Every year I update my Facebook status with a few suggestions for my favorite charities to consider for my friends’ end-of-the-year giving. The last couple of years, a few folks have responded by saying they wish they could give, but they are broke as a result of our poor economy. I totally get this. It’s been rough for most everyone (the 1% notwithstanding), and it’s hard to imagine giving away a resource that is so scare and so needed by yourself or your family. However, this is the time when any amount you can give will make the most difference. Most charities and non-profit organizations are suffering from a year-over-year decline in individual and government donations. This is exactly the time when your 20, 40, 100, or 500 bucks will go futher and have more impact than ever before. Most non-profit organizations I know are wizards at managing money. Although the conventional wisdom usually tries to say otherwise, that non-profits are bad at managing their organizations like businesses, my personal and professional experiences tell me exactly the opposite. Non-profits leaders manage to squeeze more out of a dollar than anyone I have ever known. Most run highly efficient and highly effective enterprises on a fraction of the budget that a for-profit could ever imagine. So, think about the causes you love, the friends who work for non-profits, and the activities your kids enjoy, and spend whatever you can afford to support them today. (BTW, if you want to join the conversation, friend me at Walden Philanthropy Advisors, Inc. or follow me @WaldenPhil.)
Zen and the State of Philanthropy
I’ve been meditating a lot lately on my practice of grantmaking. Maybe it’s the creep of middle age, or the prevalence of all things yoga these days, but I find myself reflecting more frequently on the state of this field that found me two decades ago and became my sort-of chosen career. You see I am old enough a philanthropoid to remember the days when this wasn’t really a “career choice” so much as a stop-over in most people’s “career trajectories.” We chose each other; definitely a reciprocal love affair of many years running now. But as I am having this mid-career assessment of my love object, I find we are, as many couples of longstanding do, having the very same conversations and telling the very same stories as we were twenty years ago. In fact, I confess, that sometimes I am in meetings and I get confused: “didn’t I attend this meeting in 1994? Wasn’t this the same agenda we had in 1999? Weren’t we asking ourselves these same questions in 2002?”. As Susan Sontag used to say, and I paraphrase, the pleasure of forgetting is that you are always learning everything anew again. However, in philanthropy, there is a real danger to forgetting. We change our priorities so much and so frequently that eventually we forget where we have been, the lessons we learned, and why we decided to change in the first place. Institutional memory in philanthropy is a very low-valued commodity. Diversity, evaluation, collective impact (or what we used to call simply, “collaboration”), leverage: important concepts all, but I am sure I can find numerous conference proceedings containing all therein over the past two decades. I am looking for the truly new in my relationship. Is it social impact bonds? Social media donor sites? I don’t know, but I need a jumpstart to my relationship. Send me your ideas.
Promoting Strong Families by Giving to the Arts
Next week I will be hosting a dialogue for the LA advocacy organization, Arts for LA, about how to cultivate individuals of wealth and family foundations to support the arts. Much of my work lately has centered around an approach to supporting kids and their families called Strengthening Families or SF, for short. SF is an evidence-based approach to promoting child well-being by applying what are called “protective factors” to the design and implementation of programs and services aimed at at-risk and underserved kids and their families. The evidence base for this approach has been developed by The Center for the Study of Social Policy with the support of the Doris Duke Foundation and Casey Family Programs. Read More…
Risk, and its Rewards
From time to time, I have the great good fortune to train foundation staff on the art and science of grantmaking. At some point, the discussion will turn to the topic of risk-taking. Foundations are notorious for being risk averse; preferring not to engage in activities that may be deemed controversial or in any way compromise their reputations as generous benefactors of an organization, field, or community. Activities related to community organizing or advocacy, for example, have long been especially avoided by foundations due to their potential to expose the foundation to accusations of rabble-rousing or challenging other important and high-profile community leaders. While it is true that some foundations have become more risk tolerant in recent years, by-and-large, most still hold to a fairly conservative risk profile. Read More…
Learning How to Count
I’ve been reflecting on the usefulness of numbers. Having hit a big birthday milestone last week compelled my friends and family to say, “It’s just a number! Don’t think about it!”. I am all in favor of more birthdays for everyone, but I admit that this one gave me pause. It’s really not just a number. Read More…
Is it Independence Day for Working Families?
Today is July 4th and my mind is turning to the topic of independence in one particular way. I am thinking about the many thousands of working families who are suffering under the worst economic circumstances since the Depression. I know some of these families: a relative who has been unemployed for almost three years, a neighbor who can’t afford to drive his car anymore, a friend in her 40′s who has had to move in with her parents again. All are feeling the stress of no longer being fully financially independent, and the unbearable uncertainty of what will come next in their lives. Read More…
When Foundation Boards Should Spend 20% on Administration
In my last posting, I addressed how a place-based approach to foundation work changes the nature of the role of a Program Officer. It should also change the nature of the entire foundation’s operations. At a meeting earlier this week of the LA Place-Based Funders Learning group, much discussion was had about the need to “internally align” the foundation’s management, governance, and practices to implement this approach. This includes rethinking the role of the program staff, from “grantmaker” to “changemaker,” but also the rest of the foundation’s operations as well. The communications department may create more strategic (as opposed to corporate) communications tools and resources, the finance department may develop PRI’s, pay-for-succcess bonds or other mission investing vehicles, the evaluation department may create a “learning loop” with the foundation’s grantees to promote better and more real-time practice improvements. Read More…
Is a Program Officer an Advocate?
The majority of my foundation clients have adopted a “place-based” strategy to prioritize their grantmaking. This type of grantmaking has come in-and-out of philanthropy vogue over the last 25 years, and most recently has become all the rage as the media and the Obama administration have adopted The Harlem Children’s Zone as the model for comprehensive community initiatives. Read More…
On Lance, Living Strong, and Surviving Cancer
I have loved bikes since I was a little girl and my Dad took me to buy an orange and yellow banana seat cycle. Most of my adult life I have had more than one in the garage. Today there are three; all for different purposes; and I just gave one away. So you can say that I have been an admirer of Lance Armstrong for some time. But today he’s looking like just another in the growing queue of alpha-males-living-compartmentalized-lives we have been reading about the last few weeks. This time, though, it’s personal. Read More…
I am a work in progress
So, I’ve decided to start this blog and this is my first post. Hopefully, over time, those of you who decide to read my occasional posts, will enjoy my take on my chosen field, philanthropy. I’ve already written quite a bit on the subject for numerous publications, all of which are available on my website: www.waldenphil.com. But I’m looking forward to writing here because it’s less formal, and sometimes my ideas and observations are less formed, and more wanting of your feedback and interaction. Also, I am not so technically-versed on how to integrate all of this with Twitter, Facebook, and my website, or how to make the most visually attractive blog. So all of this will evolve and grow over time. Read More…
