PhilanTopic

Weekend Link Roundup (February 16-17, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Arts and Culture

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, James Irvine Foundation president and CEO Jim Canales discusses the foundation's new arts strategy, which has received both positive and negative feedback from the nonprofit community. "I admire those who have stepped forward to criticize aspects of our strategy, whether they believe it is wrong on its merits or they view it as yet another example of 'strategic philanthropy' gone awry, where we are dictating and imposing our solutions upon the field," writes Canales. "That is certainly not out intention.

What is different for us in our new Arts strategy is that rather than continuing with a broad-based approach that funded projects across multiple objectives, we made the strategic decision to direct our finite resources in a way that, in our view, will best position the arts field for future viability and success. In doing so, we are openly expressing a point of view about how we think the field must evolve to ensure its dynamism and relevance. Yet, we are very clear about our willingness to learn with our partners in this effort, to refine our approach accordingly, and to help to advance the field's understanding of the many ways to engage a broader cross-section of Californians (in our case) in the arts....

So, please keep the ideas, observations and critiques coming. It's the best way to ensure we can achieve the end we all agree upon: a vibrant, relevant and successful arts field....

Fundraising

The Mertz Gilmore Foundation and NYU Wagner's Research Center for Leadership in Action have issued a new report, Beyond Foundation Funding: Revenue-Generating Strategies for Sustainable Social Change (84 pages, PDF), that's designed to aid social change organizations, funders, and technical assistance providers in discussing and implementing different fundraising and revenue-generating practices.

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks has a few choice words for fundraising consultants who show up at sector conferences with slick PowerPoint presentations designed to shame attendees into contracting their services, but who never, ever reveal whether the campaigns they are so proud of creating actually worked or not.

Impact/Effectiveness

On her blog, Beth Kanter has a few tips for nonprofits struggling to measure "difficult stuff" like social media results and success. Among other things, Kanter suggests that organizations spend time "brainstorming the 'chain of events' of how your organization's strategic use of social media can be a pathway to your organization's overall definition of success or mission."

The Weakonomist reflects on a recent Wall Street Journal article from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-chair Bill Gates in which Gates described how his foundation is working to improve measurement of the problems it has set out to tackle, which in turn improves its understanding of a problem. An approving Weakonomist notes that while "Measuring a problem is sometimes more difficult than finding the solution...this is where more work should be focused."

On the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, Mark Russell takes issue with Gates' argument, which Russell says "reinforce[s] the myth that if only nonprofits would follow the business model, the world would be a better place." Russell goes on to point out that there are any number of measurements that businesses don't track, such as the chemicals used in the hydrofracking process and how those chemicals might affect local residents, and/or information that businesses don't share about the things they do track, such as "who pays for [the] data (and who benefits)." And he closes by reminding us why key stakeholders need to be involved in any measurement process:

In short, to be data savvy is to be a bit of a data skeptic. As [MathBabe blogger Cathy] O’Neill says, there's "power behind a data collection process." Part of that power is to choose what to measure, based on values, or biases, or simply limited resources. As Fay Twersky, director of the Effective Philanthropy Group at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, puts it:..."We cannot evaluate everything, so we choose strategically...."

And in a long piece over at The Nonprofit Quarterly, Rick Cohen argues that mission-related investing is "worthy of recognition and support not just by nonprofits managing large endowments, but by mainstream nonprofits concerned about maximizing the capital markets' support of socially beneficial investment opportunities."

Journalism/Media

On the Humanosphere blog, Tom Paulson weighs in with a thoughtful consideration of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's "strategic media partnerships and concludes that

as journalists and news organizations come to depend increasingly on philanthropies like the Gates Foundation for financial support, it is even more important than ever that we stay focused on our main job -- arguably, pushing for critical analysis and accountability -- and tread carefully when asked to strategically partner with even the most well-intentioned humanitarian in promoting a cause...or solution.

Philanthropy

On the GrantCraft blog, Lisa Philp, the Foundation Center's vice president for strategic philanthropy, discusses the genesis of Next Gen Donors: Shaping the Future of Philanthropy, a companion piece to the just-released Next Gen Donors: Respecting Legacy, Revolutionizing Philanthropy(80 pages, PDF), which found that high-net-worth Gen X and Geny Y (Millennial) individuals are keenly interested in structuring their philanthropy around personal values, measurable impact, and hands-on engagement. A project of GrantCraft, the Johnson Center for Philanthropy at Grand Valley State University, and 21/64, the companion report highlights the "practical wisdom" and insights of next-gen donors with respect to their interest in engagement, new ways of learning, and making a difference sooner rather than later.

Transparency

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz reflects on two recent examples of a foundation confronting its critics publicly. In the first, Irvine Foundation CEO Jim Canales (see above) linked directly to bloggers critical of Irvine's new arts strategy. And in the second, the Knight Foundation said it regretted paying Jonah Lehrer, a journalist who was caught plagiarizing by his employer, The New Yorker, and subsequently fired, $20,000 to speak at a recent Knight-sponsored media seminar. Bernholz said she found herself

considering these two events from a few steps further back. We criticize foundations for being opaque, and mostly they are. Steps toward transparency aren't going to be easy (sounds real good if you say it real fast). Both of these examples involve foundations actually in conversation with publics they could (easily, legally, and rather comfortably) ignore. The more important question for all us may be -- why is that the case?

Water/Sanitation/Hygiene (WASH)

Over at the WASHfunders.org blog, our FC colleagues Nina and Seema share a three-minute video in which Water.org co-founder and award-winning actor Matt Damon pledges to stop using the toilet until more people take the issue of water scarcity seriously. "Aside from publicizing WASH issues, the video aims to inspire people to action," they write, "[and] directs viewers to a new web site, strikewithme.org, where they can learn more about the crisis, and donate their money and social media accounts to the campaign."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And enjoy the long weekend!

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (December 8-9, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Arts and Culture

On its Web site, the James Irvine Foundation unveils a snazzy new infographic format to share what it has learned about arts and arts organizations in California through the work of its Arts Innovation Fund.

Climate Change

In an impassioned post on the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Keeping A Close Eye blog, Lisa Ranghelli urges foundation leaders to get involved in the fight against a warming planet.

Fundraising

On his Future Fundraising Now blog, Jeff Brooks, author of the Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications, provides a timely reminder to fundraisers to "keep calm."

Impact/Effectiveness

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Minnesota Council on Foundations research manager Anne Bauers shares findings from NTEN's The State of Nonprofit Data report, which found that a lack of expertise, issues of time and prioritization, and challenges with technology, among other things, are holding many organizations back from tracking and using data more effectively.

To help organizations looking to close their data skills gap, Beth Kanter, co-author (with KD Paine) of Measuring the Networked Nonprofit, shares some data visualization resources that she's come across recently.

Journalism/Media

On the Knight Foundation blog, Benoit Wirz shares some takeaways -- and questions -- from the recent NewsFoo conference, which brought together leaders in the digital news space to discuss problems and potential solutions for news organizations struggling to make the transition to digital:

1) Building credibility (and engagement) in digital news. Most news publications are not as transparent about their reporters' biases and sources as they could be, and many don't report retroactively on whether pundits/sources got things right or wrong. How can news organizations move toward embedding more credibility into their operations?

2) Improving content recommendations. Today, news consumers learn about content largely through algorithms based on relevance, social recommendations, or as a result of editorial selection. What other ways can news organizations enable the discovery of content?

3) Freeing news content from news sites. News sites capture just 1.1 percent of the total page views on the Web (and even less on mobile). Thus, if content continues to be restricted to news sites, digital ad revenue will remain modest. Can news gathering and reporting operations develop a standard to allow news to be distributed as easily across the Web and mobile platforms as ads are while preserving some benefit for content creators?

4) Scaling media-focused social enterprises (while safeguarding mission). Media companies have traditionally had a source of revenue (advertising) that is not directly tied to content or customers. New socially focused media companies likePolicyMic, Upworthy, and Zeega are trying to build business models that, in addition to ad revenue, include other sources of revenue (e.g., lead generation, content creation). How best to balance these and other potential revenue streams against the needs of the people whose lives they are trying to change?

5) Making data visualization work on mobile. Data visualizations are thirty times as likely to be shared as traditional text articles. Can the industry develop standards to maximize the impact of data visualizations on mobile devices?

Philanthropy

On the New York Times' Opinionator blog, journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tina Rosenberg (The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism) looks at some of the reasons why people give to charity and concludes that, regardless of motivation, "perhaps the most relevant point for most people is that whatever cause moves us, we should be looking for effectiveness."

Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz taps "MOOC" -- Massive, Open, Online Course -- as the ninth philanthropy buzzword of 2012 and says that if any reader of the blog can guess the tenth and final buzzword of 2012, she’ll send him/her a free copy of Blueprint 2013, Lucy's annual look at the trends shaping the philanthropic and social change landscape.

In a guest post on the Forbes.com site, Bridgespan chair and co-founder Tom Tierney discusses the implications of the recent embrace of charitable giving by the mega-wealthy. "While politics contrives to divide us, our fundamental generosity -- our willingness to lend a hand -- offers extraordinary opportunities for all of us to help improve our society," writes Tierney. "Taken together, we have the potential to shape America's golden age of philanthropy. We must leave divisiveness behind, respond to our country's true needs, and strive to collaborate -- to give generously and give smart."

In a letter posted to the Council on Foundations Web site, the organization's new CEO, Vikki Spruill, offers a first look at the council's new direction, which includes an ambition to "operate as the hub of the largest, most connected philanthropic network in the
world...."

Technology

Getting into the holiday spirit, the Sunlight Foundation, which works to leverage the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency, has come up with the perfect gift for the open data developer: a Sunlight API key and twelve ways to take advantage of the API offerings on the Sunlight Web site.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

--The Editors

'Funding for the Arts' Month: Arts and Community Engagement

(Kyoko Uchida is features editor at Philanthropy News Digest. In her last post, she provided some background on the deteriorating situation in Syria through the lens of half a dozen foundation-sponsored publications.)

In a commentary piece on Philanthropy News Digest earlier this month, Sharon DeMark, a program officer for the arts at Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, argued for expanding the definition of arts engagement in grantmaking. While citing examples of arts institutions that are experimenting with new ways to attract younger and more diverse audiences, DeMark also noted that the lion's share of grant dollars goes to a handful of large, established organizations, and that there is ample opportunity for funders to identify and support smaller, lesser-known groups and individual artists.

One example mentioned by DeMark that elicited comment was the Walker Arts Center's recent Internet Cat Video Festival, which showcased short videos curated by an online community from among more than ten thousand submissions. "Think expansively, yes," one comment on DeMark's piece read. "Pander to the lowest common denominators and call it the arts, no." Fair enough, but if the subject hadn't been cat videos, would this kind of crowdsourcing be considered "pandering"? Whatever your view of cat videos, there are any number of contests in which the public are invited to vote for their favorite arts organization to receive funding; for example, five South Florida nonprofit arts groups currently are competing for votes via text message to win $20,000 in the first Knight Arts Challenge People's Choice Awards. While it goes without saying that online popularity contests are in many ways a flawed mechanism for awarding philanthropic support, they have been shown to engage more diverse audiences in the arts by giving them a say in directing support to less established groups and artists.

I believe in art for art's sake, but isn't support for broad participation in the arts important because it sustains us, not only as individuals but as a community? In other words, active engagement in the arts by more diverse audiences not only is a way to ensure the long-term sustainability of arts organizations, it also serves to strengthen community and social cohesion by enabling different segments of society to experience together how various cultures define, make, and enjoy art. To wit, the James Irvine Foundation's new arts funding strategy aims "to promote engagement in the arts for all Californians -- the kind that embraces and advances the diverse ways that we experience the arts, and that strengthens our ability to thrive together in a dynamic and complex social environment." Specifically, the foundation seeks to grow and deepen arts engagement among low-income and/or ethnically diverse populations that have been traditionally underserved by arts nonprofits; support new ways of creating or curating art, including via digital technology; and encourage the use of non-traditional spaces in art making.

As DeMark noted in her commentary, more grantmakers also are coming to recognize the role the arts play in economic development and community revitalization. As documented by Americans for the Arts in its Arts & Economic Prosperity series, the nonprofit arts sector generates significant revenues, both direct and indirect, for communities in which those activities take place. But it also contributes to a stronger sense of social cohesion. Indeed, according to Civic Health and Unemployment II: The Case Builds, a report from the National Conference on Citizenship, communities with a robust ecosystem of nonprofit organizations that engage directly with residents tend to have lower unemployment rates.

In exploring how a broader definition of arts engagement can help strengthen communities, we should also consider how arts participation affects educational outcomes. According to The Arts and Achievement in At-Risk Youth: Findings From Four Longitudinal Studies, a report from the National Endowment for the Arts, socially and economically disadvantaged youth who are exposed to and involved in the arts earn better grades, graduate from college at higher rates, and are more likely to volunteer, vote, and participate in politics as adults than their peers with little exposure to the arts. Given that budgets for arts education in public schools are under pressure, support for broad participation at the community level in non-traditional venues and formats -- including inviting the public to submit art, curate the work of others, and vote for funding online -- is an essential element of philanthropic efforts to bolster community vitality and economic development.

What do you think about expanding participation in the arts as a way to strengthen broader engagement in the community? Does engagement in the arts foster economic resilience in local communities? And if it does, are private funders doing enough to make it happen? Use the comments section below to share your thoughts....

-- Kyoko Uchida

(Image: Irrigate, a partnership between the City of Saint Paul, Twin Cities Local Initiatives Support Corporation, and Springboard for the Arts)

 

Libraries and Latinos: Return to Adams County

(Kathryn Pyle recently marked her fourth anniversary as a PhilanTopic contributor. In her last post, she wrote about the Justice Matters series at Filmfest DC.)

Four years ago, in my first post for PhilanTopic, I described how the Adams County Library system in a rural part of south central Pennsylvania used a modest donation to try out some new ideas and improve its services for the growing Latino population in the area, mainly families and seasonal workers from Mexico.

Since then, thanks to PhilanTopic's broad and inclusive vision of civic life, I've written about a presidential inauguration, a "City of Trees," the first moon landing, transitional justice, a memorial park in Argentina, and -- most frequently -- social issue documentaries and the organizations that support them. Over that time, I've really enjoyed the opportunity the PND team has given me to refine my vision of the nexus of philanthropy and social justice. But today, because this is my thirtieth (!) post for PhilanTopic, I thought it would be interesting to revisit Adams County to see what, if anything, has changed.

I caught up with library director Rob Lesher on his way to the annual library book sale, which was organized by the Friends of the Library at the main branch in Gettysburg; Lesher told me they hoped to raise at least $25,000. That's a lot of used books and a big shot in the arm for any library in an era of government cuts.

"It's been a challenge financially," says Lesher. "But the big news is that this summer we've seen the highest circulation months in our history. Seventy-five thousand items circulated in July, part of a fifteen-year pattern of growth. And 2011 was a record year, with seven hundred and fifty thousand items circulated; we'll equal that this year. Despite the cutbacks, we've managed to expand our services to Latinos. The key has been experimenting with new programs and partnering with community organizations."

As described in my first post about the library, the strategy to reach Latino families included operating a bookmobile with materials in Spanish through the northern end of the county, offering a story-time in Spanish for Latino children, and the acquisition of more Spanish-language magazines. Over time, staff at the library also became aware that the skills and needs of the Latino community were changing.

"In the past, the family member with the strongest English skills, often a child, would be designated to interface with services and programs," says Lesher. "That’s changed, as there's now a whole generation of children who are native English speakers and the parents themselves are more comfortable in English situations. We're seeing more families, not just children, coming to the library to use the computers and take out books. We've discontinued the Spanish-language story-time as the Latino children began attending the English-language story-time program. We still have a small percentage of our materials budget dedicated to Spanish texts, and the bookmobile certainly is still important in reaching the Latino community. But with so many publications now online, there's not as much available and not as much demand for magazines. The library is transitioning as the community matures."

Part of the transition has been the hiring of a Latina, Marisol Rivera, as a library assistant to staff the main desk of the Harbaugh-Thomas library in the town of Biglerville, the largest branch in the northern end of the county and the center of the fruit-growing region where many of the migrant workers in the area and its fruit-processing labor force lives.

"Marisol has been a wonderful addition,” says Lesher. "Her presence has created a welcoming environment and has certainly contributed to the increase in Latino families coming into the library."

Partnerships with community-based organizations also continues to be a key to reaching the region's Latino population. This summer's "Roads to Freedom" program, a treasure hunt created around local history (the Civil War, Native Americans, local industry, quilting and other crafts) that also encourages kids to be physically active as they track clues around the county, is sponsored by Well-Span Health, a local health services corporation. So far, nearly eight hundred booklets with clues and information have been distributed through the library system.

"When we were planning Roads to Freedom," says Lesher, "we consulted with Latino community organizations about also printing the booklets in Spanish. Their recommendation was to include a bilingual welcome but keep the rest of the text in English. This is part of an evolving approach: our target now is an outcome, and to reach the goal we include the community in planning how to best achieve it, but we're finding that as the community matures the needs are different."

An example is the Harbaugh-Thomas library computer center, which I mentioned in my first post as a resource for Latinos seeking to access news from Mexico, e-mail, and other information. In a new program, the library provides the computers and Latino organizations provide the trainers and people, bringing them to the library to learn how to use a computer.

And in a change that might say as much about the community as anything, there is increased interest in bilingual publications, suggesting not only a "maturing" Latino population but also a growing willingness on the part of English speakers to engage with Spanish. "We’re moving more toward that now," says Lesher." It's what people want."

-- Kathryn Pyle

Eye On: Bill and Karen Ackman

(This is the first in a series of short profiles of individuals, couples, and families that have signed the Giving Pledge, the well-publicized effort spearheaded by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage the wealthiest Americans to commit the majority of their assets to philanthropic causes. For more about the Ackmans and the other eighty Giving Pledgers, visit the Foundation Center's brand-new Web portal, Eye on the Giving Pledge.)

Some of Bill Ackman's earliest memories "include my father's exhortations about how important it is to give back." That disclosure is included in the "pledge" letter Ackman wrote on joining the Giving Pledge campaign earlier this year. 'These early teachings were ingrained in me," the letter continues, "and a portion of the first dollars I earned, I gave away. Over the years, the emotional and psychological returns I have earned from charitable giving have been enormous. The more I do for others, the happier I am."

A happy man, indeed. An "activist" investor whose Pershing Square Capital Management (PSCM) has made strategic investments in some of North America's best-known companies, Ackman, 46, has amassed a considerable fortune in his two decades as a hedge fund manager -- and is already busy giving it away, even as he continues to be a force on Wall Street.

But then, Ackman was marked for success from a young age. The son of a successful real estate executive in New York City, Ackman was raised in the wealthy Westchester County suburb of Chappaqua and earned a B.A. (graduating magna cum laude) in 1988 from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992. (Cambridge is also where he met his wife, Karen, nee Herskovitz, who received a master's in landscape architecture from Harvard and subsequently worked for the Central Park Conservancy.)

That same year, Ackman and David Berkowitz, a friend from Harvard, co-founded the hedge fund Gotham Partners and, using a wide-ranging investment approach, grew it into a half-billion-dollar concern. The two split when Gotham closed in 2003, and Ackman wasted no time launching New York City-based PSCM in 2004.

From the beginning, PSCM's activist approach to making money was straightforward: identify an undervalued and/or underperforming company using proprietary research, build a large equity position in the company, and use that position to pressure management to make changes -- typically by liquidating assets, closing down non-core businesses, or eliminating inefficiencies -- that improve the company's profitability and boost its share price. Over the years, Pershing Square "targets" have included the likes of Wendy's International, McDonald's Corp., Fortune Brands, Borders, Target Corp., JC Penney, Canadian Pacific Railway, and Procter & Gamble. And while not all of Pershing's campaigns have succeeded in the way Ackman and his partners had hoped, enough have to make Ackman a wealthy and -- in some quarters -- feared man.

Which is all the more surprising given Ackman's low-key demeanor and penchant for progressive causes. Already philanthropically active in their thirties, Ackman and his wife began to think about ramping up their philanthropy as they neared forty and created the Pershing Square Foundation in 2006 as a vehicle to that end. Since then, the foundation has announced more than $145 million in grants and social investments in the areas of economic development, education, health care, human rights, the arts, and urban development. In 2010, for example, the foundation pledged $25 million to support K-12 education reforms in Newark, New Jersey, helping to match Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million gift to the city's schools.

Other significant grants announced by the foundation include commitments of more than $6 million each to the One Acre Fund and Root Capital, innovative organizations working to transform the lives of smallholder farmers in parts of Africa and Latin America; $10 million over five years to Human Rights Watch, the highly respected watchdog and advocacy organization; and $25 million to the Signature Theatre in New York City to help ensure that affordable tickets are available for every Signature production over the next twenty years.

And of course, with a little friendly encouragement from Warren Buffett, they were among the twelve new families or individuals to sign the Giving Pledge in April. As Ackman told Fortune at the time:

"While my motivations for giving are not driven by a profit motive, I am quite sure that I have earned financial returns from giving money away. Not directly by any means, but rather as a result of giving money away. A number of my closest friends, partners, and advisors I met through charitable giving. Their advice, judgment, and partnership have been invaluable in my business and in my life. Life becomes richer, the more one gives away."

-- Mitch Nauffts

Last updated: August 6, 2012

'On Being Unreasonable': A Conversation With Eli Broad

Over the course of a career that has spanned five decades and four industries, Eli Broad, who turned 79 this summer, has helped build two Fortune 500 companies, KB Home and SunAmerica, and, with his wife, Edythe, created the Broad Foundations, which focus on public education reform, scientific and medical research, art and culture, and civic projects in Los Angeles.

Needless to say, Broad has been asked many times to reveal the secret to his success. His new memoir, The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking, sheds some light on the path that took him from a job as an accountant in Detroit to fortune and fame. As Broad tells it, a good deal of his success stems from his willingness, over the course of his adult life, to take the kinds of chances others thought ill advised. What's more, he writes, he invariably succeeded because he and his partners did their homework and found a "niche where we could flourish."

As Broad explained during a recent conversation with PND, he hopes people looking to emulate his approach will read the book and "learn from my successes -- and, frankly, some of my mistakes."

Philanthropy News Digest: Your book celebrates the benefits of a certain kind of unreasonableness in terms of one's career path. Were you always unreasonable, or is it something you grew into?

Eli Broad: Oh, I've always thought of myself as being reasonable; it was others who thought I was unreasonable, because I'm demanding and always asking questions and not going with everyone else's flow.

I didn't start to think about unreasonableness until my wife, after we were married for several years, gave me a paperweight with a George Bernard Shaw quote on it that read: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon the unreasonable man."

PND: One thing I really enjoyed about your memoir was the chapter on asking "Why not?" What are some of the things you've learned by asking that question in a business context, and how has it influenced your approach to philanthropy?

EB: When I was a kid collecting stamps I remember reading in one of those magazines that were sent to stamp collectors that Chrysler International was selling one-kilo boxes of stamps that had been cut from envelopes collected from around the world. I took a streetcar to their office and bought a box for I forget how much. I then advertised a hundred stamps for $1.95 in the stamp magazine. I became Eli Broad, postage stamp dealer, age thirteen. And people would write to me as if I were a forty-year-old. By the time I was sixteen, I had saved enough to buy my first car, a 1941 Chevy, for $200.

You see, I've always asked, "Why not?" And people would always say, "It's never been done this way. You can't do it." I'd listen to what they had to say, but most of the time I went ahead and did what they said I couldn't do. And they'd say I was being unreasonable.

In philanthropy, my wife, Edythe, and I decided a long time ago not to give money just to maintain the status quo. We want to make a difference, whether it's in education reform, scientific and medical research, the arts, or other areas. So if we think something ought to be happening that isn't and we ask, "Why isn't this happening?" and don't get a good answer, we'll be inclined to fund it. But only if the program, whatever it is, meets three criteria: it will make a difference in twenty years; it wouldn't happen without our support; and the right people are available to make it happen.

PND: Did you have a model, either an individual or an institution, in mind when you established the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation in the 1960s?

EB: I've always admired Andrew Carnegie and what he did in establishing libraries, colleges, and universities, and for what he said once: "He who dies with wealth dies with shame." I also agree with something someone else once said: "He who gives while he lives also knows where it goes."

PND: Is that why you and Edythe signed on to the Giving Pledge, the campaign started by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to encourage billionaires to give at least half of their wealth to charitable causes?

EB: We were going to do that anyway, so when Bill Gates and Warren Buffett came around we decided to up the ante from 50 percent of our fortune to 75 percent. We hope that sets an example for others to follow.

PND: The Broad Foundations today focus on four areas: public education reform, scientific and medical research, art and culture, and civic projects in Los Angeles. What's the common thread connecting those interests?

EB: I'm not sure there is a common thread. Each came about in a different way. For instance, we started supporting public education reform initiatives after traveling to countries like Japan, South Korea, China, India, and Finland. At the time, about fourteen years ago, we realized American children were not getting the education they needed if the United States was going to maintain its preeminent role in the world. We came to the conclusion that our system of public education was broken and needed to be changed and strengthened to empower teachers and students to succeed. Since then, we've done a number of things in the education space, from helping to create a cadre of new public education leaders through our Superintendents Academy and Residency initiative, to creating a million-dollar prize that's designed to encourage urban schools to boost student achievement and close the achievement gap between ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

We believe the public education system needs to be reformed in other ways, too: our students need a longer school day and school year; we've got to expand digital learning and push more resources into classrooms; and more mayors and governors need to be involved. That kind of change is happening, albeit slowly.

Our interest in scientific and medical interest came about a different way. After one of our sons was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, I did a lot of research and learned that no one had yet figured out the disease's cause or a cure. So I thought, "You know what? All these young scientists, doctors, and researchers have theories and thoughts about the disease but they're not getting funding from the National Institutes of Health or elsewhere, because they're not established." Soon after that, we went into the venture research business in inflammatory bowel disease, which led to other things. For example, it led to my giving a grant to a man by the name of Eric Lander who was decoding the genome for the federal government.

PND: Lander helped establish the Broad Institute. Tell us a bit about how that partnership came about.

EB: While I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in October 2001 to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Science, Edye and I ducked into Eric's lab and we were blown away by the robotics and computers going twenty-four hours a day and all the bright, young researchers from Harvard Medical School and MIT who didn't want to go home because they were so excited about the work that was being accomplished there. So I said to Eric, "When are you going to be done with this?" And he said, "April 2003." I said, "What do you want to do then?" And he said, "I'd like to try and create an institute to take all we've learned and get it to clinical applications." I said, "Okay, what do you need to do that?" He said, "I need $800 million." And I said, "I hope you get it somewhere."

Well, he approached a lot of people, and he couldn't do it, so I told him we'd put up $100 million if Harvard and MIT would do likewise. And that's how the Broad Institute got created. Since then, it's become a huge success and today is number-one in the world in genomics.

PND: How did you get involved in the arts?

EB: Many years ago I was founding chairman of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and then I got involved in a number of other projects in the city that people thought could never happen, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall designed by Frank Gehry. I could go on, but everything we've done is really different than just supporting the status quo. It's making a difference, creating things that didn't exist, that probably should exist, and will make a difference twenty, thirty years from now.

PND: You mentioned some of the work you're doing through the Broad Prize for Urban Education. Has that prize helped to improve public education in the United States?

EB: Absolutely. We're seeing results. There are some cities that haven't received the prize but have put in their contracts with their superintendents to get the Broad Prize within x number of years. So it's creating competition. And the districts that win the prize feel very good about it.

PND: Is it more difficult to affect change in public education than in other fields?

EB: Oh, absolutely. You know, we believe in teachers. Some 95 percent of all teachers are great, but they work in a system that's broken, that has all sorts of work rules that don't let them do all the things they need to do to succeed, and that diverts too much money into central office bureaucracies and not enough into the classroom.

Recently, the Council on Foreign Relations came out with a report that said education is a national security priority, not least because 70 percent of adults in this country -- people between the ages of 18 and 24 -- are not qualified to serve in our increasingly high-tech military. That's astounding. If we want to maintain our standard of living, if we want to be a secure nation, we've got to improve public education and we've got to do it quickly.

PND: Is it important, in your view, for Giving Pledge dollars, yours and those of other Pledgers, to be used sooner rather than later?

EB: Yes, I believe so. Warren Buffett and others may have a different view, that if they make a whole lot more with their money now instead of giving it away, eventually there'll be even more money for philanthropy. But Edye and I believe in giving while we're still alive. And we don't just give money; we've also got great people at our different foundations helping the institutions to which we give with their business plans and in other ways.

PND: How do you respond to the growing chorus of critics who say that philanthropy is an activity of and for wealthy elites and that, as such, it is inherently undemocratic?

EB: Well, I don't agree with that at all. America has a long, proud history of philanthropy, and I think it is important for the wealthy to give back. Through our philanthropy in education, for example, we are working to help transform bureaucracies so that students and teachers have a chance to succeed. Governments can and should be doing this themselves on behalf of the students, teachers, parents, communities, and democracies they are supposed to serve. Unfortunately, too many are not. I think philanthropy has the ability to step in and ensure that underrepresented voices in our democracy are heard, especially when government considers this too risky to do.

Let's not forget, over the twenty-eight years since A Nation At Risk was published, public education spending in this country in real dollars has tripled, while student achievement has gone nowhere. We used to be number one in the world in terms of high school graduation rates. Now we're closer to twenty. We used to be in the top five in mathematics and now we're twenty-fifth or thirtieth. We have a failing system that people are trying to defend, and when people like Edye and I or Bill Gates get involved in trying to change it, they say, "Oh, that's not democratic." I don't agree. I think what we're doing furthers democracy, and that those who want to maintain the status quo are undermining the strength of our democracy.

PND: Why did you decide to write a memoir?

EB: Over the course of my career I've been asked time and again, "How did you start two Fortune 500 companies in two different industries?" And more recently, after my wife and I really took the plunge into philanthropy, people have asked, "How do you do all of that?" So I thought if I wrote a book about how I've done all these things, people could learn from my successes -- and, frankly, from some of my mistakes. I hope the book is helpful to young people, to entrepreneurs, and to others in a variety of fields.

PND: What advice would you give to young millionaires who are eager to use some of their wealth to make the world a better place?

EB: I think a lot of them are doing it already. Look at John Arnold, who was probably the most successful trader of oil and gas contracts. He recently announced plans to close his fund to focus on philanthropy. I think what I'm doing, and what others are doing, is setting an example for other young millionaires who want to make a difference.

-- Regina Mahone

'The Art of Being Unreasonable' Launches in New York City

I had the pleasure Sunday evening of attending "A Conversation With Eli Broad" at the 92nd Street Y, an hour-long event marking the launch of Broad's memoir The Art of Being Unreasonable. At the event, Broad chatted with broadcast journalist Charlie Rose about his long and successful career (highlights of which are shared in the book's appendix). Broad, who turns 79 this summer, has helped build two Fortune 500 companies, KB Home and SunAmerica, and created with his wife, Edythe, the Broad Foundations, which focus on public education reform, scientific and medical research, art and culture, and civic projects in Los Angeles.

Rose began his interview by asking Broad for thoughts on the state of the economy, which Broad said will not recover until the housing market improves (in 2013?), before shifting gears to focus on the book.

While Broad doesn't consider himself to be unreasonable -- as he told the audience, "I don't think I'm unreasonable; other people think I'm unreasonable" -- he writes in his memoir that he believes "being unreasonable has been the key to my success." Throughout his career, he took chances that many said he was foolish for taking -- building homes without basements at a time when such a thing was unheard of, for example -- and succeeded because he and his partners did their homework and found a "niche where we could flourish."

During the Q&A portion of the event, one of my colleagues asked Broad -- who was instrumental in creating the first biomedical research institute in the world devoted to genomics, launching the largest urban education prize in the country, and has done much to nurture the burgeoning contemporary art scene in Los Angeles -- to share some of the ways in which his foundations assist nonprofit organizations and social causes other than through grants or philanthropic investments. "Foundations have to be innovative," said Broad, especially during tough economic times. The Broad Foundations, for example, offer their grantees lots of advice and counsel and, through the Broad Superintendents Academy program, provide business leaders with the training needed to make a successful transition to leadership positions in urban school districts.

That said, the one constant in Eli Broad's long career, which has spanned five decades and four industries, is a paperweight he received from his wife inscribed with this quotation from George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

And sometimes that means asking "Why not?" instead of accepting "no" for an answer.

Were you at the event? What did you take away from the conversation? And what do you think foundations should be doing, beyond awarding grants, to address the many social, political, and economic challenges we face? Use the comments section to share your thoughts...

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (May 5-6, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Advocacy

On the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Lisa Ranghelli offers a positive review of Learn Foundation Law, a new online training tool for foundation program officers that was developed by the Gates, Packard, Moore, and Hewlett foundations.

Arts and Culture

On the Minnesota Council on Foundation's Philanthropy Potluck blog, Anne Bauers explains why it's critical for arts organizations to focus on audience-building efforts. Writes Bauers, "The [uncertain economy] challenges arts organizations to make smart and cost-effective decisions about strategies to attract and retain audiences, sustaining practices that work, and modifying or dropping those that don't. It also challenges organizations to change themselves in ways that encourage risk-taking, innovation and learning...."

Communications/Marketing

NTEN's Holly Ross discusses how the organization improved its e-mail open rates by sending mobile-friendly versions of its newsletter to subscribers, many of whom manage their e-mail on smartphones.

Fundraising

Something of a skeptic when it comes to social media as a fundraising tool, Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks looks at a recently published Nonprofit Social Network Report which found that the average cost of a Facebook "like" is $3.50, while the average value of a Facebook "like" over the twelve months following acquisition is $214.81. Among other things, writes Brooks, fundraisers should consider the following questions as they examine their organization's data to determine whether a robust social networking presence is worth the time and effort:

• Does giving increase after a current donor becomes a Facebook follower?
• Does donor retention improve among those who "like"?
• Is the increase in value, if any, enough to make the $3.50 cost a good investment?
• What types of Facebook engagement creates the best return?

Hosting April's Nonprofit Blog Carnival, the folks at the Rad Campaign share a selection of posts that explore the ins and outs of social fundraising.

Governance

Writing on the Huffington Post, Alice Korngold says that given the significant strategic and financial challenges and opportunities confronting nonprofits, nonprofit boards need to rethink the way they function. That process should start with a conversation about the organization's goals over the next several years, followed by a discussion about its revenue model. After that, the board should dive deeper into the expectations of individual board members and develop a system of accountability; determine the proper size and structure of the board; develop a plan for board composition based on board members' expertise, experience, background, and networks; and adopt best practices with respect to leadership succession.

International Affairs/Development

In a post on the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog, Gerry Power of InterMedia highlights a report that looks at "how we can communicate about aid in a way that people understand and are encouraged to act upon." Key takeways from the report include:

• Instill a deep understanding and appreciation for the objectives of international development when people are young and where values are nurtured;
• Do not underestimate the challenge of leveraging public opinion as a means to influence policy; and
• Facilitate more effective information and data gathering and sharing strategies for government decision makers.

Philanthropy

Writing on the Council on Foundations' blog, Michael Moody, the Frey Foundation Chair for Family Philanthropy at the Johnson Center for Philanthropy, suggests that "a theory about philanthropy as essential because of the failure of the other sectors is not so useful. What we need is a theory about philanthropy as essential to the other sectors."

On the Philanthropy 411 blog, Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy executive director Rusty Stahl announces the launch of Generating Change, a new initiative that aims to "create deep discussion about the challenges and opportunities for nonprofit talent and leadership development; illuminate new ways funders can address this critical need at all levels; and increase investment in talent and leadership development at the individual, organization, movement, and sector levels."

Social Media

Last but not least, Rosetta Thurman shares a list of things every nonprofit leader should know about social media.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

The Art of Inclusion: New York Funders Mobilize to Make the Arts More Accessible

(Laura Cronin is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In her last post, she spoke with Douglas Bauer, executive director of the New York City-based Clark Foundation, about the foundation's efforts to build the capacity of its grantees.)

If a person with a serious vision, hearing, or mobility impairment came to your office on business or joined your organization as an employee, you would do whatever you needed to to accommodate that person so he or she could do his or her job. Indeed, most people would be embarrassed if their employer failed to create an accessible work space for such a guest, while failure to do so for a new employee is illegal.

But what if everyone at the office gathered around the virtual water cooler on a Monday morning to share their excitement about the latest blockbuster exhibition at the local art museum or the holiday performance at the local concert hall? Would your colleague have been there on Saturday along with everyone else? Would the museum or concert hall have been equipped to accommodate a patron who is blind or hearing impaired? Would any of their foundation grant dollars have been dedicated to figuring out how to make it possible for that potential audience member to enjoy its offerings?

Gains won as a result of the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are now so familiar -- curb cuts, kneeling buses, signs in Braille -- that it is tempting to assume that issues of concern to people with disabilities have been embraced by the field of philanthropy. Unfortunately, the data tell a different story. According to the Disability Funders Network (DFN), of the $45.7 billion in foundation grants awarded in 2011, only $559 million -- less than three percent -- was directed to disability issues.

Kim Hutchinson, president/CEO of the Disability Funders Network, and her DFN colleagues are mobilizing to make access to arts and culture a central focus of their education and convening efforts in 2012. In February, after a New York City funders briefing with Hutchinson and colleagues from the MetLife Foundation, the New York Community Trust, American Express, the American Foundation for the Blind, the FISA Foundation, the Kessler Foundation, and the Reader's Digest Partners for Sight Foundation, several New York-based foundations agreed to form a special task force to promote inclusive practical strategies that nonprofit cultural institutions can use to better welcome the disabled audience. To date, the group has identified and generated over $3 million in new philanthropic grant dollars to promote arts access for people with disabilities in New York City.

DFN believes too many funders are stuck thinking about people with disabilities as a group whose needs are addressed through healthcare programs rather than as individuals eager to take part in all aspects of community life. By promoting a more complete picture of people with disabilities as students, workers, athletes, theater goers, music lovers and neighbors, DFN is making the case that disability should be part of any grantmaking program concerned with education, employment, diversity, civic participation, and, especially arts and culture.

According to Nina Levent, executive director of Art Education for the Blind/Art Beyond Sight, by funding accessibility and inclusion, grantmakers not only support audiences that identify themselves as visitors with disabilities, their families, and their caregivers, they also support millions of people who have "invisible disabilities" such as gradually diminishing sight, hearing, or physical stamina. By helping to make cultural programs more accessible and promoting employment of people with disabilities at cultural institutions across the country, the philanthropic community can broaden its impact. After all, the graying of the U.S. population means that the disability community will only grow in size, with one estimate placing the total number of people in the United States living with a disability at 150 million by 2030.

People with disabilities are natural constituents for every type of grantmaking initiative. And in an era when arts and cultural organizations are looking to develop new audiences, promoting accessibility can be good for the bottom line. The new affinity group within the DFN network invites all arts and culture funders to consider whether they are paying enough attention to disability in their own funding and is eager to collaborate on projects to ensure that people with disabilities have greater access to all that our visual, literary, and performing arts have to offer.

-- Laura Cronin

Weekend Link Roundup (December 10 - 11, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Arts and Culture

Back to blogging on a regular basis, the Nonprofiteer explains why "the argument for public funding [for the arts] needs to be focused...on the public benefits of art-making."

Communications/Marketing

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz urges nonprofit communications staff and leaders to observe and learn from the media stumbles of political candidates, CEOs, and others. Good advice, as usual, from Joanne.

International Development

David Schwartz, donor partnerships director at the International Development Research Centre, reflects on lessons learned at last month's Bellagio Initiative Summit on the future of philanthropy and development. For Schwartz, the overriding takeaway was the need for various stakeholders in both international development and philanthropy to know and understand each other better. Contrary to the consensus view at the summit, however, Schwartz believes genuine collaboration between philanthropy and development exists and points to three examples: ESSENCE (Enhancing Support for Strengthening the Effectiveness of National Capacity Efforts) in the area of health research, the International Forum of Research Donors (IFORD), and the Think Tank Initiative.

Philanthropy

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz says we need to "open up" philanthropic data to help innovators think differently about how we can change the world.

In a guest post on the Minnesota Council on Foundations' Philanthropy Potluck blog, Tim Penny of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation explains how, in addition to their grantmaking activities, community foundations add value by identifying "current and emerging issues, channel[ing] resources to address their communities’ needs, and help[ing] their regions prepare for the future...."

Social Media

On the Mashable site, Zoe Fox looks at how activists around the world used social media to challenge the status quo in 2011.

Transparency

Beth Kanter recaps a San Francisco event co-hosted earlier this week by the Foundation Center and the Center for Effective Philanthropy on the topic of transparency and effectiveness. For those unable to attend, Kanter shares some takeaway tweets via Storify here.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (November 12-13, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Arts

In his most recent president's letter , Jim Canales, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation, sheds some light on the process that led to "significant changes" in the foundation's arts grantmaking strategy.

Fundraising

What are charities and nonprofits to do in an environment in which giving is flat, demand for services is growing, and competition for charitable dollars is fierce? Focus on how your organization is different, says Katya Andresen, writing on her Non-Profit Marketing Blog.

Global Health

Gapminder chair/Data visualization wiz Hans Rosling is back with a new presentation that shows that child mortality in Tanzania is rapidly declining, "thanks in part to aid programs that have improved public health and provided access to family planning." (H/t Bill Gates)

Impact/Effectiveness

GiveWell's Holden Karnofsky weighs in with a long post in which he argues that "the best currently available cost-effectiveness estimates -- despite having extremely strong teams and funding behind them -- have the problematic combination of being extremely simplified (ignoring important but difficult-to-quantify factors), extremely sensitive (small changes in assumptions can lead to huge changes in the figures), and not reality-checked (large flaws can persist unchecked -- and unnoticed -- for years)."

Philanthropy

Reporting from Haiti, Canadian-British journalist Doug Saunders, author of the book Arrival City: The Final Migration and Our Next World, finds evidence of a new philanthropic paradigm and is not all that happy with what it portends. "At the top of the pyramid," Saunders writes,

are the new private foundations, dwarfing the largest of the old and playing a dramatic political role: They remake the executive structures of the old charities, forcing many of their activities to be organized in a much more businesslike way, or bypass established charities altogether to make direct links to the poor, diseased and disaster-ravaged.

At the opposite end of the scale are countless micro-initiatives and social networks, leveraging money and effort bit by byte, for causes great and small.

"You have the big givers, the Bill Gateses who've appeared all of a sudden, on the one hand, and then you've got the emergence of philanthropy in rapidly developing countries, and then the whole dimension of direct-giving philanthropy. It's changing everything," says J. Allister McGregor, head of the British-run Bellagio Initiative, created by the Rockefeller Foundation.

[Indeed, it] is not hard to imagine a situation, when the dust clears after the global crisis, in which conventional charities are largely obsolete, squeezed out between the world-improving schemes of billionaires and the surging efforts of lesser people responding to calls for help on Twitter....

On their Values blog, Philanthrocapitalism co-authors Matthew Bishop and Shepley Green respond to the growing number of critics who question the "outsize influence," in the field of global public health and philanthropy more broadly, of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and offer this cautionary thought:

One of the mistakes that critics of the Gates Foundation make is to compare its scale and influence with that of other foundations. It is better, we believe, to look at the role that Mr Gates and other philanthropists are playing in the whole system, including government and private sector, where its size is far from remarkable. If philanthropy does not leverage change in public and private decision-making, it is unlikely to have much influence on the world....

And on the Acumen Fund blog, the Gates Foundation's Louis Boorstin argues that "given the scope of their reach and their permanence," governments absolutely have a critical role to play in scaling health and poverty interventions that work.

Social Innovation

Getting into the Halloween swing of things, Social Velocity blogger Nell Edgington has curated a "monster list" of resources for nonprofit leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, board members, and others involved in creating social change. (Thanks, for including PhilanTopic, Nell!)

Social Media

Guest blogging on Beth's Blog, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark shares three tips for nonprofits that want to improve their social media results.

On the Communications Network blog, Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz, communications director at the Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers, shares some tips of her own for those who want to make the most of their social media efforts.

Technology

And on the Personal Democracy Forum's techPresident blog, Jed Miller and Allison Fine remember Rob Stuart, a long-time leader and activist in the nonprofit technology community who passed away suddenly on October 26 at the age of 49.

-- Mitch Nauffts

5 Questions for...Carol Coletta, President, ArtPlace

Launched last month, ArtPlace is a public-private collaboration designed to drive revitalization in cities and towns by putting the arts at the center of economic development. During its inaugural funding round, ArtPlace awarded more than $11 million to thirty-four community-based projects across the country working to integrate artists and arts organizations into local transportation, housing, community development, and job creation efforts. Prior to joining ArtPlace, Carol Coletta served for six years as president and CEO of Chicago-based CEOs for Cities, a national network of "urban leaders catalyzing a movement to advance the next generation of great American cities." While there, Coletta and her team worked to convince urban leaders of the importance of "quality of place" and the attraction and retention of talent. When tapped to help establish ArtPlace, Coletta said she thought it was an opportunity "to work directly on quality of place, which I knew to be such a key element of what makes communities successful."

Philanthropy News Digest: ArtPlace has been described as an initiative to accelerate “creative placemaking” in the United States. What is creative placemaking, and why is it important?

Carol Coletta: That's a good question. It has been used as a very broad umbrella to describe many things, but it all boils down to this: a portfolio of strategies with art and culture at the heart aimed at changing the trajectory of community.

For the past six years I've been running an organization called CEOs for Cities, and prior to that I ran the Mayors' Institute on City Design, an NEA program. While I was at CEOs for Cities, we came to the point where we understood that much of what makes cities successful is talent. The quality of place becomes really essential to the attraction and retention of people, and that’s the most important thing you can do for community. So, I think what makes creative placemaking and ArtPlace so important is that it's not an add-on. It's not a nice to-do. It really becomes an essential part of a community's economic success.

PND: The ArtPlace approach is based on the idea that the ability to attract and retain talent depends, as you say, on quality of place, and that the best proxy for that is "vibrancy." How do you plan to measure the vibrancy of a place?

CC: By examining the changes that take place in the people, the activities, and the value created in a community. We're actually developing a new set of vibrancy indicators -- including a transparent analysis of data collected by others on a regular basis -- that can be updated inexpensively and used by anyone. We expect to make it available through our Web site by the second quarter of 2012.

PND: The idea of a creative class serving as an engine of economic growth and prosperity figures prominently in the work of Richard Florida and others. But the context for their work is almost always urban. Is ArtPlace doing anything to promote the concept of creative placemaking in suburban and rural areas?

CC: Absolutely, because we think it has the same impact there. Let me just say as an aside that the creative class is a very broad term. It defines a very broad group of people, essentially those with college degrees, but I think in many ways the more useful measure is that of human capital. To your point, however, we are interested in what happens in rural and certainly suburban communities. One of the greatest challenges in rural communities is how they retain people. How do you make those places more appealing to keep people there? We are seeing some exciting reinventions happening in rural places, including the Wormfarm Institute in Sauk County, Wisconsin, the Vollis Simplson Whirligig Park in Wilson, North Carolina, and the Art and Agriculture project in Yolo County, California. And, while we still have some testing to do, we believe our vibrancy indicators will work in different parts of the country.

PND: Given that artists, designers, and arts organizations are engaged in creative activity by definition, what are you and your colleagues looking for as you review applications from potential grant recipients?

CC: In many ways we're looking for places where there are real partnerships happening -- not just endorsements or letters of support, but real partnership among artists and other organizations. So when you look at the outcomes, you can imagine one plus one equaling three. Let me give you an example. I think the work we funded in St. Paul, Minnesota, for a project called Irrigate represents a solid partnership of the City of St. Paul, Springboard for the Arts, and the Local Initiative Support Corporation. Since a new light rail corridor is being developed in the same area, you could even include the federal government and the Minnesota Department of Transportation in that partnership. What's interesting is that any one of these organizations could have done their work and it probably would have turned out well, but the fact that they've formed a strategic alliance makes the potential of the work much stronger. That's part of what we'll look at, whether there’s real collaboration and the opportunity to leverage the impact of the work.

We are also looking for work we believe has the opportunity to change the trajectory of the community and generate vibrancy. Not all artistic work is intended to do that. It doesn't make that work less worthy or less valuable. We're just not in a position to fund everything, so we've chosen to fund for this purpose to see if we can make a difference. Frankly, we believe that if we can demonstrate that investing in the arts in this way actually does contribute to vibrancy and to changing the trajectory of a place, that will result in a whole lot more money for arts and culture.

PND: Is it your hope that ArtPlace becomes a permanent feature of the arts landscape in America?

CC: What I hope is that funding for these kinds of initiatives becomes a permanent feature in the landscape of civic decision making, whether that involves a city or county government, a metropolitan planning organization or the federal government, a community foundation, or individual philanthropists. I will consider ArtPlace a success if we are able to influence the field in such a way that people begin to act on the belief that creative placemaking matters to the success of communities.

-- Regina Mahone

This Week in PubHub: Arts and Culture: Arts in the Community

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that explore how school discipline policies affect students' academic performance and involvement with the juvenile justice system.)

October is Funding for the Arts Month, and this week in PubHub we are featuring four reports that explore the vital role that arts and culture play in our communities' civic life, economic development, and sense of place.

Much has been said about the role of social media in the Arab Spring uprisings. But in Egypt youth activists were using public spaces -- both virtual and physical -- dynamically to spur civic action well before the January 25 Revolution, according to Youth Activism and Public Space in Egypt (48 pages, PDF), a new report from the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo and Innovations in Civic Participation. Along with blogs and outreach by youth organizations, artistic expression -- in the form of stencils and graffiti, for example -- was an essential element in calls for change by the Egyptian people. Funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the report uses photographs of art works around Tahrir Square to explore the role of public art in the revolution and as expressions of collective identity, dignity, and solidarity.

If the arts can help galvanize a revolution, it shouldn't surprise anyone that they can also reveal and help strengthen a community's sense of place, values, and identity. The American Planning Association report How Arts and Cultural Strategies Create, Reinforce, and Enhance Sense of Place (8 pages, PDF) suggests that identifying, assessing, and mapping a community's arts and cultural resources enables us to better understand its historic, cultural, economic, and social contexts and values. Such assets include not only arts, educational, and religious institutions but also architecture, signage, specialty stores, and street markets and fairs. The authors also suggest that a vision for celebrating a community's legacy, diversity, and identity can be implemented through master plans, arts and cultural programming, and public investment. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the report calls for programming that inspires creative ideas, community engagement, and the integration of arts programs with other community plans.

The integration of the arts into the community is the focus of Building Community: Making Space for Art (20 pages, PDF), a report from the Urban Institute and Leveraging Investments in Creativity. Neighborhood residents tend to value not only traditional cultural institutions, the report argues, but a broad range of amateur and professional activities in unconventional venues. And they yearn to create art themselves. Indeed, a community's artistic vitality is associated with its health, social, and educational outcomes as well as economic development and civic engagement. In other words, the more accessible and integrated arts spaces and artists are, the better off the community. Funded by the Ford, Kresge, and Surdna foundations, the report profiles organizations that train artist-educators, produce theater pieces about social issues, and provide mobile arts programming in renovated transit buses.

Last but not least, Blueprints: Bringing Poetry Into Communities (319 pages, PDF) argues for bringing poetry into communities -- especially those that are geographically/economically isolated or otherwise disadvantaged -- in the form of readings, festivals, and other projects. Through essays by poets about their experiences organizing events in schools, bars, libraries, and refugee camps; the impact of poetry on our notions of community, language, and history; and the need for wider access to poetry, the book explores the role of poetry in community development. Funded by the Poetry Foundation and published by the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute and the University of Utah Press, the report also provides guidance on designing and sustaining poetry programs as well as insights into the place of the poet in the community ("[T]he poet reaches out to reveal our shared humanity out of which the spirit of community rises").

Where do you stand on the role of arts and culture in fostering collective identity, civic engagement, and healthier communities? Do you know of any programs that use the arts to address social justice issues? And what are some of the things your community does to encourage art making and appreciation? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse more than four hundred reports related to arts and culture.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Commentary: Engaging Individuals May Be Paying Dividends for Arts & Cultural Groups in Philadelphia

(Tom Kaiden is president of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.)

It's no secret that the recession has been hard on the nation's cultural sector. Studies such as the National Endowment for the Arts' Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, Americans for the Arts' National Arts Index, and the James Irvine Foundation's California's Arts and Cultural Ecology report have all documented downward trends in attendance. So when we conducted our latest analysis of data for the Philadelphia region, we expected a similar outcome showing cultural consumers staying home as times got tough. But that's not what we found. In fact, in the midst of one of the worst and most prolonged recessions since the Great Depression, Philadelphia's attendance actually rose by 5 percent and individual giving increased 20 percent. What's going on? It's a story of adversity, but also adaptation to adversity. And, at its heart, it's a story about the core importance of arts and culture in people's lives.

These figures come from the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance's recently published 2011 Portfolio -- a comprehensive survey of Philadelphia's cultural sector. For this third edition of Portfolio, we collected financial and organizational data from more than four hundred of the region's cultural nonprofits, as well as trend data on 276 groups that allows us to take a detailed look at the effects of the recession for the first time.

What we found was a rich cultural environment but a sector struggling to contend with macroeconomic forces frequently beyond its control. The bad news was that although cultural organizations were largely successful at controlling expenses and maintaining the quality of their work, revenues dropped precipitously. Overall contributed income fell by 19 percent, largely due to reductions on the part of corporate and foundation donors and cuts to government programs. Earned income was where most of the damage occurred and is almost exclusively explained by dramatic reductions in income derived from organizations' investment portfolios and endowments. Between 2007 and 2009, the aggregate investment holdings of Philadelphia's cultural organizations fell from $2.3 billion to $1.9 billion. Although these losses tracked closely with other benchmark market indices -- and may eventually be recouped with a market recovery -- it translates to a 128 percent drop in investments and interest earnings.

Philadelphia's cultural organizations responded to these financial setbacks by taking steps to reduce labor costs while maintaining the quality of their productions and increasing the number of events. To keep patrons coming through the door, cultural organizations continued to invest in marketing, and they maximized those dollars by shifting more of their marketing budgets online. Costs for printing and postage both fell by 5 percent, while Internet and Web marketing expenses increased by 49 percent. When jobs were eliminated, organizations put the mission first and made cuts to administrative staff before artistic and programmatic staff were let go. Like many households during the recession, cultural organizations also delayed major repairs and cut facilities-related costs to keep the doors open. It's a short-term gamble, in that if the economy falters again and recovery is delayed, the costs of repairs could be compounded by neglect.

While most of the revenue side of the income statement was clobbered during the recession, one area where we made up ground was in individual engagement. In addition to the 5 percent increase in attendance, individuals also showed their support in other ways. Memberships and subscriptions rose 8 percent and personal giving jumped 20 percent. While the gains were not enough to offset the damage done by the downturn, they do help point a way forward.

For years, Philadelphia's civic leaders, funder community, and cultural groups have made arts and culture a civic priority and central part of our region's development strategy. Our aim has been not just to make Philadelphia a world-class destination, but also to use our rich cultural assets to help address longstanding civic issues and make Philadelphia a better place to live, work, and raise a family.

The result has been a profound and widespread effort to engage new audiences and serve our communities. Cultural organizations have worked to keep the performances and exhibitions affordable by maintaining the average cost of admission at $15, less than a third of the cost of production. At a time when creativity in schools was at a premium but funds were at a minimum, the region's cultural sector committed to educational programming. Cultural groups around the region are using arts and culture as a way to improve scholastic performance, foster creativity and innovation, help kids cope with bullying, train a new generation of artists and performers, and revitalize neighborhoods. Last year, there were nearly two million visits by school-aged children to regional cultural organizations, and cultural organizations conducted nearly three thousand programs on site at area schools.

These community engagement efforts may have been the sector's smartest investment for long-term sustainability. The theory is that by deepening the engagement of the individual, improving the patron's experience, lowering barriers to participation, and building strong partnerships with community organizations, we are attracting new audiences. The connections that we build by serving our neighbors are paid back in the form of patron loyalty and public support.

The early signs about community engagement are positive. But ultimately, it will be important to measure impact over time. Fortunately, we now have a tool for these longitudinal and geographic comparisons — the Cultural Data Project (CDP), a collaborative partnership of public and private funders and advocacy agencies. The CDP has grown to include eleven states with another twenty-one in the evaluation phase. And CDP is also an important analytical tool for organizations, used by both management and boards.

With prominent economists debating the likelihood of a double-dip recession, arts and cultural nonprofit leaders will need to weigh what has worked, what hasn't, and which practices are most likely to yield success in a tough economy. This requires a lot of really good data. We hope that the just released Portfolio report is an example of what we can learn and change with the right information and interpretation.

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2011 Portfolio was made possible by the Pew Charitable Trusts, PNC, the William Penn Foundation, and the Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation. The publication is available online at www.philaculture.org.

Weekend Link Roundup (September 24 - 25, 2011)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Arts and Culture

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Susan Stehling shares findings from a new Minnesota Council on Foundations report which found that giving to the arts in the region fell 10 percent in 2009 and was down 19 percent from 2004 levels.

Communications/Marketing

While attending the Communications Network conference in Boston, Katya Andresen looked at three different ways to measure social media on her Non-Profit Marketing blog.

Impact/Effectiveness

Center for Effective Philanthropy vice president for research Ellie Buteau shares key findings from a new report that "looks at strategy at community foundations and concludes that, just as is the case at private foundations, there is a gulf between rhetoric and reality...."

Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, announces the relaunch of the nonprofit rating site. Three years in the making, the new CN 2.0 "evaluates [transparency and accountability] practices that have been researched, advocated for and recommended for years by many, many nonprofit experts."

Philanthropy

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy research and policy associate Kevin Laskowski explains why technological advances and shifts in the industry could spell the end for many community foundations.

Social Entrepreneurship

Philanthrocapitalism authors Matthew Bishop and Michael Green recap the Startups for Good Challenge, which was held on the final day of the 2011 Social Good Summit in New York City last week.

Social Media

On the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog, Melinda Gates announces that she has joined Twitter and explains why. Writes Gates:

Most people associate philanthropy with great wealth. In my mind, philanthropy is not about the money. It’s about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world. If you are passionate about helping humanity, then you can get creative about the ways to do so.

Twitter is an example of this -- it is the type of vehicle that allows you to share stories of impact in an instant. I'll be using Twitter to pass along stories that inspire me....

Last but not least, Beth Kanter looks at the "new dramatic, life altering changes in the Facebook Platform," including Timeline and Open Graph, and teases out some of the implications for nonprofits.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone