Michael Alberg-Seberich

How to prevent obesity among teenagers? The Schtifti Foundation (Schtifti is the Swiss German word for a learner or apprentice) in Zurich, winner of the 2012 Feri Foundation Award, has developed unique answers to this question. It has turned the healthy lifestyle into something cool. The foundation has implemented a Web 2.0 campaign reaching around 1.5 million young people in Switzerland. It has brought its ‘freestyle tour’, a combination of sports, exercise and cooking classes, to more than 285 schools. The two donors, Roger Grolimund and Ernesto Silvani, set up a small endowment after they had experienced personal loss in early years. They have turned their fate into an amazing creativity and productivity. The Schtifti Foundation is a unique hub where young people do something for young people. 

Awards recognize engagement. They also indicate trends in a sector. The latter is especially true if a prize has a track record. The Feri Foundation Award wasV awarded for the seventh time on 9 May 2012 in Frankfurt. 184 foundations in Austria, Germany and Switzerland had submitted their applications. The prize is based on a two-step selection process. In a first phase a small committee of Feri representatives and their partners determines six nominees. In the second step a jury discusses the nominees and chooses the winner. The aim of the award is to recognize the civic engagement of donors and to spot innovative ways to pursue philanthropic involvement. Partners of the award are the German Association of Foundations and Active Philanthropy. Feri, initiator and organizer of the award, is Germany’s largest non-bank advisor for private and institutional assets offering financial advice, asset management, economic research and a rating service.

So, you already know the winner of this year’s award. Schtifti Foundation and the other five nominees for the prize are signposts for exciting developments in (German-speaking) foundation land. Let’s have a look at them:

• Bewegungsstiftung – a giving circle of social activists

This foundation is a giving circle of more than 150 like-minded donors from all over Germany. The donors are all convinced that the lever to social change is supporting social movements. The foundation has funded the anti-nuclear-power movement and helped to seed fund new measures to control lobbying. The Bewegungsstiftung has developed an innovative program to financially support people who want to commit most of their time to a cause. In addition, the foundation is one of the most transparent and inclusive ones in regards to its decision-making processes and its endowment.

• Stiftung Biovision – evidence-based, sustainable giving in East Africa

The Zürich-based foundation was initiated by entomologist Prof Dr Hans Rudolf Herren after he had won the World Food Prize in 1998. Professor Herren set up the foundation to combine academic rigour, ecological principles and community-based fieldwork to support a sustainable way of life in rural East Africa. The foundation is an active advocate for the knowledge it gained in its fieldwork at various international organizations. Rigour, expertise, advocacy and community work are the levers used by this foundation for its work in Africa.

• Canopus Foundation – venture philanthropy and solar for all

The vision of the Canopus Foundation is that people in all rural areas of the southern hemisphere can have easy access to electric light produced by solar energy. The foundation’s work is based on the principles of venture philanthropy. It has conducted a worldwide business plan competition to identify suitable entrepreneurs to fulfil the vision. The competition resulted in the set up of an investment fund that will help proven concepts to scale. Now the foundation focuses its efforts on providing philanthropic capital to those entrepreneurs with a good idea that still need to show that their technology, business idea works.

• Kölner Gymnasial- und Stiftungsfonds – old, innovative and community minded

This foundation was founded in 1422 to provide scholarships for students at the University of Cologne. Over time the foundation turned into a foundation of foundations, and hosts 278 foundations today. Over the last 15 years the foundation has extended its grantmaking portfolio. Besides university students it now supports disadvantaged young people in schools. In addition the foundation has extended its services to donors to serving as a foundation manager committed to the local community. This is a fascinating example of how commitment and innovation can be based on tradition.

• Stiftung Menschen für Menschen – Karlheinz Böhms Äthiopienhilfe – long-term support for Ethiopia

In the German-speaking world many people know the actor Karlheinz Böhm. He is a cultural icon of Germany’s economic miracle. At the beginning of the 1980s the actor decided to commit his life to supporting people in Ethiopia. The foundation has supported the setting up of hundreds of schools, medical centres and other services for the local population. The foundation’s long-term commitment to the country is deeply rooted in local communities in Ethiopia. The organization is an example of how celebrities can initiate and support lasting positive change.

The trends represented by the nominees can be summarized in the following way:

• Foundations as single-issue NGOs that actively fundraise.
• Foundations as social entrepreneurs.
• Foundations are actively experimenting with the lever of advocacy.
• Foundations see the potential of new investment forms and of using the entrepreneurs’ toolbox.
• Foundations – even mid-sized and smaller ones – are concerned with international issues.
• Foundations recognize the importance of community-based engagement.

I think these trends are exciting! Let’s hope that these and all the other smaller foundations out there will influence the way overall philanthropy is conducted in the future.

Michael Alberg-Seberich is managing partner at Active Philanthropy

Hilda Vega

We were excited to read Angela Kail’s recent post on New Philanthropy Capital’s theory of change (TOC) report, in particular because we were preparing to co-facilitate a session on using theory of change at the recent Pacific Northwest Global Donors Conference. Our session sought to make a case for using a theory of change in the best possible way, which (in the humble opinion of the authors) is whatever manner makes most sense for the user.

At the conference, we each shared our experiences with theory of change and then asked the session participants to work in small groups on one member’s theory of change (for their philanthropy, a project or an organization). As Kail noted in her post, this exercise made clear that ‘the value lies as much in the process as in the result itself’. Putting to paper one’s plans, ideas and assumptions helps both clarify intentions and bring out key questions to ensure that we are truly planning for change, not just hoping to get there on the genius of our good intentions.

Two tales of theory of change in action

When Hilda began the theory of change process for a foundation client, it was purely by chance. The foundation had decided to launch a new program area, but the board members felt they needed something very explicit to help them talk about what the foundation would and would not fund in this area. In a parallel event, this client’s grantees had asked for more detailed information on what the foundation’s specific outcomes were, so that they could help the foundation achieve them. So Hilda developed a detailed theory of change that helped the board and staff talk about this new area of funding and also enabled grantees be more involved in the larger process of what the foundation hoped to achieve in the short and long term. The client approved the theory of change and Hilda now works with board and grantees to assure its implementation and monitor the progress towards the outcomes the TOC identified.

When IDEX started thinking about its theory of change last year, they already had strong monitoring mechanisms in place for feedback and data collection, reporting and sharing information which had been developed with partner input. So IDEX decided to ask the question, ‘How do we know this partnership model is really working?’. IDEX hired an external evaluator who picked a theory of change-based method as the most suitable to test assumptions and impact. Through an easily accessible online survey and one-on-one interviews, the evaluation yielded a great deal of rich information indicating that partners gave a strong endorsement of IDEX’s model of authentic partnership and that there was strong support for the values that IDEX embodies and personifies. Results confirmed that partners consider IDEX’s model critical to building stronger alliances and linkages to other social change organizations and movements in their local areas and internationally. All of this learning now influences IDEX’s next phase of its own development and focus, and Vini found this approach to be particularly helpful to IDEX since it allowed the organization to examine its role in addressing root causes of social problems and for testing the power dynamics inherent within the grantmaking relationship.

Sometimes the process is uncomfortable

When participants engaged in this process during our session, there was clearly great interest and lots of active contribution to the exercise, but the process was lengthy and there was lots of back-and-forth within the audience and many questions for the facilitators. In reflecting on the session, members commented that the questions about the strategy and outcomes of work that they are passionately committed to seemed like criticism at some points, and the process forced them to use a different lens to analyze their vision of social change. The purpose of this type of group exercise was certainly not to criticize anyone’s strategy, but to encourage the type of questioning that engages donors more meaningfully in their philanthropy and that helps invest them in the work of their grantee partners. By understanding their own motivations and expectations, donors can better articulate grantmaking ideas with their grantees and form partnerships that allow stakeholders to achieve common goals.

Theories of change: everything and nothing

‘Take a little time to review the literature on theories of change and you’ll discover, as I did, that theories of change are everything and they are nothing,’ Albert Ruesga notes in his essay Philanthropy’s Albatross: Debunking Theories of Change. This is sad, but often true. It also doesn’t need to be the case. Our session participants wondered about the name, the format and even the cost in time and dollars of undertaking a theory of change process. All of these questions are valid and must be considered when deciding to engage in such a project. A theory of change should not be a burden, or more work than the outcomes it would produce.

We encouraged our session participants to embrace the idea that a basic map of their vision and some core steps for how to get there should help them move forward, can take various forms (narrative, diagram, matrix, etc.) and can really be called whatever seems to best fit their work. And if this doesn’t help a donor move the work along, then they shouldn’t do it.

The key to making the process work for you

At the end of our session we asked participants to pick a side and argue a defence of their position on using a TOC. One side of the room was for members who believed that some form of a theory of change would help them in their work as donors, while on the other side participants stated that the process was a drain of time and resources with little value to add to their work. Both arguments are equally valid depending on what a donor needs and how they chose to invest their funds.

Theories of change, nonetheless, can be especially useful to those new to the game, perhaps a bit less so to the experienced leaders who were the focus of Ruesga’s article. The key is to make the theory of change what you and your work need it to be, not the other way around.

Hilda Vega is senior advisor at Strategic Philanthropy, Ltd

Vini Bhansali is executive director of IDEX

Geoff Burnand

The convening power of SOCAP  hit Malmo between 8 and 10 May, offering dozens of leading-edge keynotes, panels, workshops and co-created sessions. Billed as ‘Designing the Future’, the conference attracted delegates from as far afield as California, South Africa and Australia. It bought together valuable strangers, from young idealistic entrepreneurs to experienced investors, world-renowned scientists and academics to policymakers. It also served as an important statement about Sweden’s ambition to become known as one of the leading lights in Europe with regard to social innovation.

Perhaps not surprisingly for a conference based in Scandinavia, the core themes were to do with the best creative solutions to the complex interconnected issues of youth employment, immigrant inclusion and providing for the needs of a growing ageing population. New kinds of public–private partnership were discussed, using innovative new models of social enterprise and impact investing. The developments in the UK, particularly around social bond finance, were especially highlighted.

Despite the fact that there is no end in sight for the economic and fiscal crisis that is gripping many parts of the developed world, the growth of impact investing is a great opportunity to raise significant funds and share knowledge. However, a major challenge is the lack of absorptive capacity for capital. Many investors struggle to find good opportunities to invest in for both impact and a reasonable return. Several delegates were of the view that the sector is entering another phase of building the marketplace that may still take several more years.

Perhaps for this reason, less well represented at this conference were institutional and retail wealth managers. Contrasting views about this were expressed. One view was that while this group are increasingly seeing this market as an opportunity, they are also content for much of the hard early-stage development work and business models to be tested by the social finance sector first. An alternative view expressed by some social pioneers was that engagement with this group of investors will force an unacceptable dilution of their social mission, so alternative ways to distribute impact investments need to be anticipated and developed.

Many delegates were agreed that it is vital that the social finance intermediaries are sufficiently well capitalized to develop the range of services for the market to become more sustainable and to reach scale effectively. A proposal that all foundations should devote 20 per cent of their endowments towards programme related investments by 2020 was well received.

The conference provided many examples of ambitious social entrepreneurs choosing to take great risks for little potential financial reward but tremendous potential social value. These firms must develop and refine their models by trying them out the hard way, in an unforgiving low-margin marketplace. The role of philanthropy in closing this pioneer gap was well recognized, and there is almost certainly more potential to develop structures that combine both traditional philanthropy and impact investment.

SOCAP Malmo was a well-organized, friendly event and a great opportunity to collaborate and discuss new ideas. As might be expected, it was an inspiring environment, with many interesting conversations held off stage. Fortunately not all of these were captured by the team of videographers who roamed the conference to interview participants.

Geoff Burnand is Chief Executive of Investing for Good and Head of Funds at Social Investment Business.

The project builds on the growing presence of both partners in the microfinance sector and particularly in Africa. Part of the World Bank Group, IFC is now among the world’s top three investors in microfinance and has supported, with either resources or advice, pioneers in mobile financial services such as WIZZIT in South Africa, MTN in Nigeria and Airtel in Madagascar. The MasterCard Foundation, for its part, is becoming increasingly prominent in microfinance, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, since its founding in 2006, having forged partnerships worth more than $230 million.

For more information
http://mastercardfdn.org
www.ifc.org

Darin McKeever

This year’s Council on Foundations conference in Los Angeles  (29 April – 1 May) did not have an official tagline, so in hindsight I would like to nominate one: Resilience & Reinvention.

True to its Southern California location, the conference gave us glimpses of Hollywood artists and their interests beyond their crafts. Those present will not soon forget Sheryl Lee Ralph’s humour and candour, Geena Davis’s data-driven mindset, or Mandy Moore’s passion for Population Services International. But beyond the celebrity spottings, networking and dancing, an uncomfortable tension ran beneath the sessions: the world in which philanthropy is pursued is shifting and we still haven’t made up our minds about how we will shift in response.

Austerity measures contemplated and implemented at all levels of government are yielding to more fundamental questions about the terms of the social contract and partnerships between sectors. ‘Big Data’ and ‘Open Data’ initiatives by public and private institutions are recalibrating the benefits and risks of transparency and even the possibility of anonymity. An ‘Aspiring CEO’ track was a reminder of the next generation waiting to take on new leadership mantles. And there was hallway talk that groups like the Council on Foundations must not only navigate leadership transitions – and I think we all wish the Council’s new CEO Vikki Spruill well – but also wrestle with more fundamental challenges to business models as social media facilitates networking and professional development opportunities that conferences and trade associations used to have more of a monopoly on.

We are frequently faced with challenging transitions – as individuals, cities, countries and sectors. The conference’s opening and closing plenaries brought that point to life in vivid colour. In the first plenary, we were asked to consider three case studies of philanthropy’s response to US cities in crisis: Los Angeles after the 1992 riots, New Orleans after Katrina, and Detroit after the slow, steady hollowing out of America’s auto manufacturing capital. At the conference’s close, the audience was treated to rapid-fire ‘Ignite’ talks, each challenging us to reconsider assumptions about the way philanthropy works in light of new technologies, insights into human behaviour, or expectations of public-minded institutions.

But beyond this reminder, the opening and closing plenaries also suggested to me something more interesting.  During times of crisis and change, both resilience and reinvention are celebrated. Sometimes we take pride in our capacity to spring back quickly into our former shape. Other times we toast our ability to transform ourselves and our institutions. As I listened to the panellists, particularly on the opening day, I was struck by how some told a story of rebuilding their city while others talked of building something altogether new.

Resilience and reinvention are not the same. Resilience emphasizes the survival of past habits, patterns and relationships. Reinvention emphasizes the development and adoption of new behaviours and arrangements.  On reflection, I don’t think the sector is of one mind about how to approach the times of crisis and change it now faces. I recognize a lot of people within individual organizations are using these times to wrestle with tough issues, but I fear that our collective ambivalence to these questions may ultimately get us nowhere. Will we embrace new ways of working and – as Marian Urquilla of Living Cities in one conference session said of one change management effort – appropriately mourn the passage of the old ways? Or will we seek comfort in the familiar, fully acknowledging the path not taken?

Darin McKeever is Deputy Director, Charitable Sector Support, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Caroline Hartnell

According to president and CEO Jamie Cooper-Hohn, in a recently published interview for Alliance, two things make the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation’s (CIFF’s) approach ‘a substantial divergence from the norm of development funding’: first, the fact that they look at their funding as an investment, so they insist on real clarity about impact from the outset. The second is their business approach, which means accepting that nothing ever quite works out as it did in the business plan, so they may have to constantly course-correct to get to the end goal.

The June issue of Alliance will have a special feature looking at opportunity and risk for foundations, focusing particularly on opportunity and what we are calling ‘high risk/high gain’ activities. One thing that particularly interests me here is the relationship between this ‘clarity about impact from the outset’ and the likelihood of a foundation taking risks. Cooper-Hohn insists this does not make CIFF less likely to undertake risky funding, just more careful about making decisions. ‘Clarity about success is something we can’t do without in any field,’ she says. In the past they’ve ‘done it the other way and had it all go wrong’ … ‘we know it’s because we didn’t spend enough time on understanding whether our goals were realistic or not.’

She also stresses that you can’t look at their portfolio and argue that they don’t take risks. She cites one of their first investments, which was providing antiretroviral care in agreement with the government in India before the national government had a policy of care. ‘People talked about it as taking out a mortgage that we could be stuck with forever.’

The cover of the June issue of Alliance has a picture of Christopher Columbus’s ship on its way to discovering the ‘New World’. As Rebecca Adamson, founder of First Peoples Worldwide, and I write in our joint editorial, we see the explorer’s fragile ship as providing ‘an apt analogy for the sort of ‘high risk/high gain activity that the special feature encourages foundations and philanthropists to embrace. While risky philanthropic ventures do not involve personal risk in the way that the early voyages of exploration did, they can involve great ambition, unknown outcomes, and the danger of failing totally – though not dying in the process.’ Foundations ‘should push themselves to identify the most promising opportunities and take risks to attain them’, concludes guest editor Peter Laugharn of the Firelight Foundation.

So does embracing opportunity mean taking extra risk? Or, as Cooper-Hohn maintains, is clarity about success something we can’t do without in any field? The June issue of Alliance brings together a great collection of foundation leaders and commentators to address this issue, plus the views of a wide range of other development actors on what they want from foundations in the global development arena.

Caroline Hartnell is editor of Alliance.

Bradford Smith

On Thursday 26 April, Brazil’s Supreme Court voted 11-0 in favor of affirmative action. As reported by Latin American News Dispatch: ‘The decision reaffirmed a policy adopted by a number of Brazilian universities to institute the practice of affirmative action in university admissions as a tool to combat racial inequality and improve access to higher education for Brazilians who identify as negro (black) or pardo (brown).’ This is a big win for countless Brazilian activists, scholars, politicians and everyday citizens, but it’s also a win for one of America’s largest and most prestigious philanthropic institutions – the Ford Foundation.

Let’s go back a bit in time. Brazil’s early economic development depended on the slave trade: more slaves were trafficked to Brazil than to the United States. Emancipation came only in 1888, years after other nations in the Americas had abolished slavery. And it came without formal segregation and the kind of civil rights movement that galvanized significant parts of American society. Racial discrimination lived on in more subtle ways under a prevailing ideology of ‘racial democracy’, making it challenging for Brazilians to combat and difficult for outsiders to appreciate.

Enter the Ford Foundation. As early as the late 1970s, Ford supported the first studies linking poverty to race in Brazil. Brazil’s military rulers, having seized power in a 1964 coup, repressed those studies – despite the fact they had been done by a government research institute – fearing that a US-style radical ‘Black Power’ movement would take root in the country. But Ford kept working patiently, supporting scholars who slowly built the statistical proof that no matter what anyone chose to believe, it was impossible to escape the fact that the darker one’s skin, the poorer they were likely to be. When Brazil’s military departed in l985, after 21 years in power, Ford began to support NGOs, the growing ‘Movimento Negro’, and others in Brazil who saw an opportunity to advance the cause of racial equality. Today, some 51 per cent of Brazil’s 191 million people declare themselves to be black or mixed-race in the census.

The Ford Foundation will soon celebrate 50 years in Brazil, and the Supreme Court vote is the culmination, to some degree, of decades of philanthropy. In Brazil that philanthropy spanned the Cold War, a military dictatorship, a rocky return to democracy, economic busts and booms, the flourishing of social movements and the birth of new political parties. Within Ford itself, it spanned the tenure of four foundation presidents, eight country representatives, and as many program officers. It was a style of philanthropy based on values, including a strong belief in diversity and the conviction that working in other cultures requires hiring the right people and trusting them to represent you around the world.

Could anyone have drawn up a logic model or theory of change in 1962 when the Ford Foundation entered Brazil that would have predicted the Brazilian Supreme Court’s vote 50 years later? Was Ford’s role strategic, effective, tactical, catalytic or any of the other adjectives that have come to dominate the discourse on philanthropy? Would it have been possible if Ford had been subject to the narrow interpretation of donor intent from which its critics feel it has strayed?

If we truly believe in philanthropic freedom, we should celebrate Ford’s achievement in Brazil for all it represents about what is unique about philanthropy – the ability to take risks, to remain independent, and to commit to the long term in tackling some of the most challenging issues faced by society. Ford cannot and would not take credit for the enormous economic, political, and societal transformations that have brought Brazil to this moment, but it did make critical choices to invest in people, organizations and ideas along the way.

I admit to not being entirely neutral on this subject: I served as Ford’s Brazil representative from 1991 to 1995. But to have played even a small part in one foundation’s efforts to uphold the rights and opportunities of 97 million Brazilians is an enormous privilege. By any measure, the vote of Brazil’s Supreme Court is the kind of result for which philanthropy is always searching.

Postscript: The WK Kellogg Foundation has also played a historic role in Brazil and in 2009 announced a $25 million pledge ‘to help establish an endowment fund with the Baoba Fund dedicated to racial equality for all Brazilians’.

Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. This article was first published on the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest blog

Ellen Remmer

Given all the opportunities donors have to move themselves to a higher level of strategic thinking and giving, why do some donors never get there or get stuck, particularly at the ‘getting it’ stage? Why do some potential trigger points – such as generational transition or finding a passion – fail to result in strategic giving?

Clearly there is the absence or inverse of the many different contributing factors identified in my previous posts. A sense of overwhelm, lack of time, complacency, discomfort with wealth, isolation from social issues or lack of inspiring role models are some of the critical barriers to strategic giving. Frustration matching one’s ambitions with what is doable (given limited time or money) can also be a factor. Some donors TPI has encountered are stopped by the fear that their philanthropy will actually do more harm than good. In this post – the final one in my series on strategic philanthropy – I highlight several other major hurdles that donors, who may not seem to realize their potential to become more strategic, often face.

Challenging family dynamics – This is the most frequently encountered obstacle to a family giving enterprise’s ability to become strategic. Many of the other promoting factors might be present, but if the family dynamics are challenging, the foundation may be unable to focus on impact and strategy. Typical dynamics issues include unhealthy sibling rivalry, overbearing and controlling parents, a family branch division, and inability to manage conflict and communicate openly. When any of these are present, it becomes difficult for the family to develop a sense of family enterprise and purpose, and personal agendas tend to dominate.

When family dynamics issues crop up after family foundations have practised strategic giving, it may be possible to continue their good practice, particularly if they have strong and credible program staff and long-term grantee relationships, and if they develop mechanisms and processes for managing family conflict. However, we also see some family foundations ‘backslide’ during these crises, as they attempt to mollify unhappy family members.

Isolation and privacy concerns – Some donors are very uncomfortable exposing themselves to the world as ‘philanthropists’ for fear of becoming a target for requests, altering their peers’ perceptions of them, security concerns, etc. As a result, they may surround themselves with advisors, staff or anonymous giving vehicles that serve as a buffer between them and the organizations and issues they want to impact. Privacy concerns may also keep donors from making site visits or becoming personally involved with organizations. This distance is a barrier to becoming engaged in philanthropy, becoming a learner and ultimately a strategic giver.

Some donors are even more isolated and may get no advice or interaction with grantees, peers or advisors who could help them better realize their potential. Most family foundations have family-only boards or have one outside board member who is a paid advisor with little knowledge of the philanthropy field.  This isolation limits the ability of the family to think big or do something different than what they have always done.

Arrogance and cynicism – Whether derived from personality and/or life experience, donors who are cynical about the philanthropic sector, or arrogant about their abilities – and thus do not connect with other donors or grantee organizations in a mutual learning partnership – are severely limited in their ability to be strategic and effective. These donors are not inclined to be learners. When part of a family giving enterprise, they threaten to derail the strategic development process, unless their giving is sequestered. While giving does not require a Pollyanna personality, we believe that enthusiasm and idealism are important supplements to strategic thinking.

Inadequate/imbalanced information – Despite myriad resources available and the information overload so many of us experience, many donors do not have access to the kinds of information that would promote more strategic thinking and action. Donors complain to us that they are frustrated by the absence of information about impact and results – and this limits their philanthropy. Moreover, while the large cultural, health and educational institutions have become increasingly sophisticated in their information delivery, most donors know very little about small, grassroots organizations – who they are and how to judge their effectiveness. A related concern is that the donor conversation is often dominated by development staff at these large institutions who (1) may encourage edifice giving and discourage strategic giving; (2) take up the majority of the donor’s philanthropic dollars, and (3) focus more on donor relations, instead of donor education.

Reluctance to invest in the philanthropy process – Many donors are reluctant to spend money, by paying for staff or consultants, to make their philanthropy more effective. For some, it may feel wrong or immoral to divert funds away from their philanthropy, and they may be skeptical that such investment will increase their philanthropic impact. For others, they only find satisfaction and meaning from philanthropy when they have a personal, hands-on engagement in the giving. While the latter is quite laudable, it can also be unrealistic when the donor has inadequate time and/or skills, and the scale of their philanthropic funds is significant.

What other obstacles have you, as a donor or advisor, faced in moving towards more strategic giving?

Ellen Remmer is CEO and president of The Philanthropic Initiative

Check out David’s blog post for what he’s up to – here’s a short list of what he’s aiming to post.

‘I commit to publishing a blog post within 15 days of the signing of a grant agreement that I have facilitated between Omidyar Network and a partner organization.

The blog post will contain the following information:

• Amount of grant
• Date that grant agreement was signed
• Name and link to receiving institution and other organizations involved in the project
• Name and link to co-funders
• Summary of grant
• Contextual analysis of related issues
• Metrics to gauge the impact of the grant
• Date and manner that the relevant project will be evaluated’

He goes on to note that he’ll be using the IATI schema and will get to the XML version of this information soon.

I jumped at this news and hope to speak with David next week to learn more. In the meantime, we have a responsibility to help David’s efforts succeed. Let’s use his effort to push further on our own transparency initiatives. It’s a great opportunity for Glasspockets to chime in, for other grantmakers to think about their information sharing and for the rest of us to use the information that does get provided. It’s great that one grantmaker has committed to put this information out there – but transparency improves practice only when the information is used. We need others to follow David. Perhaps you’d like to surpass him, you’re not going to let him get away with this ‘throw down challenge’ as most transparent, are you?!

We need activists and grantees to respond, request, use the info; we need sites that can mash grantmaker data with public information, political giving, results data, other financial flows, etc. We do need to focus, as Phil Buchanan of CEP notes, on ‘the transparency that matters’. As important as what we share is why we share it and what we do with it. In other words, transparency is part of a series of behavior, actor and organizational changes (it’s part of institutional conversations) not just ‘another thing to do’.

We need to see the sharing of the info as the first step in a conversation that aims toward better results.

Thanks, David, for your efforts. Everyone else, how will you use the information and join the conversation – what will you do to be more transparent?

Lucy Bernholz is the author of the blog philanthropy2173, where this article first appeared.

Kristin Majeska

The other day a small bronze plaque in the brick of our town’s modest (but wonderful) public library stopped me dead. The plaque read ‘This building is a gift of Andrew Carnegie to the City of Waterville, AD 1905’. ‘107 years later’, I thought, ‘in an era of Kindles and games on telephones, here’s my son, skipping along happily because he just picked out five easy readers from the library shelves.’ Carnegie’s gift of 1,689 free public libraries across the US still fosters education and opportunities today.

Barcelona’s magnificent concert hall, the Palau Música Catalana, would not have been built without gifts from wealthy industrials who added to the money collected by Barcelona’s citizens in 1908. After 104 years, more than half a million people annually still enjoy performances beneath the stained glass skylight of the exuberant modernista-style hall.

What makes a great gift 100 years later? The first images that rushed through my head were of buildings. But fabulous buildings are neither necessary nor sufficient for great, lasting gifts. Yes, Jane and Leland Stanford donated the land and structures that made up the university they named for their deceased son in 1891. But it’s also because of their philosophy, involvement and commitment to paying the university’s costs and initially offering free tuition that Stanford University is now one of the top centres for higher learning in the world

Then I thought of Chicago’s Hull House, which operated for 123 years before its recent bankruptcy. Its founder, the social reformer Jane Addams, brought in private donors to support a new model of neighborhood community services that built bridges between working-class immigrants and the middle class. This social activist model gave rise to the modern figure of ‘social worker’, spawned 500 similar programs and led to social reforms from the creation of juvenile courts to unemployment compensation and child labour laws.

In a different arena, National Geographic, a key actor in research, popular education and protecting the earth and fragile communities throughout the world, thrives today thanks to gifts and leadership from the lawyer and philanthropist Gardiner Greene Hubbard beginning in 1888.

What make those gifts so valuable to us even after 100 years? A few thoughts:

• They respond to stirring, ambitious dreams: a belief that every person should have free access to books, a vital and visible Catalan cultural movement, a school in the backwater of California that could rival Harvard and MIT, a vision that middle- and working-class people could be powerful allies for improving conditions for all.
• They could evolve to stay relevant: the photos of National Geographic magazine have always been groundbreaking, as are their videos today, Andrew Carnegie gave free rein to communities to introduce the changes they needed, the Palau now hosts world-class musicians from across the globe, Jane Stanford handed the reins of the university over to a board of trustees that has overseen its dramatic expansion, Hull House left behind its residential model and adapted to the needs of modern immigrants.
• Those who benefit have the opportunity to enrich what the funders began: Stanford alums secured a legal decision that enabled the university to continue in the 1900s and are very generous donors today, Hull House operated on the principle that all community members pitch in, Carnegie mandated that every community levy taxes to purchase books and operate the libraries he build on their behalf.

What other characteristics should we keep in mind as design our gifts to be ‘great’ 100 years from now?

Kristin Majeska is partner at Philanthropic Intelligence.