PhilanTopic

To Innovate…Collaborate

(Paul Grogan is president and CEO of the Boston Foundation. His blog, City of Ideas, appears regularly on the Boston Foundation Web site.)

"If we put our heads together, we might be able to figure this out."

It's a bit of folk wisdom that often rings true -- and for a number of years, the Boston Foundation has highlighted the opportunity for collaborations and mergers to tackle otherwise intractable problems.

In 2010, we co-founded the Catalyst Fund for Nonprofits, a five-year, $1.925 million fund in partnership with local funders Boston LISC, the Hyams Foundation, the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, and the national Kresge Foundation. The idea behind nonprofit mergers isn't cost savings -- in a high-touch world like ours, there is only so much excess you might be able to trim in a merger. Rather, it's all about service. Organizations that merge and/or collaborate build capacity to do more of what they do best, and do it even better.

In Boston, the much-publicized merger of the Pine Street Inn for the homeless and hopeFound, a job training nonprofit serving the same client base, has proven a success, as demonstrated in a recent assessment of the Catalyst Fund's work and in a profile in the Boston Globe. The merger has allowed the two organizations to connect their respective job training programs and opportunities in a way they likely never would have as separate entities, and the results have been remarkable.

But to succeed, we also need to see the power of a more grassroots-level of collaboration. In that vein, we launched our first-ever Collaborate Boston competition this winter. The premise was simple: We'd pose a problem and then open the floodgates to proposed solutions, with one important restriction -- all the proposals had to bring together organizations in collaborative efforts to address the issue.

What we hoped to achieve was slightly more than that. We wanted to inspire organizations that didn't normally talk, or talk as much as they should, to work together toward a specific outcome.

For the initial competition, we put up $100,000 in prizes for collaborations that focused on "improving the lives and futures of black & brown boys and young men, ages 9-15, living in Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan." Seventy different collaborations applied and had their applications reviewed by a remarkable advisory committee comprised of business, government, nonprofit, and philanthropic leaders. Twelve made the finals and made an in-person pitch for their projects, and in the end two were selected.

Black and Latino Boys at the STEM of Success partners a Boston Public Schools office, a university STEM center, a Latino STEM group, and one of the state's largest construction firms in a collaboration to create neighborhood-based robotics teams and provide academic and social support. The other, the Codman Square Brotherhood Project, brings together neighborhood arts, business, ministerial, and men's groups with neighborhood police to create a supportive infrastructure, a brotherhood, for boys age 10-14 in Dorchester's Codman Square section.

Last week, the two winners presented their plans to about one hundred and fifty funders, donors, and civic and community leaders. (You can watch their presentations on the Boston Foundation YouTube channel.) All twelve finalists were invited to attend the celebration and take the opportunity to network, share ideas, and maybe even find funding for their efforts. The conversation was lively, the mood was celebratory, and ideas and connections were abundant.

It's a conversation we in philanthropy need to encourage, because the power of effective collaboration and mergers can only serve to amplify the best of our creativity, innovation, and ideas.

We’ll be working to ensure that the conversation continues, and that organizations looking for broader partnerships and collaborations to enhance their work continue to have the support they need.

Because if we put our heads together, we might be able to figure some things out.

-- Paul Grogan

Partnering With State Governments to Strengthen Families: Early Lessons From the Work Support Strategies Initiative

(Luis A. Ubiñas is president of the Ford Foundation. This commentary is adapted from a forthcoming Urban Institute report, available online starting June 4, that includes an array of perspectives from leaders about practical lessons emerging from the Work Supports Strategies initiative.)

Over the past half-decade, as the country has suffered through a deep, persistent economic downturn, America's work support programs have served as an essential backstop for millions of working families struggling to keep a toehold in the labor market. For many families, supports such as child care subsidies, health insurance and unemployment assistance, and food stamps have been the difference between staying together and dissolution.

Yet in dozens of states, lean budgets and antiquated, underresourced work support systems are failing to meet the needs of America's working poor. Problems that were evident in better times have become more intractable, even as caseloads have expanded. How can states improve the health and well-being of low-income families, stabilize their work lives, and make it possible for family breadwinners to get and keep a job if they are unable to get basic work supports to those who are eligible?

Solving such a challenge goes to the heart of what all of us in the philanthropic community do on a daily basis: tackling major problems at a scale that results in real and enduring change -- in this case, creating opportunity for low-income populations and keeping low-income workers in the workforce.

That's why the Ford Foundation, along with the Annie E. Casey, Kresge, and Open Society foundations, is proud to support the Work Supports Strategies (WSS) initiative, a multiyear demonstration project directed by the Urban Institute, with technical assistance from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. WSS is partnering with nine states -- led by governors from across the political spectrum -- to design, test, and implement easy-to-navigate quick-to-deliver operating changes to public work support systems that keep employees in the work force and families together. Many of these changes have the further benefit of reducing the cost of running the programs.

More than a year after we launched the initiative, the progress in fixing what was described in one state as a "completely dysfunctional, broken system" has been greater than any of us could have imagined. In some cases, the changes spurred by WSS had an impact on pilot offices or counties; in others, statewide changes affected tens of thousands of families. For example, in Colorado, state and county staff trimmed their work support application from twenty-six pages to eight; in Rhode Island, the Providence office implemented same-day service to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) applicants, enabling clients to obtain work support after just one visit; and in South Carolina, the Express Lane Redetermination program preserved health coverage for tens of thousands of children -- and is projected to save the state $1 million a year in operating costs -- by using data in families' SNAP records to certify eligibility.

Taking advantage of new technologies, streamlined bureaucracies, and operating processes borrowed from the private sector, many states are strengthening the customer experience and reducing the burdens on state workers. Beyond our nine partners, these efforts are already serving as models for other states.

For those of us in the philanthropic community, the work of WSS offers three important lessons for future partnerships between foundations and state governments.

First, as any philanthropic funder will tell you, the idea of working directly with the public sector often meets with resistance. Foundations fear being placed in the middle of ideological disputes or paying for services that are the government's responsibility to deliver. But such trepidation, though hardly unjustified, shouldn't be an excuse for inaction; the opportunities are too great. After all, where else can funders meet their goals of supporting initiatives that scale, create impact, and are sustainable? Federal and state governments remain the largest source of resources targeted at the issues that drive our work. As the progress of the initiative so far demonstrates, when a project has clear goals and strategies, funders can successfully partner with public agencies.

Second, one of the by-products of the budget crisis has been the elimination of state resources for and attention to "research and development." Despite the fact that many agencies running work support programs have budgets of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars at their disposal, the flexible funding to promote ongoing innovation, modernize operating processes, and use data to improve operational effectiveness has all but vanished. While it shouldn't be a surprise that state leaders increasingly are compelled to devote dwindling resources to direct benefits rather than innovation, the result often is greater inefficiency and poorer distribution of services. By providing the kind of technical assistance and peer learning that leaders and staff of public systems need as they embark on the task of modernizing large bureaucracies, that's exactly where foundations can be most helpful. Quite simply, without foundation engagement these work support systems would continue to underserve their recipients and burden taxpayers with unnecessary operating costs.

Finally, tough budget times are a reason to engage, not disengage. With work support offices stretched thin and the current squeeze on state budgets, one might imagine that helping those in need -- rather than making investments in improving the efficiency of state government -- would take priority. But if you look at the early response from twenty-seven states to the initial request for proposals and the dedicated work of the nine states chosen to participate in the first year of the WSS project, the desire for ideas and resources to modernize the safety net -- in both red states and blue -- is overwhelming. With states aspiring to do better, this is a great opportunity for foundations to step in and ensure that this current crisis becomes an opportunity to make lasting changes in how we deliver work support benefits across the country.

Philanthropy has a proud history of convening disparate groups and seeking common ground based on practical solutions. The result has been an impressive mix of programs that make a real difference in the lives of individual Americans -- and often bring people together. The WSS initiative aspires to that tradition, and we hope the lessons it is yielding inspires even more partnerships for the betterment of the most vulnerable in our society.

-- Luis Ubiñas

The Social Progress Index: Measuring What Counts?

The Washington, D.C.-based Social Progress Imperative made a splash at the Skoll World Forum earlier this month when it launched its Social Progress Index (SPI), an ambitious effort to inform and influence development policies around the globe.

Developed by Harvard Business School professor and competitiveness expert Michael E. Porter in collaboration with Scott Stern of MIT, the index is founded on the principle that "what we measure guides the choices we make." To that end, the index analyzes fifty-two outcome-based (as opposed to input-based) indicators in three dimensions of social progress: meeting basic human needs; establishing the foundations of well-being that enable individuals to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives; and creating opportunity for all to reach their full potential. (For a complete breakdown of indicators, click here.)

While the index and the report (154 pages, PDF) released in conjunction with the launch of the index includes only fifty countries, those countries represent three-quarters of the world's population. Here's a chart from the report that plots their aggregate SPI scores against GDP per capita (PPP):

As the chart shows, the countries included in the index and report are fairly well distributed across income levels, ranging from Switzerland at the high end with a GDP per capita of $51,262; to middle-income countries such as the Russian Federation ($21,246), South Africa ($10,960), and China ($8,400); to lower-income countries like Egypt ($6,281), India ($3,627), and Mozambique ($975).

So, what do the SPI team's findings based on an analysis of a full year of data reveal? For starters, that countries' level of overall development -- as measured by GDP per capita and/or indices of global competitiveness -- often mask striking social and environmental challenges and strengths. For example, Costa Rica, a lower-middle-income country with a PPP of $12,157, ranks twelfth overall in the index, ahead of richer countries such as Israel ($27,825) and Argentina ($17,554); nineteenth in terms of basic human needs; and eighth for opportunity -- ahead of France, Japan, and Germany, all of which rank higher in terms of overall score. In contrast, the United Arab Emirates, the third-richest country ($47,893) in the SPI sample, ranks nineteenth overall, including eleventh in terms of basic human needs, but only thirtieth for opportunity and a disappointing thirty-seventh in terms of foundations of well-being.

The index/report also seem to indicate that economic development is necessary but not sufficient for social progress; that it is possible to achieve a high level of social progress at a relatively modest income level; and that while low-income countries are clustered at the bottom of the index, there is a wide range of social progress within this group. For instance, Mozambique, the poorest country in the SPI sample, is ranked fourteenth in terms of equality and inclusion, whereas Rwanda, the third-poorest country in the sample, is ranked forty-fourth for equality and inclusion. At the same time, Rwanda tops the index in terms of ecosystem sustainability, while the United States, which has the second-highest PPP in the sample and is ranked sixth overall, ranks near the very bottom (forty-eighth) in terms of ecosystem sustainability.

If by highlighting each country's strengths and weaknesses with respect to various aspects of social progress these data get you thinking differently about development, then SPI is off to a good start. "The purpose of the Social Progress Index," the report's authors note, "is to benchmark performance and motivate improvement while providing useful insights that will help all stakeholders to make better choices, prioritize investments, and strengthen implementation capacity to improve the lives of citizens."

Looking ahead, SPI plans to refine its model based on feedback and empirical testing, eventually expanding the number of countries in the index from fifty to a hundred and twenty. It also plans to form a Social Progress Network comprising partners from research and academic institutions, think tanks, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and international development organizations "to identify the policies, institutions, legal frameworks, and financing mechanisms that can drive more effective and efficient social progress, through international benchmarking and fostering specific research projects." And it will explore the possibility of creating a Social Progress Capacity Index to measure the potential of a country's government, business, and civil society institutions to contribute to innovation in the social sector.

In the meantime, governments are paying attention, with Paraguay already having agreed to incorporate the SPI model into its national development framework. Which perhaps begs the question: How will the philanthropic sector, in the U.S. and elsewhere, respond? The index has already begun to spark discussions about impact investing and social entrepreneurship. Will foundations become more active in those conversations than they have been to date? And how, if at all, might the index change the way we approach economic development -- both overseas and here in the United States? Have thoughts you'd like to share? Use the comments section below.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Dispatch From Philanthropy’s Frontlines: Globalization in Chicago

(Michael Seltzer is a trustee of EMpower-the Emerging Markets Foundation and a distinguished lecturer at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs of the City University of New York. To read his earlier dispatch from the Council on Foundations' annual conference, click here.)

Global issues were front and center at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations in Chicago earlier this month. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. While many U.S. nonprofits have long been active in the international arena, the transnational dimensions of a range of issues, from food security, to sex trafficking and violence against women, to global warming, have become ever more apparent and have helped fuel the growth of nongovernmental organizations globally.

At the same time, more and more U. S. corporations, especially in information technology, financial services, natural resources extraction, and pharmaceuticals, derive a larger percentage of their profits from overseas operations, while a handful of the nation's largest foundations continue to fund international efforts. In addition, newer players like Bloomberg Philanthropies regularly make connections between their work at home and global efforts.

On Sunday, the first day of the conference, Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, senior advisor to the U.S. secretary of state for civil society and emerging democracies, remarked on the growing importance of the nonprofit sector globally and State Department efforts to position the U.S. government as a leading supporter of the global philanthropic and NGO movements, elevate the role of civil society in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, engage multilateral organizations working to advance democracy and civil society around the globe, and promote the independence of civil society globally.

Other positive trends in this arena include the lowering of barriers that historically have discouraged U.S. foundations from funding efforts in other countries. John Harvey, managing director of the council's Global Philanthropy program, reported on recent efforts to modify and improve U.S. Treasury and IRS rules governing international grantmaking, including the launch of equivalency determination service NGOsource. Charities Aid Foundation America has announced that it is now providing 501(c)(3) equivalency services (something it has been doing for many years) at no cost to American donors. And public foundations like the International Youth Foundation and Tides Foundation have ramped up their international efforts. Tides now supports projects in more than seventy countries, while IYF is working with partners in more than eighty-six countries. More recently established organizations such as the African Women's Leadership Foundation-USA have joined the ranks of older organizations like the American India Foundation and Brazil Foundation in working to forge connections between diaspora communities in the U.S. and civil society efforts back home, while the International Center on Not-For-Profit Law (ICNL) today serves government officials and the donor community in more than a hundred countries.

Another indicator of the growth of global philanthropy is the emergence of national philanthropic associations around the globe. Centro Mexicano para la Filantropía (CEMEFI) boasts more than twelve hundred members and is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Indeed, the philanthropic sector accounts for 1 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product, while more than eight hundred Mexican companies have signed corporate social responsibility pledges.

The conference closed on Tuesday with a plenary appearance by two of America's most important social sector thought leaders: feminist playwright Eve Ensler, whose latest project, V-Day, seeks to create a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and who spoke about the organization's work in the war-torn Congo; and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health, the award-winning global health organization, who spoke about PIH's work in impoverished Haiti, where PIH has long had a presence.

As technology and capital flows continue to shrink the globe and the need to address climate change, nuclear proliferation, and other borderless problems grows more urgent, we should expect that more and more people in more and more places will look to philanthropy for funding and answers. The sense that this is already happening was palpable in the halls and conference rooms of the Chicago Hilton, and I, for one, am confident that it is one of the trends we'll be hearing a lot about it in the years to come.

In the meantime, click here to catch up on highlights from the 2013 CoF meeting. And if you'd like to share your thoughts about what philanthropy can and should be doing to promote the "greater good" globally, we'd love to hear them. Use the comments section below...

-- Michael Seltzer

[Infographic] Hunger in America

This week's infographic, courtesy of Feeding America and Upworthy, expands on last week's theme, disparities in diet-related diseases in NYC, to illustrate the growing problem of hunger in America.

That so much want exists amidst so much plenty will come as a surprise to many. And yet, as David Nasby, a former vice president of the General Mills Foundation and founder of the nation's first food bank network, noted in a speech a few years ago: "Tonight, thousands of your neighbors will go to bed hungry. It may be your child's schoolmate who is undernourished and has difficulty learning on an empty stomach. Or it could be a co-worker, a working mother whose low-wage job doesn't make ends meet. Perhaps it's an elderly neighbor who has to make a decision whether to delay filling a prescription or buying groceries. The faces of hunger are as broad as the faces of America."

 

 

Is hunger a problem in your community? What, if anything, is your local community foundation doing to address it? And how do we eliminate the stigma that so often attaches to going hungry in a society where eating out is a national pastime and almost everything is super-sized? Share your thoughts in the comments section below....

-- Mitch Nauffts

Bill Gates' 2013 Annual Letter

Bill Gates released his annual letter -- the fifth since his first in 2009 -- earlier this week, and like the others, it's worth reading.

From its theme, "The Power of Measurement," to its assertion that "You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal," the letter is a testimonial to and endorsement of the approach known as strategic philanthropy. It's also a story about progress and the power of technology to change people's lives for the better. And it's a nice example of how Web and social media technologies can be used to transform an essentially static document into an engaging online experience.

But don't take our word for it; listen and watch what Bill himself has to say.

And after you've had a chance to read the letter, be sure to hop over to Tom Paulson's Humanosphere blog to watch data visualization whiz Hans Rosling illustrate, in beautiful and dramatic terms, the point of Gates' letter.

-- Mitch Nauffts

 

Better Ways to Bring Social Programs to Scale

(Chris Walker is director of research and assessment for the Local Initiative Support Corporation. A longer version of this post was published online in the Stanford Social Innovation Review in December.)

Increased demand for social programs that are simultaneously threatened with budget cuts creates a need to not only ramp up proven innovations, but also to be smarter and more effective in doing so. In 2011, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a national community development intermediary dedicated to the comprehensive revitalization of low-income neighborhoods, leveraged an investment from the Social Innovation Fund to further expand its Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) program. LISC recently undertook a thorough study of its expansion of the FOC model to identify which elements and strategies made it work, and how they might help similar organizations.

Financial Opportunity Centers help low-income families by offering a suite of counseling services, including financial coaching to support basic budgeting and credit repair; advice about how to get and keep a good job; and assistance in identifying and applying for public benefits. Early results have been promising -- the program has gone from four original sites in Chicago to sixty-six centers nationwide.

The study revealed some important takeaways.

First, successful scaling of the program requires a certain amount of standardization. While granting some flexibility, LISC works hard to maintain the integrity of the core FOC model.

Second, infrastructure is critical and requires conscious investment and development. LISC has continued to invest in program-delivery processes, protocols, and standards; performance measurement; direct technical assistance and peer-to-peer learning approaches; and resource generation.

Third, scaling can only happen through a deliberate and strategic rollout. The SIF funding enabled LISC to formalize its program expansion and build the national structure needed to ensure a disciplined process.

That said, certain aspects of our scaling process are unique. The FOC model demands client participation and changes in behavior, meaning some customization is necessary. It also varies from community to community, and thus entails constant monitoring and adjustment. Few organizations can go this alone, which is why LISC's local and national infrastructure is so critical.

Successful scaling ultimately requires sustainability; the current fiscal crisis underscores that need. As the FOC model will always rely on some subsidies, we also measure success in how well the legal and administrative structure of the mainstream workforce system incorporates our approach. Only when our model becomes part of the policy mainstream can we claim to have fully gone to scale.

-- Chris Walker

 

2012 Year in Review: Impact Investing, Other New Forms of Giving Gain Traction

Impact investing -- the practice of making loans and equity investments in nonprofits and socially minded businesses working to generate measurable social or environmental impact with the expectation that the money will be repaid over time -- and other new forms of giving continued to gain traction in 2012, thanks in part to the efforts of organizations like the Nonprofit Finance Fund, Omidyar Network, and the Skoll and Rockefeller foundations.

The year got off to a flying start when, in February, NFF announced a $40 million New Markets Tax Credit allocation in support of community development projects across the United States; an initiative of the U.S. Treasury Department, the NMTC program enables nonprofits to affordably complete facility improvements and finance projects in low-income areas around the country. In March, Omidyar Network and ACCION International made a $3.2 million investment in Zambia-based Mobile Transactions to boost financial transactions across the Zambian economy. In April, the Skoll Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development launched a $44.5 million global initiative to identify and fund high-impact social entrepreneurs who have created workable innovations and sustainable, scalable business models. And, in May, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced its participation through its Knight Foundation Enterprise Fund in a $3.7 million Series A venture financing round for Umbel, a privately held digital audience measurement company.

The year also saw the announcement of the first social impact, or pay-for-success, bonds in the United States. In May, the Omidyar Network announced $2.1 million in grants to London-based Social Finance Ltd. and its sister organization, Boston-based Social Finance, Inc., to encourage the use of social impact bonds as a tool to finance sustainable solutions to social problems in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Ireland, Israel, and Scotland. Then, in August, shortly after the release of a report from McKinsey and Co.'s Social Innovation practice that examined how SIBs might be applied to persistent homelessness and recidivism in the criminal justice system, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that investment banking firm Goldman Sachs had agreed to provide a $9.6 million loan to a New York City-based nonprofit overseeing a four-year program aimed at reducing the rate at which young offenders incarcerated at the city’s Rikers Island complex re-offend after their release — and that the Wall Street firm could profit from the investment if the program exceeds certain benchmarks. Bloomberg's announcement was preceded by a few days by news that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had selected seven nonprofit social service providers to tackle the problems of chronic homelessness and juvenile recidivism in the state under a new program that rewards the agencies only if their programs prove effective.

The White House also got into the act when, in May, it proposed a series of new rules designed to encourage foundations to use their assets in more creative ways to promote social good. Later in the year, the Global Impact Investing Network, which was established in 2009 to encourage impact investing globally, announced a three-year collaboration with  Omidyar Network, the Rockefeller Foundation, and USAID to promote and help build the emerging field. And news organizations like the Washington Post and the New York Times did their part to put the concept on the map by reporting on and highlighting institutions that were looking more closely at allocating a portion of their capital to impact investing approaches.

Ironically, as the field and its promoters basked in the newfound attention, a note of caution was sounded by Philanthrocapitalism author Matthew Bishop, who warned that impact investing was likely to experience growing pains as it grew in popularity, just as microfinance had before it.

Taking Bishop's words in the spirit in which they were meant, Nonprofit Finance Fund CEO Antony Bugg-Levine told the Times that it was incumbent on the field "to harness the best of both the capital markets and the social sector to address problems we cannot solve inside the two silos. [But any] ensuing confusion," added Bugg-Levine, "is a small price to pay if what it ends up in is adaptations that bring some sustainability to our social endeavors."

Related items:

Nonprofit Finance Fund Awarded $40 Million in New Markets Tax Credit Allocation (2/28/12)

Omidyar Network, ACCION International Provide $3.2 Million to Zambian Mobile Technology Company (3/02/12)

Skoll Foundation, USAID to Partner on Global Development Efforts (4/30/12)

Omidyar Network Awards $2.1 Million in Support of Social Impact Bonds (5/03/12)

White House Aims to Boost Spending, Investment by Foundations (5/11/12)

Knight Foundation Enterprise Fund Invests in Digital Audience Measurement Tool (5/30/12)

'Impact Investing' on the Rise (7/17/12)

Goldman Invests $9.6 Million to Reduce Recidivism Among Young Offenders in New York City (8/03/12)

Massachusetts Announces Nonprofit Partners in 'Pay for Success' Experiment (8/03/12)

Global Impact Investing Network Announces Partnership to Expand Reach of Impact Investing (10/04/12)

Foundations Making 'Impact Investments' See Positive Returns (12/13/12)

Newsmaker: Shawn Dove, Campaign Manager, Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Open Society Foundations

In October, the Open Society Foundations and the Foundation Center released a report, Where Do We Go From Here? Philanthropic Support for Black Men and Boys  (40 pages, PDF), which found, among other things, that philanthropic support for African-American men and boys has risen steadily over the past decade, from $10 million in 2003 to $29 million in 2010. At a time when nearly every major indicator of economic, social, and physical well-being shows that African-American males do not have access to the opportunities they need to thrive, the philanthropic sector is working to address this critical need on two fronts: by supporting organizations in the "black male achievement field" and by spotlighting the fact that more needs to be done to tackle racial and economic inequality in America.

In the foreward to the report, Shawn Dove, manager of the OSF-based Campaign for Black Male Achievement, noted that former Open Society board member Lani Guinier has long argued that African-American males are not unlike "canaries in the coalmine," in that their socioeconomic plight foreshadows many negative trends that eventually will affect the broader society. That explains why, for many, the well-being of African-American men and boys is not a "black issue." It is, as Dove said when we spoke to him recently, "an American issue." Moreover, he added, "[g]rantmakers should not enter th[e] field with the expectation that they can parachute in and save the day....We need to look at what's working, and to spread the word about what success looks like."

After more than twenty years working in the fields of youth development, education, and community building, including stints as a director of a Beacon School in Harlem, as creative communities director for the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, and as vice president for MENTOR: The National Mentoring Partnership, Dove joined OSF in 2008. PND spoke with him in November, shortly after the release of the report.

Philanthropy News Digest: We've been told that America in 2012 is a post-racial society. Is it?

Shawn Dove: I guess that depends on one's definition and interpretation of "post-racial." If one's definition is a society in which there are no racial disparities when it comes to opportunity, access, and equity, I would say, "Not so much." In 2012, America aspires to be post-racial. But judging by the wealth gap, ethnic and racial disparities in access to high-quality education, and the number of people of color in the House and Senate, I'd say we still have some work to do.

PND: Countless studies and papers have outlined the many root causes of racial inequality in America. If the causes are clear, why do large portions of the African-American community continue to be adversely affected by disparities in education, health care, and employment?

SD: You know, that is the billion-dollar question. Two of our grantee partners, the American Values Institute and the Opportunity Agenda, have done extensive research on implicit bias in America, and what their research revealed was that far too many people hold unconscious racial prejudices that affect their decision making when interacting with races other than their own. So while retail sales managers, for example, will say they don't have racist attitudes or are not prejudiced, they'll also resist putting people of color, specifically African-American males, in roles that have direct contact with customers.

Americans of all ethnicities still have an exceedingly difficult time having honest conversations about race. There are a number of organizations and leaders who are organizing people to have discussions about racial disparities in our society, but a lot of work still needs to be done to change the behaviors that perpetuate inequality in this country.

In 2013, a film called American Promise will premiere and lift up the issue of black male achievement, offering all of us an opportunity to have an honest conversation about race and education in America. The film provides a rare look into the lives of two middle class black families as they navigate the ups and downs of parenting and educating their sons. With support from Open Society, the Ford Foundation, and the Fledgling Fund, as well as other partners, a national outreach campaign is being developed to empower boys, their parents, and educators to help close the black male achievement gap and deal with racial disparities.

PND: As journalist Gary Younge noted in a Nation article last year, the economic gap between black and white has grown since President Obama took office. What advice would you give the president as he prepares for his second term?

SD: We need to be clear about what the president inherited when he was elected in 2008, and how long it will actually take to turn things around, especially when the political process for moving legislation is fraught with partisan obstacles at every turn. Back then, the American economy was in free fall, and by the time Obama took office in January 2009, the economy was in a certified crisis. The president had to take certain measures to avert a full-out depression. Yet even with those steps, the country could not avoid the layoffs and high unemployment that followed -- something that affected all ethnicities and racial groups but hit African Americans the hardest.

Now that Obama has been re-elected and the economy is slowly recovering from the collapse of the housing bubble, we need a plan to lower the poverty rate and help raise low-income families into the middle class. We need policies and solutions that are systemic and sustainable and will endure past 2016. The administration also should develop more partnerships with the private sector to ensure that young people are developing employable skills, and it needs to focus on how education can help people become first-generation members of the middle class.

PND: According to Where Do We Go From Here?, foundation funding for African-American men and boys started to pick up after 2006. To what do you attribute the increase?

SD: Fearless leadership and innovation in the philanthropic sector. Data across issues that have been disaggregated by race and gender. And any number of leaders who have pushed strategies and formed coalitions around targeted solutions designed to improve the life outcomes of African-American men and boys.

PND: Have efforts like the Campaign for Black Male Achievement and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Philanthropy's Promise campaign helped to raise awareness of needs in the African-American community?

SD: The answer is a resounding yes. But, you know, even before philanthropy became more organized and coordinated around the issue, we were seeing greater investment in research and communications strategies to elevate the issue. Here at Open Society, our aim with the Campaign for Black Male Achievement was to keep the issue front and center in the public discourse, because we felt that if it dropped out of the conversation and if solutions were not identified and amplified, other things would wind up distracting us from addressing it. I think the same can be said of the Promise initiative, which in June, a year after its launch, had doubled the number of its partners to a hundred and twenty-five, representing nearly $3.4 billion in giving. These campaigns help shine a light on the needs of an underserved and underrepresented population, and how we are working to meet those needs.

PND: Tell us about the Campaign for Black Male Achievement. How did it come about? And how did you become involved?

SD: I would say an impassioned conversation inside philanthropy was ignited after an article titled "Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn" appeared on the front page of the New York Times in 2006. The article highlighted the many disparities and inequities confronting African-American men: indeed, at a time when the economy was booming and the nation's top earners were gaining significant wealth, African-American men were falling further and further behind. Well, the article ignited a conversation at OSF among staff who felt that an organization that prided itself on supporting a more democratic, fair, and just society and on empowering the most marginalized individuals in society to become agents in their own empowerment should be at the forefront of this issue. As I later learned, there was debate about whether the foundation should launch a campaign specifically targeting support for African-American men and boys, with some staff making a strong case that the foundation already was engaged in the issue through its investments in reform of the criminal justice system. But it eventually became clear to everyone that this was an opportunity to more directly address the causes of the "prison pipeline."

At the same time that discussion was happening, I was publishing a community newspaper called Proud Poppa for African-American Fathers and leading a youth ministry at my church. Prior to that, I had worked with Geoffrey Canada at the Harlem Children's Zone. After the foundation decided to launch the campaign, a number of people encouraged me to apply for the position of campaign manager. Eventually, I did, and that's how I got involved.

The campaign, which launched in 2008, was originally supposed to be a three-year initiative. But about eighteen months into it, OSF founder George Soros and the foundation's board decided to get rid of the term limits and, based on our early work, increased our budget. I think that decision helped other philanthropic institutions to better understand the severity of the problem and the foundation's deep commitment to addressing it over the long haul.

PND: Has the campaign had an impact? And how do you measure that?

SD: Well, that's the other billion-dollar question. Four years ago, when the campaign was launched, there was no clearly defined field of black male achievement -- or it wasn't acknowledged in the way it is today by researchers, policy advocates, practitioners, and funders. In that way, we have been successful beyond measure. Today there is a movement and a field of black male achievement. To achieve this in four years speaks to the commitment among organizations, individuals, and communities who are seeking to find solutions to the problems plaguing black men and boys. But while there's been a breakthrough on both the national and local level in terms of awareness and activity around the issue, the verdict is still out on how and whether the field is creating impact on a national scale. There is anecdotal evidence that it is, but that's the main reason why my colleagues and I argue that philanthropy needs a sustained commitment to this work.

Through its Boys and Young Men of Color initiative, for example, the California Endowment has helped to introduce a number of bills in California around school discipline and dropout/pushout rates; four of which have passed. The endowment also is helping to reduce the number of African-American boys engaged in the juvenile justice system. Elsewhere, the Knight Foundation re-launched an effort called Black Male Engagement that supports African-American males in their communities. The unique thing about the Knight initiative is that the foundation acknowledges -- correctly, in my view -- that the problem isn't with African-American men and boys, the problem is rooted in the system and the society in which African-American men and boys grow up. And so the initiative seeks to recognize and elevate the work of "regular" guys who are already adding value and contributing to their respective communities.

Open Society, in partnership with Echoing Green, also launched a Black Male Achievement Fellowship, to identify innovative social entrepreneurs who are focusing on ways to sustain black male achievement across a number of issue areas and a Leadership and Sustainability Institute for Black Male Achievement, a national membership organization that we believe will be the engine that sustains this work over the long haul. We've already seen a tremendous response to the institute after its official launch during our Innovation and Impact Forum for Black Male Achievement. To date, over four hundred organizations across the country have been identified and expressed a sincere commitment to join efforts designed to improve the life outcomes of black men and boys.

Ultimately, however, it is important that we acknowledge that this is a generational issue that will require a long-term commitment. The challenges that prevent black male achievement come out of decades and centuries of systemic injustices. So to expect that after four years of a campaign we would reverse these trends is reflective of the general state of philanthropy, which often will focus on a hot or popular issue of the moment but, after a few years, will move on to the next pressing issue. If we hope to truly measure impact and see change we must commit for the long term.

PND: Even as some of the biggest foundations are stepping up their support for African-American men and boys, the sector continues to wrestle with its own diversity challenges, including the relative lack of minority representation on foundation boards or in foundation leadership positions. Is that an issue of there not being enough qualified minority candidates for these positions? And if so, what can foundations do to help boost the size of the applicant pool?

SD: It's definitely not an issue of there not being enough qualified candidates for these positions. Anyone who states that is not looking hard enough -- there are fellowships, internships, more aggressive recruiting tactics, and even affinity groups out there that can help organizations find qualified people of color to fill open positions. I do think we are seeing an increase in the diversity of leadership, but we have a long way to go to get where we need to be, especially when we closely examine diversity data at the trustee and CEO level.

PND: Given President Obama's re-election, are you at all encouraged by general trends in society with respect to African Americans, particularly men and boys?

SD: Oh, yes, I'm an eternal optimist. As you know, our recent Innovation and Impact Forum brought together leaders from every sector who are focused on the issue, including folks from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's Young Men's Initiative as well as Cities United, an effort led by Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter and New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu to galvanize municipal leaders to respond to the unacceptably high number of violent deaths of African-American men in cities nationwide. The issue has definitely gained traction at the municipal level, and I feel optimistic about the pace of our progress.

But as we look more closely at how we measure impact and promote what works, I am concerned about the sustainability of our efforts. There are groups doing phenomenal work, and they need continued support. What America really needs is something like a corporation for Black Male Achievement that would allow an endowed philanthropic social enterprise to really lean into this issue and create lasting change.

PND: What would you say to your colleagues in other foundations about the importance of this issue?

SD: Well, I would say that this is not a "black issue," it is an American issue that has a negative impact on all of us. I would ask them to focus on assets and not deficits. Grantmakers should not enter this field with the expectation that they can parachute in and save the day. I truly believe that the answers to the challenges African-American men and boys are facing reside in the hearts, minds, and hands of African-American men and boys. It's this whole idea of the power of positive deviance. We need to look at what's working, and to spread the word about what success looks like.

I would encourage my colleagues who ask "Why an explicit focus on African-American men and boys?" to look at the data. Once they do, I believe they will join us and the many other foundations working to build and strengthen the African-American community. I would also challenge my colleagues to think about how we can increase public-private collaboration around this issue, and about being in this for the long haul. We're not going to create lasting change with a three- or five-year campaign, or by launching another initiative. The philanthropic community needs to give this issue the time and support it requires.

Lastly, I would share a quote from one of my colleagues, John Jackson, CEO of the Schott Foundation for Public Education. In a speech he delivered at a recent grantmakers for education conference in New York City, John said, "Programs are progress, and we need progress. But policy is power." And with that, I would like to encourage my colleagues to invest in advocacy and policy change, not just programs. We are dealing with systemic and structural barriers that I believe can only be addressed and solved through policy reform.

-- Regina Mahone

Off the Shelf: 'The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change'

(Emily Keller is an editorial associate in the Corporate Philanthropy department at the Foundation Center. In October, she reviewed Changing Business From the Inside Out: A Treehugger's Guide to Working in Corporations, by Timothy J. Mohin.)

Leonida Wanyama sat at her living room table in her mud-and-sticks house at the base of the Lugulu Hills in western Kenya contemplating her assets. Her fifteen-year-old son Gideon had been sent home from boarding school because she couldn't pay the latest tuition bill. Her four-year-old daughter Dorcas was begging for more food, even though the cupboard was bare. Her husband Peter, weak from malaria, a condition worsened by malnutrition, did what he could to feed his family, but the planting season was just beginning and the maize crop wouldn't be ready to harvest for months. Leonida decided to sell her last goat for a thousand shillings -- enough to convince Gideon's principal to take him back as she struggled to come up with the remaining tuition. Food would have to wait.

Welcome to the wanjala, the word for famine in Leonida's Lutacho Valley farming community and one of the most common surnames for boys in a culture where parents name their children for the season in which they were born. Girls who are born during the long months between the last of the prior harvest's food has been consumed and the new harvest is brought in are named Nanjala. Leonida's village is called Malaria; so is the stream that provides the family with water for drinking and washing -- and serves as a breeding ground for the mosquito-borne illness that always grows worse in the wafula, or rainy season.

As he makes clear in his new book, The Last Hunger Season: A Year in an African Farm Community on the Brink of Change, Roger Thurow believes the one to eight months each year that the people of western Kenya live with "chronic, gnawing emptiness in their bellies" is both morally unacceptable and avoidable. And to make the point, he focuses much of his book on the One Acre Fund, a young nongovernmental organization that works with smallholder farmers -- those with less than two acres of arable land -- in East Africa to double and triple their yields. For a forty-five hundred shilling credit (about $50) that is paid back over the course of the year, the organization, which operates out of Bungoma, a town in Kenya's Western Province, provides fertilizer, modern seeds, and weekly trainings to smallholder farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi.

The demand for One Acre's services is clearly evident in Thurow's narrative, which depicts the relentless cycle of relative feast and famine in the region and how it dramatically affects the quality of life for the smallholder farmers who comprise the bulk of the food-producing population in Kenya's agriculture-dependent economy. Indeed, the country's Public Health and Sanitation ministry reported that during the wanjala which is the subject of Thurow's book, malnutrition was the underlying cause of more than half the deaths of children under the age of five. In the community of Malaria, unconnected electrical wires hang from the church ceiling because the congregation cannot afford to pay for electricity. Children study at home by the light of kerosene lamps that emit noxious fumes and are a constant fire hazard, and the fee-based high school Gideon attends lacks basic chemistry supplies, audio-visual equipment, even blackboards. The local health practitioner, Janet, has no blood pressure gauge or microscope to help confirm her diagnoses. Villagers get around by foot and bicycle, and families often live for a decade or more in homes that were intended to be temporary structures.

One Acre works to lift these farm families, which are often headed by women, out of the grinding poverty that is their lot and into lives in which they have enough to eat year-round, children are able to attend the area's top schools, and excess profits from agricultural work are reinvested back into the farm or livestock.

As Thurow tells it, Andrew Youn, One Acre's co-founder and executive director, believes East Africa's food insecurity problem is primarily economic rather than agricultural, and he has come up with an innovative business model to address the high rates of malnutrition, depleted soils, lack of access to information, and crop price fluctuations that are characteristic of the region. To start, One Acre arranges the bulk purchase of items for distribution at churches near its clients' modest homes, saving them the effort of having to navigate treacherous roads and lack of quality control at local shops. The organization's field directors then teach local farmers how to rotate and diversify their crops to improve the nutrition and health of the soil, and to measure the distance between seeds while planting, ensuring that each one has access to adequate light and air (methods in use in the United States since the Dust Bowl disaster of the 1930s). One Acre recently added crop insurance and de-worming medication for children to its portfolio of services. Establishing better storage systems that reduce crop mold and losses caused by weevil depredation, thus enabling farmers to keep their crops off the market until prices are high, is another primary goal.

One beneficiary of the program is Zipporah Biketi, who lives with her husband, Sanet, and four children in a hut with a leaky thatched roof. Her youngest child, David, has a protruding belly and a persistent cough — both symptoms of malnutrition. The older children sleep on unpadded wooden couches. Sanet is a livestock trader who also makes and sells clay bricks. The family's only other source of income is milk sales from two skinny cows.

Rasoa Wasike, a mother of three, leads One Acre's Kabuchai Women Self-Help group. She tells Thurow that farming is like gambling, the difference being that the smallholder Kenyan farmer rolls the dice on whether it will rain or not. Her husband, Cyrus, works at a cell phone store collecting payments from farmers who, ironically, have acquired modern communication devices but don't have access to modern seed technology. Cyrus hopes to one day save enough money to purchase a pair of bulls and start a ploughing business.

Life on a small farm, or shamba, in Kenya is, as Thurow shows, labor intensive throughout the year. The annual cycle begins with the soil being ploughed by oxen or with small hand shovels known as jembes; use of the latter forces farmers to remain stooped for hours on end. Once the ploughing is completed, villagers gather and pray for rain. If it comes, they dig and fertilize hundreds of holes for seed. This is followed by strenuous daily weeding of the plot, even as last year's food supply runs low, reducing their strength. Once the crops have matured, farmers gather with machetes and jembes to chop them down. During harvest season, or wekesa, the farmers face the additional daily task of spreading maize in the sun to dry, keeping an eye out for rain and thieves, and returning the crops to storage at night. This is followed by shelling, which takes over living room floors and involves the whole family. Many farm families also raise goats, hens, chickens, or cows, primarily for milk sales or for trading rather than for food; incomes are too erratic to sacrifice their most valuable asset for a meal or two.

As the harvest nears, the market price of maize per single-serving bag, or goro-goro, increases to five or six times the previous year's post-harvest price. Many farmers, out of desperation, sell their surplus when the price is low and struggle to purchase maize when the price is high. Family finances are further compromised by the academic calendar, which starts in January, meaning tuition fees are due before the harvest.

Thurow, who worked for thirty years as a Wall Street Journal reporter before joining the Chicago Council on Global Affairs as a senior fellow for Global Agriculture and Food Policy, vividly portrays the farmers' plight while drawing attention to the region's natural beauty -- the caves, mountains, and lush greenery of the wafala -- and showing the community's generosity and joy as well as suffering. One student earns a government scholarship. The farmers reap more than ever before and celebrate with a Christmas feast. Janet gives malaria medication to Leonida's family on credit, even during the wanjala. There is something to hope for throughout the year.

Yet climbing out of such deep poverty is dependent on several years of good harvests, Youn says. And the gradual nature of that transition is the most difficult part of the story to convey. Thurow, who is also the co-author (with Scott Kilman) of Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, uses the One Acre story to argue that international food aid is fleeting, expensive, and disruptive to market prices, and that increasing crop production through education and agricultural development is the only long-term solution to hunger in developing countries like Kenya. But as Leonida goes without food and Zipporah sells a cow to re-pay the family's loan, the less positive realities of the One Acre approach surface as well.

What Winning Looks Like: Impact & Innovation Forum for Black Male Achievement

(Grace Sato is a research assistant at the Foundation Center. This is her first post for PhilanTopic.)

What do New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, philanthropist George Soros, and Harlem Children's Zone founder Geoffrey Canada have in common? They're all passionate about black male achievement. And they all shared the stage at the inaugural Impact & Innovation Forum, hosted by the Open Society Foundations, earlier this week.

At the event, more than two hundred leaders from every sector -- philanthropy, government, finance, media, education, nonprofit, faith -- gathered to hear about efforts taking place across the nation to improve the lives of black men and boys. And while acknowledging the many challenges black men and boys face, forum participants focused on celebrating victories, spotlighting innovative strategies, and building on growing momentum in the field.

Here are some of my takeaways from the event:

Black men and boys are assets. The Knight Foundation's Trabian Shorters described the foundation's Black Male Engagement (BME) Challenge, which put out a call to black men in Detroit and Philadelphia to share stories of how they were helping their communities. The foundation received almost twenty-one hundred responses in just eight weeks from "regular" folks -- neighbors, uncles, coaches -- who are volunteering their time to make a difference in others' lives. With negative portrayals of African-American males dominating the media, these are stories that need to be shared.

The time is now. The field of black male achievement is "not a new idea. It's a now idea," said Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Open Society Foundations' Campaign for Black Male Achievement. That sentiment -- what Dr. Robert Ross, president and CEO of the California Endowment, described as the "spiritual audacity of the moment" -- was echoed by numerous speakers and evident in the energy and enthusiasm of participants. Indeed, it was Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, who expressed what most people in the room were thinking: "We have everyone we need to get this going. Help has arrived. It's arrived in the form of a movement."

The movement must be built on collaboration. Although the forum was hosted by the Open Society Foundations, the event was all about building the broader field of black male achievement and pooling resources to create real and lasting change. As speaker after speaker acknowledged, there's a role for everyone to play, from investors in social impact funds and African Americans serving on the boards of Fortune 500 companies to young entrepreneurs and volunteer mentors.

"The days of working in silos are gone. That time is dead," said Rev. Dr. Alfonso Wyatt, who emceed the afternoon sessions. Or, as Geoff Canada remarked, those who try to go it alone are bound to fail. The problems are large and complex, said Canada, and we are going to need to engage whole communities in developing a holistic response if we hope to solve them. "The only question," he added, "is, are we prepared to put the cause higher than our own egos or habits?"

Closing the belief gap. The opportunity and achievement gaps confronting black men and boys are well documented. Shawn Dove ended the day by asking, "Do we really believe we can win? For me, what winning looks like is that we've got to first close the belief gap."

I'll close with an anecdote shared by Dr. Ross. Before 1954, he told the audience, it was believed no human being could run a mile in under four minutes. Scientists said it was physically impossible. But in 1954, one man, Roger Bannister, did what everyone said couldn't be done. And within three years, fourteen other people had run a sub-four-minute mile. (Today, there are more than three hundred American sub-four-minute milers alone. I Googled it.) The Open Society Foundations launched its Campaign for Black Male Achievement four years ago. And today, there are sixteen foundations around the country making robust, targeted investments in the future of black men and boys. Not to mention thousands of individuals and organizations committed to their success.

Can the struggle for black male achievement be won? After attending this week's Impact & Innovation Forum, I, for one, am a believer.

-- Grace Sato

Clinton Global Initiative 2012 - Monday a.m.

PhilanTopic is at the Sheraton in midtown Manhattan this morning to cover the eighth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative. (Watch the livestream here.) The theme of this year's meeting is "Designing for Impact" -- how can we design our world to create more opportunity and more equality? And how might we design our lives, our environments, and global systems in order to impact the many enormous challenges at hand.

The meeting opened yesterday with a session moderated by CGI founding chair and former President Bill Clinton that featured Michael Duke, president/CEO of Wal-Mart Stores; Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan; Ban Ki-Moon, secretary-general of the United Nations; and Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group. (Watch the video here.)

Things really got rolling this morning, however, with a powerful speech ("Designing Diplomacy for the 21st Century") by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton -- who was welcomed by CGI attendees as if she were a rockstar (or once-and-future presidential candidate). In it, Secretary Clinton shared a three-part framework for U.S. diplomacy and development assistance in "a time of great change." My scribbled notes don't do it justice (you can watch the livestream here), but here's the gist of what she said:

-- In a time of enormous technological, demographic, political, and geopolitical change, the goal of U.S. development assistance is "to help solve problems and support opportunities around the world."

-- In the 1960s, official development aid from donor countries to developing countries represented 70% of capital flows into those countries; today, it's 13% -- relatively insignificant compared to trade, business investment, and remitttances.

-- The U.S. aid budget has increased in real-dollar terms over that period -- but represents a much smaller share of aid to developing countries overall.

Against this backdrop, the U.S. State Department has three objectives going forward with respect to development assistance. As Clinton put it:

1) We want to move from direct aid to investment. The political and geopolitical landscape has changed, needs have changed, assistance needs to be rethought. We need to be intentional and strategic. We need to focus on and promote public-private partnerships ("You cannot do development in today's world without partnering with the private sector"). We need to recognize that many of yesterday's laggards are today's rising stars (in the last decade, six of the ten fastest-growing economies in the world have been in Africa). We need to be rigorous and demonstrate results.

2) We need to encourage "country ownership." That means building capacity within developing countries so they are able to set their own priorities, develop plans to achieve those priorities, execute on those plans, and, increasingly, fund those plans. And it means ownership by "the whole country" -- men and women. The surest path out of poverty for developing countries is educating and empowering women and girls.

3) We need to put ourselves out of business. The State Department looks forward to the day when public-sector assistance is replaced by private-sector investment. ("I'm always surprised when people are surprised to hear that.") Before we get there, however, State (and others) need to expand the number of partners with which it works; the days of government working through large international NGOs only are over. Elites around the world also have to recognize that they need to pay their fair share of taxes and support critical investments in public education and infrastructure. And donor governments around the world need to step up their efforts to combat corruption, which as much as anything is responsible for stifling innovation and smothering human aspiration in too many countries.

In closing, Clinton reminded those in attendance that "freedom and dinity are more important than food and water." And she urged everyone in the room "to stand together to resist the forces of extremism and violence and stand firm for peaceful transitions to democracy in North Africa and the Middle East." (Watch her complete remarks here.)

Back with more in a bit...

-- Mitch Nauffts

[Infographic] The Water-Rich vs. the Water-Poor

Our infographic of the week illustrates the disparity in water consumption between "water-rich" countries with plentiful access to clean water and "water-poor" countries with little or limited access to clean water. It was created by Seametrics, a manufacturer of water flow meter technology. (H/t WASHfunders.org)

 

Source: Seametrics

The Case for Using a Social Justice Lens in Grantmaking

(Over the course of his career, Michael Seltzer, a frequent contributor to PhilanTopic, has served as a program officer at the Ford Foundation, as president of the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, and as founding executive director of Funders Concerned About AIDS. A version of this post appears in the summer issue of GMNsight, a new journal written for and by members of the Grants Managers Network.)

Social Justice -- A New Phenomenon?

No. As early as 1972, in an internal memo to John H. Knowles, the president of the Rockefeller Foundation, one of his officers suggested that the foundation use the phrase "Towards Social Justice in an Interdependent World" as a 'unifying theme' to describe its work.

Also, in the 1970s, select small- to medium-sized public, family, independent, and public foundations embraced the practice, language, and ethos of social justice, as evidenced by their early support of the U.S. civil rights movement. Their ranks included such private foundations as Norman, Field, Stern, New World, Taconic, and the John Hay Whitney. Subsequently, the public foundations that comprised the Funding Exchange Network -- the Tides Foundation; women's and LGBT funders such as the Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice; and the Black United Fund movement -- joined their ranks. David Hunter, Stern's long-term executive director, served as a mentor and guide for many of these funds. The word justice also appeared in the literature of religiously affiliated grantmakers such as the Catholic Campaign for Human Development of the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Jewish Fund for Justice. This was not surprising, since the precepts of justice are evident in the world's major religions and sacred texts.

Subsequently, this diverse set of donors, in terms of their structure and sources of revenues, began to meet annually under the aegis of the National Network of Change-Oriented Foundations. In 1981, the network's successor organization, the National Network of Foundations (NNG), asserted the following two purposes in its mandate:

To be a voice for issues of social and economic justice within the philanthropic community and externally in sectors of the broad community including government, business, labor and education, and to expand the resource base (human and financial) for social and economic justice activities.

As one indicator of the size of this community of funders, also in 1981 the National Network of Grantmakers and the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO) in their publication, The Grantseekers Guide, A Directory for Social and Economic Justice Projects, listed more than one hundred foundations and corporate-giving programs.

In the following decades, other foundations used many terms akin to social change or social justice in their annual reports. A sample lexicon of phrases would include: advocacy, equity, the poor speaking and acting for themselves, human rights, civil rights, empowerment, movement building, progressive change, social action, promotion of democracy, accountability and transparency, systemic change, and public policy.

Starting in the 1990s, large foundations began to use the term social justice. When the Ford Foundation reorganized its program divisions in 1996, it renamed one of them Peace and Social Justice, for example. (That Ford Foundation program division is now called Democracy, Rights, and Justice.)

In 2007, the Atlantic Philanthropies adopted a social justice framework for its grantmaking in all of its program areas and countries where it operated. The Open Society Foundations (previously known as the Open Society Institute) also asserted a mission to "advance human rights and justice around the world."

What Then Is Social Justice Philanthropy?

Social justice is not just a slogan on a banner or bumper sticker or button. Its definition needs to be backed with substance to be useful as a grantmaker tool. In the late 1990s, the Foundation Center and Independent Sector sought to define social justice philanthropy. What these two key philanthropic sector organizations adopted, is worth quoting. Social justice philanthropy is

the granting of philanthropic contributions to nonprofit organizations based in the United States and other countries that work for structural change in order to increase the opportunity of those who are the least well off politically, economically and socially.

The report went on to describe the characteristics of a social justice framework, which makes lasting change more likely:

• a focus on root causes of inequity rather than symptoms
• a striving for lasting systemic and institutional change
• the use of a combination of tactics such as policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, litigation, and communications that together are more likely to yield enduring results
• the strengthening and empowering of disadvantaged and vulnerable populations to advocate on their own behalf

Subsequently, the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace convened by the Ford Foundation put forward the following definition of social justice:

Effective social justice philanthropy aims to end the injustices suffered by one group of people at the hands of another. These injustices often result in social, economic, and/or political inequalities. But rather than focus on the effects of unjust treatment, good social justice grantmaking attempts to undo the mechanisms of oppression.

How Can a Foundation Effectively Practice Social Justice Philanthropy

According to the Working Group on Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace, the following elements are necessary for good social justice philanthropy:

1. Sound Analysis…

Of the forces that contribute to injustice. Effective social justice grantmakers base their work on a sound analysis of the historical forces that contributed to shaping the current reality they wish to change, the forces that help maintain the status quo, and the likely future evolution of these forces.

Of the effects of membership in oppressed classes of people. Foundation staff examine the current context and their own work through the lenses of gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, country of origin, and membership in other social categories that experience unjust treatment.

Of institutional structures. Because the mechanism of oppression sometimes appears faceless, foundation staff analyze the myriad ways in which institutional structures -- the policies that govern institutions, their practices, their cultures, their relationships with one another and with the communities they’re meant to serve -- contribute to injustice. The category of institutions studied is broad and might include, for example, the local school system, the church, the military, local and national governments, NGOs, the business sector or individual businesses, etc.

Of the distribution of power. One of the goals of an effective social justice grantmaker is to shift power from those who perpetrate injustice to those who suffer it. To this end, foundation staff examine how power in its various forms (wealth, political influence, etc.) is acquired, held, and brokered in the current context.

2. Effective Choice of Strategies and Tactics

A good social justice grantmaker is able to translate a sound analysis into (a) an effective formulation of goals and objectives, and (b) a smart choice of strategies and tactics. Does the analysis lead to a clear sense of what should be changed and how? What are the best strategies for making the desired change happen? Do the strategies lead to a choice of tactics rich enough to initiate and sustain social change?

For example, if funding an advocacy initiative were deemed a good strategy, would the grantmaker support the organizational capacities of activist groups; the building of a broad base of support; the strengthening of alliances among participating organizations; improved data collection and analysis; more strategic communications; and the ability to mobilize additional resources over the long term? If the grantmaker seeks a particular policy outcome, does foundation staff also fund the organizations that would monitor implementation and enforcement? If a social change effort requires litigation, does the grantmaker fund only the legal effort, or, understanding the nature of social change, does the grantmaker also support movement building and other activities that, taken together, are more likely to succeed in removing the injustice?

Because people's lives often hang in the balance, good intentions are not good enough. The grantmaker’s work should have a significant chance of succeeding. It will thus be important to attend carefully to such matters as the scale of the intervention and its time horizon. Social justice is not easily achieved, nor does it come quickly.

A social justice grantmaker will be most effective when they recognize and use all the tools and privileges at their disposal as a grantmaker: the power to convene, the ability to speak with the voice of an institution, access to decision-makers, the ability to marshal significant resources, etc.

3. Solidarity and Respect

Solidarity. An effective social justice grantmaker works in meaningful partnership with the communities they aim to serve. The staffer recognizes that she or he is ultimately accountable to these communities. In practice, this means that the grantmaker will learn from communities and, whenever possible, take direction from them. The grantmaker will aim to make the communities' voices heard, not that of the foundation. There should, in other words, always be a strong presumption against contravening the desires of these communities, to the extent that going against their wishes requires special justification. By working in solidarity with affected communities, the grantmaker gains a deeper understanding of the issues involved. By looking to these communities for leadership, the foundation staffer increases their ownership of the work. Both of these lead to better outcomes. Social justice grantmakers must also be willing to take the medicines they prescribe. We undermine our social justice efforts by exempting ourselves from the rules we would apply to others.

Respect. Effective social justice grantmakers respect the dignity of the communities they serve. They do not cast them as victims, unable to change their basic condition without assistance. Nor do grantmakers romanticize these communities. Because all people possess free will, all parties must acknowledge that they have the ability to participate in their own oppression or liberation. Respect drives out both under-valuation and unrealistic expectations. It motivates social justice grantmakers to seek wisdom and strength from the communities they serve.

4. The General Qualities of a Good Grantmaker

Effective grantmakers take calculated risks; they're often creative in the use of the limited resources available to them; they partner well with others, across sectoral lines and other divisions; they’re patient because they understand that meaningful social change takes time; and they learn from failure -- their own and that of others.

The most difficult and most important practice may be to examine one's logic model and ask, "Even if I do all of these things, what is the change I must see in order to know I am engaged in social justice philanthropy?"

Key Questions

Is social justice a valuable lens for grantmakers? Using a social justice framework has attendant issues: the concept of social justice has become so broadly defined that it may be perceived as being devoid of true meaning. In some cases, foundation trustees and executives may perceive social justice as having a negative connotation. At the Grants Managers Network's 2011 conference, one participant shared that, although most people, regardless of their relationship to the philanthropy sector, would regard her employer's grants as social justice funding -- the foundation has awarded grants to address the issue of high incarceration rates, including awards to the Innocence Project and local re-entry programs for ex-offenders -- the foundation itself framed them as public safety grants. "We couldn't have funded them under the name of social justice," the participant said.

If a foundation has clearly defined what it means by social justice, however, the terminology can provide a useful framework.

Is the term applicable to how a foundation conducts itself separate from its grantmaking? Yes, that is a defining hallmark of social justice philanthropy. Listening, for example, is one of the most important tools when using a social justice lens. The Seattle-based Marguerite Casey Foundation, which helps working families advocate for change on their own behalf, uses listening as its first line of approach. Several years ago, the foundation convened a series of Listening Circles across the country, inviting local experts, parents, and youth to provide feedback on how the foundation should spend $30 million dollars per year to benefit low-income families.

Underlying this approach is a fundamental axiom: the outsider (e.g., funder) first should listen carefully to the members of the communities where it works or seeks to work before making any assumptions on where their support can effect the greatest and most long-lasting social change.

What are some of the common characteristics of social justice foundations? Based on my informal survey of a number of foundations that would be identified by their peers as social justice-focused, I identified the following common traits:

• Their field of interests is akin to a forest that comprises a common canopy rather than a collection of individual trees. In other words, they understand how one grantee's activities are part of a larger ecosystem that includes many other players.
• Social change is a journey rather than a destination. That truism requires donors to perceive themselves as long-distance runners rather than as sprinters.
• A foundation is able to draw on an extensive philanthropic toolkit in addition to grants. That kit includes the power of convening, making recommendations with respect to consultants, enabling peer exchanges, providing meeting space, and technical/management assistance.
• Grants officers go beyond checking off the "we've received your report" box. In practice, they act more as partners and resource brokers. They move beyond checklist grantmaking at the front and tail ends of a grant. Their relationships with grantees do not have a beginning or an end date.
• The menu of the types of financial support that these grantmakers provide is varied and includes general support, multi-year grants, capacity-building support, and individual fellowships, in addition to project-specific grants and endowment support.

How can grantmakers -- and grants managers in particular -- use a social justice lens in their work? My checklist includes the following:

• What are the organization's mission, vision, core values, and track record with respect to diversity?
• Do those things jibe with the foundation's mission, interests, and strategy or theory of change?
• Who is the organization's constituency/base, and how does the organization engage them?
• Does it have a clear plan of action?
• Is it able to show evidence of collaboration and networking with like-minded organizations?
• Is it supported by other social justice funders?

Finally, if a grants manager's job description doesn't encompass at least some of the responsibilities described in this post, let me suggest that as a topic for discussion when next developing/revising position descriptions, reviewing annual work plans, and in the performance review process.

Resources

For more information, check out the following Web sites:

• Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation – Reports & Publications
• New World Foundation – Technical Assistance to Grantees
• Greater New Orleans Foundation – Initiative Grantmaking
• Atlantic Philanthropies – Thought Leadership
• California Endowment – Meeting Ground
• Marguerite Casey Foundation – Listening

-- Michael Seltzer

Weekend Link Roundup (July 14-15, 2012)

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

Communications/Marketing

Network for Good's Katya Andresen shares a list of thirteen signs your Web site might be out of date. The list, which was originally posted on the Branded Out Loud blog, includes:

• The calendar widget on your site resembles an actual calendar;
• "WELCOME" appears anywhere on your site;
• There are more than eight menu options or drop-downs with their own drop-downs; and
• Stock photos on your site are not connected to your organization's mission, or the photos don't load properly.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the Huffington Post Impact blog, Global Philanthropy Group president Trevor Neilson has three recommendations for nonprofits worried that it's only a matter of time before the economy -- and their fundraising results -- take a turn for the worse: think "different" about fundraising; decide what not to do; and value performance over passion.

Guest blogging on Beth's blog, GreatNonprofits chief executive Perla Ni and Family Independence Initiative vice president Mia Birdsong discuss the importance of listening and responding to feedback from the people being served by your nonprofit. "With a good feedback system in place programs can be held accountable to those they serve," write Ni and Birdsong. "Consumers will see that their voices make a difference when programs are adjusted and measures of success redefined in response to feedback....Nonprofits will benefit from detailed information about program strengths and shortcomings....And everyone wins when programs become more efficient and effective, improving program quality and outcomes."

Leadership

Rosetta Thurman, co-author of How to Become a Nonprofit Rockstar (with Trista Harris), has a few suggestions for young nonprofit professionals on how "to handle slip-ups with maturity in the nonprofit workplace."

Nonprofit Management

In the latest installment of her Social Good podcast series, Allison Fine chats with former Apple creative director Ken Segall, author of Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success, about how nonprofits can "create a culture of simplicity in their organizations."

Philanthropy

in an e-mail to Council on Foundation members and colleagues, Vikki Spruill, the council's new president and CEO, shares her vision for organized philanthropy. "Philanthropy has a proud legacy and an awe-inspiring focus on the future," Spruill writes,

but its most critical moment is right now. At a time when our world faces a storm of converging challenges with dwindling resources, philanthropy's positive impact remains a mystery to far too many. Swirling through this storm is a lack of understanding about the role philanthropy plays in society as investor, innovator, leader, and partner. Yet we all know philanthropy is more relevant and necessary than ever. That's why we must seize the imperative to help society better understand philanthropy's impact and contributions. If we can't imagine a world without philanthropy, we need to make sure those outside our sector recognize what an unlivable world that would be....

Poverty

The folks at liberal think tank Demos have posted a series of charts that break down the poverty rate in America by race, gender, education, age, and family type and finds that it's highest among single female-headed households with kids -- a fact explored with great skill and empathy by this article in today's New York Times.

Social Innovation

On the Social Velocity blog, Nell Edgington shares ten great social innovation reads from the month of June. We agree with Nell: Better late than never.

Strategy

On FSG's Social Impact Blog, Rebecca Graves explains why strategic clarity is important for community foundations. "Community foundations wrestle with an incredible array of decisions about how best to support their communities, advance solutions to complex social problems, and craft the right role for themselves," writes Graves. "[And] disciplined strategic thinking is essential to address these challenges. It helps [community foundations] articulate a clear and unique identity, become more aligned in pursuit of [their] goals, and define the right types of growth...."

Transparency

And on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, CEP president Phil Buchanan suggests that the philanthropic sector is unlikely to "make real progress on meaningful transparency -- transparency that gets to effectiveness and improvement -- externally until we deal with the challenge of being transparent first at home, with staff and colleagues...."

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

-- The Editors