PhilanTopic

Poverty and the Marketization of Philanthropy

(Bradford K. Smith is the president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about the Jumo/GOOD merger, philanthropy, and social enterprise.)

"Philanthropy is distorting markets for the poor!" exclaimed a prominent NGO leader at one of the many breakfasts held around Manhattan last week in connection with the Clinton Global Initiative. It was a statement intended to provoke, and it swirled around the table in a cloud of other market-friendly phrases ("impact investing," "social investment," "base of the pyramid," "shared value"). Finally someone said, "It's really confusing when everyone who makes grants, subsidized loans, or equity investments describes themselves as an investor." Which made me reflect on just how far the marketization of philanthropy has progressed. I mean, some days it seems like the last thing anybody wants to admit to being is a grantmaker!

To be fair, the intent of the provocation was to underscore the point that, today, there is a far wider range of market-based solutions available to address the needs of the poor than many of us might imagine. Yet beneath this whole discussion is an almost Rousseau-like view of "the poor" that informed an earlier generation of anti-poverty efforts. Then, foundations and governments poured significant amounts of money into "community development" abroad and "community building" at home while the kind of idealized communities they sought to promote were being buffeted by the politics of race, civil strife, immigration and, yes, markets, in the form of globalization.

Today, as de-leveraging in the global north drives societies toward greater inequality, the market is being promoted as the solution to the mother of all market failures -— global poverty. And whereas yesterday's poor were supposed to preserve the sense of community the rest of us had lost, the poor today are expected to buy into an idealized form of market capitalism while the rest of us try to repair the damage caused by a near-fatal economic meltdown. Years ago when the craze was micro-enterprises, I remember a Canadian trade unionist reminding us at a global YMCA conference that you couldn't have small business without big businesses. And that was a time when "big" meant something far smaller than the too-big-to-fail firms that are piloting the global economy as it lurches from crisis to crisis.

Before getting all idealistic and dewy-eyed about markets, let's remember that unlike, say, photosynthesis, they are a creation of man. To understand markets you need at least a passing familiarity with Adam Smith, Joseph Schumpeter, and William Shakespeare. To lay the blame for market failures on faulty implementation by a few bad elements or over-zealous regulators is irresponsible. C.S. Lewis famously wrote that you shouldn't judge Christianity by Christians. But markets are not religion, and we have an obligation to assess how people make them work or fail. We need realistic expectations as to what they can and cannot achieve.

So where does this leave philanthropy, an industry in the United States that controls $600 billion dollars in assets and spends $45 billion a year to do lots of things for the public good, including taking on poverty? I kind of like the approach of the Omidyar Network. After a time spent trying hard not to be many things, it seems to be finding its groove. The folks at ON clearly believe in markets and use lots of investment jargon. Yet managing partner Matt Bannick regularly articulates a pragmatic "blended capital" approach to the organization's work. Basically, Omidyar identifies an issue, say, property rights, and then figures out which part of it can be addressed with outright grants, which part with program-related investments, and which part with full market-rate investments.

The grant vs. social investment debate is both a healthy one for philanthropy and a false choice. If markets functioned perfectly, there would be no poverty. But they don't and never will, which is why we need to be compassionate, idealistic, pragmatic, and flexible in using all the tools at our disposal to meet the challenges of our time. That so much poverty persists alongside such massive accumulation of wealth is unacceptable and dangerous for the long-term prospects of our increasingly global society. While philanthropy is a product of those contradictions, it also has the means and a responsibility to do something about them.

(Photoillustration: Ji Lee, Portfolio magazine)

-- Brad Smith

This Week in PubHub: Community Information Ecosystems

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that examine the recent past and future prospects of journalism and the news media.)

The twentieth-century mass media model is being replaced, we're told, by a "new news ecosystem" in which the consumer of news increasignly is also a producer of news content. But for all its openness and egalitarian qualities, questions remain as to how well this ecosystem functions as a local community information system, whether people trust the information it delivers, and what investments are needed to make it better? This week in PubHub, we're highlighting four reports that examine how well the rapidly evolving news business is serving local communities.

The Chicago Community Trust report Linking Audiences to News: A Network Analysis of Chicago Websites (54 pages, PDF) analyzes the structure of the local news ecosystem -- more than four hundred Web sites -- in the Chicagoland area by mapping the way these sites are connected to one another via hyperlinks. Among other things, the report found that nearly 80 percent of the sites are rarely linked to from other sites and therefore unlikely to be found by consumers of local news and information, while more than 40 percent do not link out to other sites. Sites that are widely linked to include the region's mass transit systems, museums, and sources of original reporting such as chicagotribune.com and online-only publications like gapersblock.com and chicagoist.com. The report also found that whereas online-only sites are most likely to link to other sites, traditional media sites tend not to, while specific content-oriented sites tend to share links among themselves but are rarely linked to from sites outside those fields. Funded by CCT, the Knight Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the report calls for encouraging more linking among locally focused sites as a way of creating and encouraging a better-informed community.

So how does the public view community information ecosystems, what are the factors that shape those views, and how do those views in turn influence civic life? Those are some of the questions raised in How the Public Perceives Community Information Systems (13 pages, PDF), a report from the Monitor Institute, the Knight Foundation, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Based on surveys conducted in Philadelphia, Macon, Georgia, and San Jose, California, the report found that those who believe local government does a good job of sharing information are more likely to be satisfied with its performance, as well as the performance of other local institutions, the overall community, and the local information ecosystem (including the local media, libraries, public forums, and broadband connectivity). The report also found that confidence in local government transparency and increased access to local news and information are linked to a stronger sense of civic empowerment and active community engagement.

The Knight Foundation's Community Information Toolkit: Building Stronger Communities Through Information Exchange (53 pages, PDF), another product of the foundation's collaboration with the Monitor Institute, offers guidance and resources for community leaders interested in leveraging the power of information for community improvement, including a template for identifying local issues and how information affects them, data collection and assessment checklists, a scorecard for visualizing information ecosystem findings, and an action plan template.

One important element in a robust community information ecosystem is a high-quality online hub, a "well-publicized portal that points to the full array of local information resources," a 2009 report from the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy argues. Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action (34 pages, PDF), a 2011 report from the Aspen Institute and the Knight Foundation, describes what such a hub might look like, including core elements such as local government information, community news and commentary, and links to community resources. The report calls on government at all levels to facilitate access to relevant data, seed money, and infrastructure; on local libraries, media outlets, and colleges and universities to help develop content, technologies, and information resources; and on businesses, foundations, and venture capitalists to provide financing and in-kind support.

At the moment, the community information field is dominated by the Knight Foundation, which has invested considerable resources in examining the state of community information networks and their potential for boosting civic engagement. Are you aware of or involved in an interesting community information project? Do you think the "new news ecosystem" is living up to its potential to foster community improvement through increased civic participation? And if it's not, what can foundations do to help build a new news ecosystem that works for all Americans? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can check out new featured reports every week and browse more than a hundred and fifty reports that address topics related to journalism and media.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Lessons From ‘KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play’

Growing up in a middle-class suburb in New Jersey, my friends and I spent most of our free hours climbing trees, riding bikes, or jumping on someone's trampoline until our parents or siblings called us home for dinner. There was a playground in the neighborhood where we also went to swing, slide, and horse around. More than twenty years later, in Brooklyn, I'm reminded almost daily why it's important for kids to have a safe place to play outdoors when I hear primary school-aged children with no other options running up and down the hallway or bouncing a basketball outside my apartment door.

Because of my suburban upbringing and subsequent experience in NYC, I was immediately drawn to KaBOOM!: How One Man Built a Movement to Save Play, Darell Hammond's new book about the nonprofit organization he founded in 1995 with Dawn Hutchinson-Weiss to help low-income communities across the country organize to build playgrounds. (Read a review of the book here.)

Throughout the book, Hammond shares what I've come to think of as "Hammond-isms" -- management tips and advice he learned as a youngster at the Mooseheart Child City & School -- a residential childcare facility on a 1,000-acre campus outside Chicago that houses children "in need" -- as well as leading a fast-growing nonprofit.

Here are a few of my favorite from the book:

• "Regardless of what you do for a living, you'll never reach your full potential until you realize how artificial limits can be. Growth comes from making yourself a little uncomfortable and spurring yourself [to go] beyond what you've always done....Especially when it’s done in service to others."
• "Titles are meaningless. All people, regardless of what their business card says (or whether they even have business cards), should get treated with decency and courtesy...."
• "Dreaming big is important in the growth of any organization. Executing on the big dreams is even more important."
• "Hard jobs, dirty jobs, physical work -- whenever something needs to be done, you jump in and do it, regardless of your title or seniority."
• "While risk taking may inherently mean sometimes succeeding and sometimes not, I think the more critical issue is making certain we learn from the times we don’t succeed. That’s probably the best gift any failure can give you: an opportunity to learn what not to do and an opportunity to learn what to do differently."

What about you? Have you had a chance to read KaBOOM!? Any tips or lessons from the book -- or your own life -- you'd care to share? Use the comments section below....

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (July 9 - 10, 2011)

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

Arts and Culture

The Createquity Arts Policy Library has been revived, with new posts from the library's three fellows -- Aaron Andersen, Jennifer Kessler, and Crystal Wallis -- who take an in-depth look at research on our "cultural rights"; informal arts; and the impact of arts education.

Communications/Marketing

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen explains why listening is the "most underrated skill in the world." Writes Andresen, "The most successful people in the world are all great listeners….They're so good at hearing, they don't just listen to the words being said by others, they also grasp the meaning beneath those utterances. They therefore understand what people want, and they build great companies, amazing nonprofits, and terrific agencies based on that knowledge."

Community Improvement/Development

On his Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen makes a case for the creation of pooled funds to help nonprofits across the country struggling to make ends meet. "After the economy broke down nearly three years ago, organizations and individuals in some communities stepped up and created pooled funds to support basic and emergency services that nonprofits provide to people in need," writes Cohen. "The creation of those funds reflected true leadership and commitment, and can be a model for establishing funds to provide the operating support that nonprofits desperately need now."

After the Wall Street Journal suggested in a lengthy article that ran over the Fourth of July weekend that the deep-pocketed Kresge Foundation was rethinking its efforts to revive the fortunes of Detroit after run-ins with Mayor Dave Bing and City Hall officials, Jonathan Oosting reports in Mlive.com that the foundation has no plans "to withdraw financial support for either the Detroit Works Project or Woodward Light Rail line."

Environment

Idealist.org's Julia Smith, whom we spoke with in May as part of our "social media for social good" video series, has a few tips for jobseekers interested in "green" jobs.

Fundraising

On his Future Fundraising Now blog, Jeff Brooks shares some reservations about mobile giving campaigns. "Unless you're the Red Cross and have the First Lady and every other celebrity pushing it for you," says Brooks, "the potential is painfully low."

Leadership

Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan takes a closer look at the new Daring to Lead report (18 pages, PDF), which found that 67 percent of nonprofit leaders "plan to leave" their jobs in the next five years. Over the past ten years, the Daring to Lead series, which is produced by CompassPoint and the Meyer Foundation, has predicted a "'wave' of impending transitions in leadership," writes Buchanan. But while the percentage in the 2011 report is "a high number…experience seems to suggest a significant gap between the survey results…and what actually happens."

Philanthropy

On the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Darin McKeever of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation describes how the foundation came up with a new strategy for its Charitable Sector Support initiative.

Regulation/Oversight

Guidestar's Bob Ottenhoff says "it's time to change which kind of organizations are eligible for a tax exemption." College booster clubs and big football bowls are just a couple of the types of organizations that should have their status revoked, says Ottenhoff. To help address the nation's budget crises, Ottenhoff also suggests cutting back tax expenditures: "deductions -- or loopholes -- that lower tax obligations, thereby reducing the amount of revenue going to the Treasury...."

Social Media

On her Nonprofit Tech 2.0 blog, Heather Mansfield has a few tips for nonprofits that are ready to think globally. Writes Mansfield: "The world is getting smaller with each passing day, and nonprofits as the agents of social good, should try to think bigger and stretch their Twitter wings beyond their own time zones."

The launch last week of the Google+ social networking platform generated a fair amount of comment in the nonprofit blogosphere. On the NTEN blog, Amy Sample Ward shared a few thoughts about the platform's privacy settings and how the site might benefit nonprofit professionals and their organizations, while Zoetica co-founder Geoff Livingston warned that yet another new social networking site means nonprofits will be encouraged to "spread the peanut butter a little thinner" instead of focusing "on the networks that have the most impact on their community."

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

-- Regina Mahone

7 Tips for Finding Stories in Your Organization

(Regular contributor Thaler Pekar helps smart leaders and their organizations find, develop, and share the stories and organizational narratives that can rally critical support. In April, we posted an abbreviated version of a lecture on the Ethics of Working with Story that Thaler delivered to Kent State University’s graduate program in Information Architecture and Knowledge Management.)

Here are some tips on how you can elicit stories about your organization from colleagues, board members, donors, clients, grantees, and others.

1. Ask about moments of emotion. Ask people -- and yourself -- when you have felt passionate, connected to, engaged with, surprised, proud of, or touched by your organization, a client, or an event. You can also ask people to recall turning points -- moments when something important seemed to change.

2. Ask for the stories behind the words. My colleague Madelyn Blair says "stories are made up of words, and words are made up of stories." Look at your mission statement and tagline. What stories do the words inspire? Look, especially, at your organization's stated values -- might you have a story about when you last felt that way?

For example, I recently worked with the smart staff of Hazon. The Hazon tagline is "Jewish inspiration. Sustainable communities." The organization's staff is committed to exploring stories about being inspired at work and how their work impacts the greater world. And they're eager to explore the meaning of the word sustainable: What does it mean? Can the definition change when it's used in reference to a person? A workplace? A community? The world? When did staff most feel like they were living sustainably?

3. Plot stories on a timeline. Create a timeline that charts the lifespan of your organization as well as your time there as an employee. Include all the big events, both professional and personal. Note the challenges and turning points. Who were the "angels" along the way? Do you have any stories about how they helped you and/or your organization? Can looking at events in this way help you craft a different, more compelling story about your organization's history and present activities and goals?

I facilitated this exercise with Nancy Biberman, founder and executive director of WHEDCo. Nancy has long talked about WHEDCo's quest to provide poor children in the South Bronx with the same high-quality extracurricular activities available to children in affluent suburbs. Going through the timeline exercise helped Nancy remember that she was in the process of building WHEDCo and its programs at a time when she and her family had moved from Brooklyn to a suburb just outside Manhattan -- and that she derived such delight and comfort from seeing her daughter and son ride their bikes down a tranquil suburban street and play in a clean, drug-free park that she decided to incorporate those feelings into the work of the organization she was building. Thanks to the timeline exercise, Nancy has a deeply personal story she can use to engage listeners and foster a better understanding of WHEDCo's mission.

4. Ask for superlatives. People tend to remember the "best," "worst," "first," "most," "happiest," or "saddest." Ask for stories related to those moments, and try to elicit what really happened to make the moment superlative. In an earlier post, What, Why and How Story Matters, I suggested asking your stakeholders the following questions:

• If you look back over your years of knowing and being a part of this organization, what experiences come to mind? What incident stands out as the most delightful?
• Can you tell me about an experience that was less interesting to you?
• When was the first time you heard of our organization? With whom were you speaking? What was happening?

5. Play with objects. Think "Show & Tell." Choose an object that speaks to your relationship with your organization. Why is this object important to you? How did you come to possess it? Who was there? How did you feel?

6. Use visuals. Similar to objects, ask people to choose pictures from magazines, newspapers, books, or their photo albums that symbolize their relationship with the organization. You can also use decks of cards that are especially constructed to elicit stories. See my previous post, Values as Visuals.

7. Create a Living Circle. Have your staff or board members line up in order of tenure with the organization, then have them form a circle. Next, have each person share a story about an experience that occurred the year they joined the organization. Encourage people to share a specific memory, from a specific moment in time.

No matter what tool you use to spark the sharing of stories, be sure to have a clear prompt. Remember to ask for "a moment," "a time," or "an experience." Remember, you're looking for examples, not opinions.

If you're sharing stories in a group, limit each person sharing their story to one to three minutes. Remind people to think of their stories as having a clear beginning, middle, and end. This will help them construct a story that can be shared within the one- to three-minute timeframe.

Once you have collected a new batch of stories about your organization, remember to share them! As I have noted previously: "Stories are not commodities to be banked and forgotten. They are, instead, a valuable tool for information sharing and sense-making. And their use should not be limited to print and electronic newsletters, Web sites, and direct-mail pieces. Make certain your stakeholders are in the habit of sharing stories orally and frequently."

And don't forget: One of the best ways to elicit a story is to share a story yourself -- and to listen carefully to the stories it sparks in return.

-- Thaler Pekar

This Week in PubHub: Environment: Green Access

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at reports that highlight the need to protect and invest in the environmental, economic, and cultural benefits of the planet's water and marine resources.)

While the environmental benefits of green spaces are obvious, the issue of equitable green access -- access to parks and open spaces where children can play and communities can thrive -- lies at the intersection of environmental, health, community development, and social justice concerns. This week in PubHub we're featuring four reports that examine how access to green space is inequitably distributed and what it means for racial and economic justice.

City Project has been mapping the distribution of parks and green spaces across Southern California, overlaid with demographic, economic, and historical data, in order to analyze green access by race/ethnicity and poverty rates. Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: Green Access and Equity in Orange County (24 pages, PDF) finds that disparities in children's fitness, obesity rates, and safe parks are directly linked to race/ethnicity and household income. The report found that a disproportionate percentage of children of color live in areas of concentrated poverty in the northern part of the county, where their access to parks or school fields for play or public transportation connected to open spaces and beaches farther south is limited, and therefore are more likely not to meet physical fitness standards. Areas with the least access to parks and open spaces also have the highest child obesity rates. The implications of such disparities extend far beyond physical health, the report's authors argue, in that physical fitness is also linked to academic performance. The report was funded by the California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes, Kresge, Marguerite Casey, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert, Rouben and Violet Jiji, San Diego, Union Bank of California, Whole Systems, and William C. Kenney Watershed Protection foundations.

City Project also found that while San Diego County is 45 percent green space, areas of the county with the highest concentrations of low-income households and people of color are "park-poor" and have the highest child obesity rates. Not only would better access to parks and open spaces provide these communities with environmental, health, and economic benefits, the authors argue, it would also also give the residents of those communities healthier venues in which to celebrate their diverse cultural heritages and foster community pride. Funded by the San Diego Foundation, the Fletcher Family Fund, the Hattie Ettinger Conservation Fund, and REI, Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: Green Access and Equity for the San Diego Region (46 pages, PDF) suggests a number of ways to ensure more equitable green access in the county, including prioritizing green space projects in low-income areas; developing better public transit to green spaces; implementing joint-use projects that facilitate the public's recreational use of parks, school facilities, and pools; and expanding the Conservation Corps and youth job programs.

Social justice is a central theme in grassroots efforts to secure green access in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, which is threatened by expanded oil drilling, a new report from Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles and City Project argues. The report, Keep Baldwin Hills Clean and Green for Generations to Come (56 pages, PDF), notes that the neighborhood is one of the most park-poor areas in California -- due in part to a history of discriminatory land use and economic policies and practices -- and as a result has disproportionately suffered the environmental burdens of local oil field operations. Funded by the California Endowment, the Impact Fund, Kaiser Permanente, and the James Irvine, Kresge, Liberty Hill, and Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert foundations, the report lays out the community's vision for converting the oil field into a 1,200-acre park.

Farther north, a public-private partnership in San Francisco has succeeded in offering residents more recreational space and access by upgrading the city's athletic fields and streamlining its field permit system. In Giving Every Child a Place to Play Ball: A Partnership to Revitalize San Francisco's Athletic Fields (24 pages, PDF), the City Fields Foundation describes its efforts to renovate run-down fields, install lights for night play and practices, and reform the permit system for easier and more equitable field access. The report also details a number of challenges, including concerns about the use of synthetic turf, the vagaries of city politics, and the difficulty of engaging local residents who are more focused on crime and safety concerns than park stewardship.

What are your thoughts about disparities in green access and/or how the disparities relate to social and economc justice? Are you involved in or do you know of any philanthropy-supported projects designed to enhance access to safe parks and open spaces? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

And dont forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse hundreds of reports related to the environment and environmental concerns.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Key Facts on Community Foundations (April 2011)

Although 2010 marked the first consecutive-year decline in community foundation giving since 1981, a majority of community foundations say their giving will increase or hold steady in 2011, a new Foundation Center report finds.

According to Key Facts on Community Foundations (6 pages, PDF), giving by community foundations declined an estimated 2.1 percent in 2010, following a 7.1 percent decline in 2009. The outlook is improving, however, with half the respondents (50 percent) saying they anticipate that their giving will increase in 2011, while 16 percent expect it to remain flat.

Some other key facts from the survey:

• $4 billion -- Estimated giving by community foundations in 2010
• 737 -- Number of grantmaking community foundations in 2009
• 44.6 percent –- Share of community foundations reporting more than $1 million in giving in 2009
• 9.1 percent -– Community foundation giving as a share of all foundation giving in 2009

As the charts below show, education (28 percent) and human services (22 percent) were the top funding priorities of communty foundations in 2009, followed by health (14 percent), arts and culture (12 percent), public affairs/society benefit (10 percent), environment/animals (6 percent), religion (4 percent), international affairs/development/peace (2 percent), and science/technology (2 percent). Community foundations were also more likely than independent or corporate foundations to provide funding for education and human services, and less likely to provide funding for health, international affairs, and science and technology.

Finally, the report found that the largest community foundation by total giving in 2009 was the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation ($183,493,211), followed by:

• Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($154,255,000)
• Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta ($142,126,513)
• California Community Foundation ($129,907,000)
• New York Community Trust ($123,411,403)
• Tulsa Community Foundation ($117,692,000)
• Chicago Community Trust ($110,608,629)
• Foundation For The Carolinas ($89,879,356)
• Boston Foundation ($82,464,000)
• Columbus Foundation and Affiliated Organizations ($79,774,602)

For a list of the top twenty-five foundations by total giving and/or to download a copy of the factsheet (6 pages, PDF), click here.

NYC’s New Summer Playground Will Have Winter Tenants: A Conversation With Robert Pirani

Robert Pirani is executive director of the Governors Island Alliance, a coalition of organizations and individuals working to realize the recreational and cultural potential of the 172-acre island and former military base in New York Harbor. The island, ownership of which was transferred to New York State and the National Park Service in 2003, received a record 443,000 visitors over the summer, a more than 60 percent increase over 2009. Innovative and largely free public programs, plenty of historic charm, and spectacular harbor views are transforming the island from a well-kept secret to one of New York’s most exciting civic spaces.

The following Q&A with Pirani was conducted by Laura Cronin, director of the Toshiba America Foundation.

Laura Cronin: For those who have not yet had the pleasure of taking the ferry out to Governors Island, can you give a brief description of what people will find there?

Robert Pirani: Governors Island is just a seven-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn, but it truly is a world apart. The National Landmark Historic District on the island features massive stone forts that defended New York after the Revolution and nineteenth-century Federal and Victorian-style buildings that housed generations of military families. The two-mile waterfront esplanade is a mecca for car-free walking and biking, and offers fantastic views of the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline, and rest of the harbor. Acres of shady lawns make it a great spot for a lazy summer picnic.

The Trust for Governors Island -- a city-led development corporation -- and the Governors Island National Monument have invited a wide range of partners to help create programming for the island. As a result, the island is becoming a venue for innovative art and creative public events. It's also an ideal platform for programs that showcase the harbor and its evolving role in shaping New York's economy and ecology.

LC: Nonprofits and private grantmakers seem to have had a rather large role in shaping the still-evolving plan for the island. Can you summarize that history for our readers and explain where the Governors Island Alliance fits in?

RP: The Regional Plan Association created the Governors Island Alliance when the Coast Guard announced it was quitting the island in 1995. Since then, we've worked with our coalition partners to help ensure that the island is returned to New York and is reinvented as a great civic space. We raised the island's profile at a time when few people were aware of its value and helped define the public interest through community workshops, hearings, and advocacy.

Our initial catalytic role is evolving. The terrific work of the Trust for Governors Island and the National Park Service in planning and programming the island's park space has already made the island a part of the city's recreational fabric. And the alliance contributes to the process by creating opportunities for visitors to become a constituency in their own right through on-the-ground stewardship as well as supporting continued public and private investment. For example, our volunteers and interns -- including students from the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School -- greet visitors to the island and survey them about their experiences on the island. We host corporate outings and day camps, and we introduce these groups to partners like the Added Value community farm and the EarthMatter compost operation.

Our work is complemented by the wealth of nonprofit talent attracted to the island's unique setting. Arts groups like Figment and the Children's Museum of the Arts, environmental organizations like NY-NJ Harbor Baykeeper and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance are just some of the groups bringing exceptional programs to the island -- and building the visibility and brand identity critical to the island's future.

Special credit is due to the J.M. Kaplan Fund, which made several early investments in the Alliance, the Harbor School, and many other nonprofit partners located on the island. Creative grantmaking, the fund's ability to convene other stakeholders, and its willingness to stick with the project over time have leveraged an enormous public and private commitment to transform the island into an a treasured amenity for future generations of New Yorkers.

LC: Although weekend visits ended on October 10, there's still regular ferry service to the island and many of those passengers will be students and artists. Can you describe what the island's winter tenants will be up to and how those projects are supported?

RP: A terrific sign of progress on the Island are the first of what we expect to be dozens of year-round tenancies. Last March, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council established a suite of year-round artist studios at their Art Center in Building 110, a former munitions warehouse. And this September, the Harbor School, a high school with a maritime curriculum, opened its doors to four hundred students in what had been the island's McKim, Mead & White-designed Island hospital. The New York Harbor School Foundation is now working on their next project: the completion of a Marine Science and Technology Center that will showcase the school's aquaculture and boat-building activities for the public. These projects exemplify what the island should be about: Programs and uses that welcome the public, connect people to the harbor, and repurpose priceless historic buildings. We're hopeful that over the next few years other donors and visionaries will step forward with similar creative proposals.

LC: What's the status of the public park? Is the plan for the park set? And when do you expect it to open to the public?

RP: In reaching an agreement with the state to take full control of the island last summer, Mayor Bloomberg signaled his intention to make the transformation of the island one of his most important legacies. The Trust for Governors Island is now working with the Dutch firm West 8 to develop plans for the island's almost ninety acres of future parkland and public spaces. A draft concept plan has been released, schematic designs should be complete by February, and an environmental review process will get under way this winter. At the same time, the National Monument folks are moving forward in implementing a General Management Plan, and we're all really excited about the 2011 opening of Castle Williams, right in time for its 200th birthday. For the first time, the public will be able to access the roof of the fort and its spectacular harbor views. The alliance worked with Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to secure the funding needed for the renovation.

Just like Central Park or Battery Park City, we expect the island to take shape over a generation. But we're hopeful that the mayor and other political leaders will be able to secure the capital funding needed to move ahead on the first phase of park improvements as well as the infrastructure needed to support additional tenancies in the historic district over the next three years.

LC: How can funders concerned about New York City, or parks, or schools get involved?

RP: One of our real delights is being able to introduce people to this unique and beautiful place. We're always happy to take people on a tour and introduce them to the island and the many hands at work in its rebirth. In addition to the organizations I've mentioned, a quick look at the alliance’s or trust’s event calendars will provide a shapshot of the other nonprofit partners active on the island this past summer.

-- Laura Cronin

A 'Flip' Chat With...Ben Esner, Senior VP for Programs, Brooklyn Community Foundation

This is the fourth in our series of "Flip" chats with thought leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. You can find others here (Ami Dar, Idealist), here (Nancy Lublin, Do Something) and here (Lucy Bernholz, Blueprint Research & Design).

One of the great things about working for an organization like the Foundation Center is being able to meet nonprofit and foundation leaders who participate in events at our New York City library. Most recently, I attended an event where five panelists -- Ben Esner of the Brooklyn Community Foundation, Armanda Famiglietti of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Jonathan Goldberg of the Surdna Foundation, Rossana Martinez of the Lily Auchincloss Foundation, and Susanna Zwerling of Verizon -– discussed the pros and cons of online grant applications and reporting. (For more information about the event, be sure to read my colleague Tracy Kaufman's post at the Philanthropy Front and Center – New York blog.)

After the event, I had the opportunity to speak with Esner, senior vice president for programs at BCF, about the foundation's funding priorities. In the video, Esner also shares some background about the foundation, which began life as the Independence Community Foundation, an independent private foundation associated with the Independence Community Bank (since acquired by Sovereign Bank), became a public charity in October 2009, and announced its first round of grants earlier this month.

If you're reading this in an e-mail, click here.

(Total running time: 9 minutes, 54 seconds)

-- Regina Mahone

Brooke Astor, the People's Philanthropist: Neighborhood Development

(Michael Seltzer is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In his previous post, he wrote about the late Brooke Astor's many contributions to and generous support for public spaces in New York City.)

Brooke Russell Astor became president of the Vincent Astor Foundation on January 27, 1960, almost a year to the day after her third and last husband, Vincent Astor, the great-great-grandson of America's first multi-millionaire, John Jacob Astor, died of a heart attack at the age of 67. It was the beginning of what would turn out to be a tumultuous decade for America and the world, and the 59-year-old Mrs. Astor would use her position and fortune over the course of the decades that followed to become one of the most prominent and respected philanthropists in the country.

Along the way, she became an early proponent of a new form of urban development driven by community activists rather than all-powerful city planners (e.g., Robert Moses). Those activists rejected massive public housing projects as the answer to urban America's problems and sought to restore the economic and social vitality of New York City's four hundred-plus neighborhoods through genuine grassroots efforts.

The Astor Foundation's entry point into that work was its interest in youth. Although Vincent Astor himself never had children, he had a strong interest in what was then referred to as "disadvantaged youth." After his death, his wife honored that interest through an array of grants to youth development organizations in the city, including Project Broad Jump, Madison Square Boys & Girls Club, and Harlem Prep. In 1961 the foundation made its biggest grant up to that point, an award of $1.25 million, to United Neighborhood Houses in support of the latter's efforts to provide pre-teen programs at settlement houses throughout the city.

Grants like that were the catalyst for Mrs. Astor's increasingly frequent forays into the city's diverse neighborhoods. And as she traveled about, she witnessed firsthand the destruction inflicted on once-vibrant communities through ill-considered "urban redevelopment" schemes and came to learn how terribly misguided the then-favored approach to poverty amelioration was. Coney Island, where hundreds of one- and two-family homes were bulldozed to make way for multi-story apartment buildings, was, in her mind, the most egregious example of these wrong-headed policies. As she said on more than one occasion, "High rise, high crime."

(When I visited Honolulu in June 1968 as a VISTA volunteer, I was jarred by the sight of high-rise public housing in the middle of Kalihi-Palama, then considered one of that city's "ghettos." One didn't have to be a genius to see that the structures were as ill-suited to indigenous Hawaiians as were the grim brick monstrosities that had been built to house African-Americans who moved from the rural South to urban centers in the North after World War II.)

One of the Astor Foundation's best known grants came about as a result of a visit paid her in 1966 by New York's then-junior senator, Robert F. Kennedy. The senator, who was accompanied by Franklin Thomas, later to become a trustee and then president of the Ford Foundation, wanted to talk to Mrs. Astor about his interest in revitalizing the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. As a result of his visit, the Vincent Astor Foundation awarded a grant of $1 million to support the creation of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Renewal and Rehabilitation Corporation (later reconstituted as the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation) -- the first community development in the country and the prototype for the hundreds of such organizations that followed. Over the course of its existence, Restoration (as it was known) would attract more than $375 million in investments to Central Brooklyn and help over 20,000 youth and adults find jobs.

If anything, those conversations made Mrs. Astor more resolute about visiting prospective grantees on their home ground, even when others advised against it. While some of her male foundation colleagues derided her as a publicity-seeking socialite, she was ecumenical in terms of seeking counsel related to her grantmaking and relied a good deal on the advice of grassroots activists, local ministers, youth workers, and block association members. Their names rarely appeared on the pages of the city's tabloids, but Mrs. Astor found them and the foundation gave them funds and its imprimatur. Indeed, she became known as a keen scout of talent with an uncanny ability to size up individuals quickly and accurately.

By 1997, the year it closed its doors for good, the Vincent Astor Foundation had dispensed a total of $200 million in grants. On Mrs. Astor's watch and under the leadership of its executive director, Linda L. Gillies, the foundation processed approximately seven hundred requests for support and awarded a hundred or so grants a year. One has only to look at its grantee lists from the '60s, '70s, '80s, and '90s to understand the scope and depth of its reach -- and Mrs. Astor's commitment to New York and the people who call it home.

Brooke Astor earned the respect of politicians, community activists, other philanthropists, and the average person on the street by dint of her intelligence, wit, common sense, hard work, and, most importantly, humility. It may be a while before we see her like again, but her philanthropic legacy and that of the Vincent Astor Foundation will live on, in ways large and small, across all five of New York City's boroughs. 

That's no small comfort in these uncertain times.

-- Michael Seltzer

Readings (and Other Stuff) -- Nov. 9, 2009

Here's what we're reading:

• Wall Street Journal’s 2009 Philanthropy Report
  • What's Wrong With Charitable Giving -- and How to Fix It(Pablo Eisenberg)
  • Finding the Silk Purse (Sarah E. Needleman)
  • Expanding Your Horizons (Anjali Cordeiro)
  • Time to Convert? (Jilian Mincer)
  • Profiles in Giving (Melissa Korn)
  • Is It Public, or Is It Private? (Shelly Banjo)
  • Consider It an Investment (Shelly Banjo)
  • Tough Times, New Tactics (Shelly Banjo)
• Stephanie Strom: Confusion on Where Money Lent via Kiva Goes (NYT)
• Tim Ogden and Laura Starita: Social Networking and Mid-Size Nonprofits: What’s the Use?
• The Urbanophile: Detroit: Urban Laboratory and the New American Frontier (via New Geography)
• The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later (NYT)

How about you?

TED on Sunday: Geoff Mulgan on Social Innovation and the New Capitalism

Two-plus years after the global financial system began to melt down, we find ourselves in a "strange twilight zone" characterized by paralysis and retrogade thinking, argues Geoff Mulgan in this talk from the 2009 TED Global conference. Even as governments around the world borrow trillions of dollars from future generations in an attempt to reignite economic growth, many measures of social and environmental health are deteriorating. Indeed, says Mulgan, director of the London-based Young Foundation, the financial crisis has made plain the fact that economic growth doesn't automatically translate into social progress or human growth. Too much of it goes into boosting unsustainable consumption; too much of it leaves people feeling they aren't allowed to be useful -- and when people aren't allowed to be useful, they soon start to think they are useless. The question is, What are we going to do about it? Mulgan's answer may surprise and inspire you.

(Filmed: July 2009; Running time: 17:57)

Liked this talk? Try one of these.

• Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity
• Hans Rosling on the Global HIV Pandemic
• Bill Gates on the Importance of Being Optimistic
• Clay Shirky on the Transformed Media Landscape
• Katherine Fulton on the Future of Philanthropy
• Seth Godin on Leadership
• Barry Schwartz on the Paradox of Choice
• Alex Tabarrok on the Benefits of Globalization
• Majora Carter on Environmental Justice
• Al Gore on Climate Change
• Sylvia Earle on Saving the 'Blue Heart' of the Planet
• James Howard Kunstler on the Death of Suburbia
• Clay Shirky on Epochal Change
• Mark Bittman on How We Eat
• Hans Rosling on the Dimensions of Development
• Sir Ken Robinson on Education and Creativity

And for those who can't get enough of TED, check out Jim Simpson's post about a cool hidden feature of most TED Talks.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Detroit: Back to the Future?

Yesterday afternoon, I had the chance to speak with a very busy Diana Aviv. Aviv, president and CEO of Independent Sector, was getting ready for her organization's annual conference, which opens today at the Marriott Renaissance in downtown Detroit and runs through Friday. (With a little luck, I'll post the transcript of our conversation tomorrow.)

The theme of this year's conference, "Challenging Times, New Opportunities," couldn't be more timely, and the choice of Detroit as host city -- a decision made four years ago -- was prescient. The pre-conference materials on the IS Web site describe the Motor City as "a laboratory for exploring how the nonprofit and foundation community, government and business can together respond to the new opportunities offered by these challenging times" and goes on to commend Detroiters for their "creativity, passion and entrepreneurship" in reinventing their city and the region.

Those qualities are certainly evident in the urban farming movement that has taken root within the city's 140 square (and often deserted) miles. Indeed, the "de-urbanization" of Detroit has become a fertile topic of discussion for the likes of Aaron Renn (a/k/a "the Urbanophile"), City Journal's Steven Malanga, and others.

The latest to explore the topic is Mark Dowie, the former publisher and editor of Mother Jones magazine (and the author of American Foundations: An Investigative History). As Dowie explains it, the phenomenon is largely driven by two things: Detroit has become a "food desert" -- i.e., "a locality from which healthy food is more than twice as far away as unhealthy food, or where the distance to a bag of potato chips is half the distance to a head of lettuce." And it has a lot of open space.

"Manhattan, Boston, and San Francisco could be placed inside the borders of Detroit with room to spare," Dowie writes,

and the population is about the same as the smallest of those cities, San Francisco: eight hundred thousand. And that number is still declining from a high of two million in the mid-nineteen fifties. Demographers expect Detroit’s population to level off somewhere between five hundred thousand and six hundred thousand by 2025. Right now there is about forty square miles of unoccupied open land in the city, the area of San Francisco, and that landmass could be doubled by moving a few thousand people out of hazardous firetraps into affordable housing....

Combine the two with old-fashioned American ingenuity and you have a recipe for...well, if not an urban paradise, then

something close to it. The most intriguing visionaries in Detroit, at least the ones who drew me to the city, were those who imagine growing food among the ruins -- chard and tomatoes on vacant lots (there are over 103,000 in the city, sixty thousand owned by the city), orchards on former school grounds, mushrooms in open basements, fish in abandoned factories, hydroponics in bankrupt department stores, livestock grazing on former golf courses, high-rise farms in old hotels, vermiculture, permaculture, hydroponics, aquaponics, waving wheat where cars were once test-driven, and winter greens sprouting inside the frames of single-story bungalows stripped of their skin and re-sided with Plexiglas -- a homemade greenhouse. Those are just a few of the agricultural technologies envisioned for the urban prairie Detroit has become....

It's an intriguing piece and well worth your time. Click here to read it in its entirety.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Weekend Link Roundup (October 17 - 18, 2009)

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

Climate Change

This year’s Blog Action Day, on October 15, saw bloggers from 155 countries contribute posts and resources related to climate change and the environment. For a roundup of featured posts, check out the Change.org site.

Communications/Marketing

On her Getting Attention blog, nonprofit marketing expert Nancy Schwartz shares a recent case study in which Tracy Mitchell, general manager of the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, explains how she "tackled her marketing dilemmas, even before the recession hit in full force."

Community Improvement/Development

Referring to the recent incident involving ACORN workers who were caught on videotape allegedly advising individuals how to evade the law, Nonprofit Board Crisis blogger Mike Burns argues that as "in the public...and private sectors, mistakes...can be made by individual nonprofits." What is worrisome, says Burns, are the efforts by some members of Congress to use the incident as an excuse to repeal the Community Reinvestment Act, which, as Burns notes, was designed to end redlining -- the nefarious practice of "walling off" inner-city neighborhoods from mortgage loans. Adds Burns: "When [an organization’s] failing becomes a rallying cry to turn against parts of society that have limited voice, it's time for the nonprofit sector to take a stand."

Fundraising

After reading a new study from the Center on Philanthropy which found that donors who were asked to give in person by someone they knew were more likely to give than those asked by phone, mail or email, Todd Cohen says nonprofits need to "get back to basics" and "invest the time...to understand, cultivate, and engage their givers."

International Affairs/Development

A lively debate erupted early in the week as bloggers responded to an october 2 post by the Center for Global Development's David Roodman in which Roodman argued that popular microfinance site Kiva isn't quite what it seems. According to Roodman, that's because fewer than 5 percent of Kiva loans are disbursed after they are listed and funded on the Kiva site -- the way most people think the site works. After defending that practice in a separate post, Philanthropy Action editor-in-chief Tim Ogden raised other questions about the microfinance lender. Writes Ogden: "First, all losses from Kiva-securitized loans are borne by the Kiva user. Second, Kiva's monthly repayment reports are not based on actual repayment data." Then he asks: Will the "illusion...of person-to-person" giving lead to Kiva's demise, as it did for sponsor-a-child organizations in the '90s? Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton weighed in with his own thoughts on the controversy (here and here), as did Holden and Elie at GiveWell (here). By week's end, Kiva co-founder and CEO Matt Flannery had posted a thoughtful response to Roodman, and, as GiveWell reported, the Kiva team had made some changes to its donor-facing page.

On her Business of Giving blog, Seattle Times reporter Kristi Heim takes a closer look at Africa Rural Connect, an online community that uses crowdsourcing technology to find a "solution for Africa's development challenges."

Nonprofit Management

According to a recent article in the Wall Sreet Journal, the "Great Recession" is over. (And we have a bridge in Brooklyn we'd like to sell you.) If that's true, says Sean Stannard-Stockton on his Tactical Philanthropy blog, nonprofits should move quickly to "reset the future path of [their]...financial health." According to Stannard-Stockton, that means:

• developing the next generation of your most effective program;
• putting in place an outcome measurement system;
• creating and starting to build a reserve fund;
• upgrading your technology infrastructure; and
• hiring a top notch fundraiser.

Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta argues on his Free the Nonprofits blog that the so-called psychic benefits of nonprofit work are overrated. Writes Pallotta:

Most nonprofits are small and starved for capital, preventing employees from fully capitalizing on their personal potential. Nearly every good idea is met with a dearth of resources, a prohibition on taking risk, or a broken donated computer. Whatever psychic benefit that theoretically might have accrued from putting those good ideas into action is outweighed by the grind of shoestring budgets and overstretched systems that is the reality....

If you work for a nonprofit, you'll want to read the rest of his post.

Philanthropy

In part three of her "Decoding the Future" series, Lucy Bernholz offers further insights into the possible future nexus of philanthropy and technology. The big issues front and center in any such discussion, notes Bernholz, include "networks + network governance, the [giving] commons, [and] cloud technology."

Social Media

Ten Gen Y bloggers, including Allison Jones, Rosetta Thurman, Elisa M. Ortiz, Tracey Webb, and Kevin Gilnack, have formed the Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance to help "young...bloggers reach wider audiences and collectively bring important issues...to the forefront." Congrats and best wishes to all involved.

Social media has moved beyond "shiny new object syndrome," says Future Buzz blogger Adam Singer, and that means the key to success for organizations (and individuals) hoping to establish a meaningful presence in an increasingly crowded landscape is to be the starting point of conversations. Adds Singer:

[T]hose who continuously start conversations in a niche become referential for the rest of that niche. And once people are conditioned to go somewhere on the web for certain type of content, it is a habit that may prove hard to break. If this place is your site, you’ll greatly benefit. This is because we have designed the web to be a very social place -- and so the places where people regularly converge will continue to grow....

On her blog, Beth Kanter explains how to put "social learning" (aka "learning in public") into practice.

Volunteerism

On Friday, President Obama visited former President George H.W. Bush in Texas to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Points of Light movement, which was created to bring "individual citizens together in their own organizations to solve problems in their own communities." Writing on the Huffington Post, Points of Light CEO Michelle Nunn argues that while the movement has been a resounding success, "the call to citizens to step up and make a difference has never been more important."

Women

Last but not least, Allison Fine offers her takeaways from the recent Voices Against Violence blogathon. Sponsored by the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham and NBC Birmingham affiliate Channel 13, the event was designed "to raise awareness of the terrible toll of domestic violence on women and communities." And it was a success, says Fine, because

the importance of the partnership between broadcast media and social media was clearly highlighted....Rather than being threatened by the bloggers, NBC and the Women’s Fund recognized the importance of building a strong relationship with them. The future won’t be social media or broadcast, it will be social media AND broadcast -- in some combination that we are still developing....

We couldn't agree more.

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

-- Regina Mahone

New Orleans: Moving from Muddle to Model

(Tony Pipa is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In his last post, he reviewed Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa.)

The fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent failure of the levees in New Orleans will occur in just a few short days. Certainly the recovery of this iconic American city is far from complete and has been fraught with challenges. Halting and inadequate leadership at all levels of government has been too much on display, beginning with the flooding itself, a direct result of corners cut by the Army Corps of Engineers (with an assist from local management boards) when building and managing the levee system.* 

And yet where government has struggled, citizens have demonstrated resilience, creativity, and good old-fashioned guts. I truly believe that New Orleans has the highest level of civic engagement of any city in the United States right now. Residents keep up with what is happening in their neighborhoods, they voice their concerns, they try to come up with solutions. New Orleans is a city of neighborhoods, and almost every neighborhood has a vibrant, active grassroots group guiding its renewal. Organizations like Neighborhoods Partnership Network link them together and ensure shared support and vision.

Take Central City. A troubled neighborhood pre-Katrina, two of its public housing complexes are slated to be redeveloped with mixed-use housing, schools, and recreational facilities; an architecturally significant school, Mahalia Jackson Elementary, is being repurposed into a community resource center with cutting-edge early childhood development programs and integrated social services; and the business corridor along O.C. Haley Boulevard is being revitalized with streetscape improvements, loans leveraged from the city, and the possible use of land trusts to drive more locally-owned commercial development.

As someone who was on the ground almost immediately after the storm and frustrated, especially in the first year, by what I perceived to be an uncertain and overly conventional response from the foundation world, I have to admit that the recovery has also provided several instances of philanthropy at its best:

Philanthropy has taken risks. The Rockefeller Foundation and Greater New Orleans Foundation walked right into the middle of a hornet's nest when they provided the backing, both financial and political, for the United New Orleans Plan, a process that successfully involved many residents and put an end to the endless planning processes that kept springing up as the city tried to get off the mat. While the jury is still out on the effectiveness of school reform, the philanthropic sector has played an important role in the effort to use charter schools to turn around and redefine what was arguably the country's worst public school system.

Philanthropy has focused on building capacity. The Gulf Coast Fund for Community Renewal and Ecological Health has been advised by a committee of local grassroots leaders and has focused on supporting emerging activists and initiatives. In addition to strengthening the local nonprofit sector, foundations have even experimented with building the capacity of the public sector. The Ford Foundation, working in partnership with the Foundation for the Mid South and leveraging help from the Rockefeller Foundation and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, developed a loaned executive program to expand the pool of skilled professionals in city government.

Philanthropy has collaborated. Central City's renaissance has been catalyzed in part by a group of almost twenty foundations and corporations that have been intentional in integrating their approaches and communicating regularly about their work.

Philanthropy has been an advocate. The policy advocacy capacity of the Louisiana nonprofit sector was weak prior to the storm, and foundations both local and national have made significant investments to strengthen it and give it real voice at the federal, state, and local levels. In particular, the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, formed in the aftermath of the storm, has made public policy advocacy a real focus and incubated the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, a multi-state, multi-issue coalition of grassroots leaders advocating at the federal level.**

"Social innovation" has become an overused buzz phrase, but it's genuinely happening in myriad ways along the Gulf Coast. By the same token, the recovery has demonstrated the limitation of private action for the public good. After the largest charitable response in the nation's history, the work of thousands of volunteers from outside the area, and the tireless efforts of tens of thousands of residents, the challenges remain daunting. An estimated 65,000 properties in the city are blighted, the healthcare safety net is frayed (mental health services are a particular concern), and affordable housing is in short supply.

As the city shifts from a recovery mindset to a future-oriented vision, not quite halfway through what most residents consider to be a ten-year process, an improved governmental response will be critical to its success. Given the strong philanthropic and nonprofit presence, I think the opportunity exists for the Obama administration to make practical the new sort of relationship it has proposed between government and the social/philanthropic sector. New Orleans is starting to emerge as a model, with lessons for all of us, for all the right reasons. Too much hangs in the balance to walk away now.

-- Tony Pipa

* It is past infuriating how most media focus on "the storm" when describing what happened in New Orleans. New Orleans, in contrast to the towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, withstood Katrina's fury. Most people forget the sigh of relief the city breathed once the hurricane passed -- and before it became apparent that water was pouring through the cracks. What befell New Orleans was a man-made disaster, not a natural one.

** Disclaimer: I am a founder of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation and continue to consult with it and other foundations and NGOs working in the region.