Real clarity about impact from the outset vital, says CIFF’s Jamie Cooper-Hohn

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Caroline Hartnell
Caroline Hartnell

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.

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A big win for affirmative action (and philanthropy) in Brazil

Posted on May 8, 2012 by Bradford Smith
Bradford Smith

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

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Road blocks on the path to strategic giving

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Ellen Remmer

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

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The most transparent grantmaker

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Lucy Bernholz

Twitter made my day when I received this:

 

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.

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What makes a great gift… 100 years later?

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Kristin Majeska

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.

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