and indeed about all of us who pick short-term quick fixes over the long-term. And we in philanthropy shouldn’t feel immune from the criticism. How many of us think short-term in our investments and demand that grantees show their results in an unreasonably brief period of time? How many of us haven’t really acted on the need to think and do differently when it comes to climate issues?

I don’t know if the role of philanthropy is more important than ever, as Gore suggests. I do know that we can play a critical role, and we must follow his advice to think long-term—in investments, grants, and policy. Will we be able to look back in 20 years and say that we really did something to address the big challenges of our day? Or will we be talking about “Dancing with the Stars”?

Stuart Comstock-Gay is the president and CEO of the Vermont Community Foundation.

Barbara Chow of the Hewlett Foundation started off the conversation with five suggestions of how funders can be effective in policy change. While aimed at education leaders, these suggestions could apply to almost every philanthropic effort:

• Provide risk capital by funding interventions and strategies that are bold but might fail and then sharing our successes AND our failures with others.
• Help develop evidence by supporting impartial efforts to collect and analyze evidence to inform policy change.
• Make tangible the effects of policy by providing opportunities for policy-makers to see and understand the realities in a classroom that relate to policies they are considering.
• Fund advocacy by moving dollars to directly support independent leaders engaging in federal advocacy work, so it can be a core part of their work.
• Support technical assistance. While the least glamorous, it is important to fund efforts that translate policy decisions into effective action.

This guidance sparked a host of reactions that I will apply to my education advocacy and funding efforts:

• Ann Segal from Wellspring Advisors pointed out that while research overwhelmingly shows that early childhood social/emotional development is as important as cognitive skill development, this “soft side” work is still largely unfunded in federal education interventions.
• Stephanie Stanford of the Gates Foundation pointed out the paradox of evaluation in the federal education policy. She said that if you innovate and don’t measure, you don’t know if you’ve been successful. But if you measure (for example, with test scores), you narrow incentives to innovate to tactics that will move the measure, and thus limit the possibilities for major innovative change. Sanford also offered a very interesting analogy. She said that when developing common standards, we face the iPod challenge to create a shared platform (the iPod or standards) that allow for innovative implementation (apps or experimental curricula).
• John Jackson of the Schott Foundation made his point about resource insufficiency and equity vividly clear when he noted: “We have a goal to shoot towards the moon, but our education resources set us on trajectory to run into a two-story building.”

Jackson’s question should be a challenge for all funders and advocates of education reform. How can we effectively situate the question of equity at the heart of the ESEA authorization? If quality education is a civil right, as President Obama has said, what investments must we make to ensure that that civil right is met for all students and how can competition for resources (like Race to the Top) align with the universal expectations of a civil right?

Jason Franklin is a board member of the North Star Fund, deputy director of the 21st Century School Fund and lecturer on public administration at the NYU Wagner School of Public Service.

Christy Pichel and Davis Campbell described how the Stuart Foundation has moved beyond the usual, easily available metrics to get a handle on effectiveness. For example, the foundation surveys its grantees regularly and looks at how it performs relative to other funders. The foundation learned that grantees valued deeply its program officers’ expertise—and wanted more of their time and help. The result was board approval of the hiring of additional staff.

In the area of child welfare, Stuart is seeking better life outcomes for foster youth in California but recognized that the state lacked an adequate data system. So the foundation made an investment that has led to the creation of a database that allows the foundation—as well as grantees and government officials—to track the efficacy of efforts to help foster youth establish lifelong connections with caring adults. Stuart Foundation can now monitor whether its child welfare strategy is working. (For more on this, see CEP’s case study on Stuart.)

Performance assessment for foundations is challenging (much more so than for businesses or operating nonprofits). And, as Christy and Davis noted, you can’t understand your effectiveness if you don’t have an articulated strategy. It’s tough work—as another California foundation CEO, Jim Canales of the James Irvine Foundation, has discussed on the CEP Blog in recent days.

But I wonder: Is there a more central board responsibility than assessing a foundation’s effectiveness? I am not sure there is. Let’s hope more and more foundation boards and CEOs follow the lead of funders like Irvine, Stuart, Wallace, RWJF, and others and vigorously push for the data that will enable them to answer that deceptively simple question: “How are we doing?”

Disclosure: CEP provides assessment tools and/or receives grant support from the foundations mentioned in this post.

Phil Buchanan is the president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy.

This morning, at its annual pre-conference Opening Session for Corporate Grantmakers, over 60 corporate foundations and giving programs gathered to engaged in a dialogue, “Beyond Philanthropy: The Opportunities and Challenges of Shared Value.”Drawing from a framework presented by FSG Social Impact Advisors, the audience heard from their peers and leading companies including McKesson, Cisco, and Levi Strauss about creating shared value— when a company takes ownership over a social problem integral to the company’s long-term success and leverages all its assets and expertise against this problem. This approach is emerging as the next iteration beyond strategic philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – one where the foundation and its dollars becomes but one tool available to maximize social impact. Participants affirmed that this trend that has been percolating for the last ten years has arrived: the shift will be dramatic and disruptive.

For the leaders in the room steeped in corporate philanthropy, the case for aligning business assets with philanthropic resources for shared value presents game-changing opportunities. Participants were at various stages along the journey of transitioning to a shared value approach. But the panelists and other companies were candid about the very real challenges and risks presented by going down this road.

Embedding social change goals into the business is a messy and iterative process. It’s a concept that may be surprisingly tough for those on the business side to grasp. A foundation that catalyzes this shift will require building trusting relationships internally, as well being comfortable with the ambiguity of what might come at the end of the road. It takes incremental steps and a timeframe that may be at odds with the on-demand results of business. But, perhaps this level of “chaos” is healthy and may reflect that you’ve moved into a mature space, and are asking the right, tough questions.

Whether your company is ready to implement this shift or not (and it may not be a relevant approach for everyone), it is important as a sector for us to deliberate about the implications for our field, and for the philanthropic leaders that drive this work from within companies. The more we wrestle with these issues together, the better off we’ll be.

Elizabeth Sullivan is the director of Corporate Services at the Council on Foundations.

Moderator: Susan Dentzer
Presenters: Kati Haycock- President, Education Trust; David Williams, Professor of African and African American Studies and of Sociology, Harvard University; Derek Yach, SVP, Global Health Policy, PepsiCo; Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO, PolicyLink

First, Americans should be healthier.  Not only because we spend more on health than other countries and are not keeping pace in our health outcomes, but also for economic reasons.  Professor Williams showed us a slide that said if all Americans had the same health as college educated Americans, the US economy would gain $1 trillion annually.  Can we use the idea of economic gains to spur more people into action?

Second, it seems to all come down to education.  A mother’s education status affects her children’s health status; a child’s education level affects his or her health status, and so on.  Ms. Haycock repeated a bold statement about prioritizing funding for high achieving teachers in low-income communities, rather than funding school-based health clinics in order to best address the health of students.

The main take-away was that health funders need to greatly expand their notion of the types of investments that should be included in their grant portfolios.  Funding high-performing teachers, affordable housing, transportation, job training, education, food policy, urban planning, recreation, and so on, are all critical if we truly hope to achieve a healthy America.

Carrie Varoquiers is the president of the McKesson Foundation.

According to the discussion during the conference session, “Social Innovation: What it is and what it means for Philanthropy,” it turns out that after 4000-plus mousetrap patents, the most effective and bestselling mousetrap is one of the first traps designed, thereby destroying the adage that if you build a better mousetrap people will beat a path to your door!

According to Rodin and Hargadon, who’ve studied and spearheaded plenty of successful innovations, success requires a network of stakeholdershardwired to contribute, spread and continuously improve philanthropy’s work.  It can be an old idea thought about in a new way, but it must engage.  As Rodin said, “If you want impactful answers, ask everyone.”

So what are we to do as philanthropic leaders?  Our challenge and opportunity is to create a culture that requires connectivity, that rewards risk taking, and asks, “What mistakes have you made lately?” and welcomes a positive response.

Innovation in philanthropy demands transparency, sharing and collaboration.  Hargadon ended his remarks saying: “The future is already here. It’s just unevenly distributed.” Philanthropy can even out that distribution letting everyone share in shaping the future.

Ophelia Basgal is the vice president of community relations at the Pacific Gas & Electric Company.