Occasionally I will get a new philanthropy book or report from a publisher to review. Before the craziness of the Council on Foundations conference I received “Leveling the Playing Field: Advancing Women in Jewish Organizational Life” by Shifra Bronznick, Didi Goldenhar, and Marty Linsky. This is a “how-to” book for those that want to champion gender equity in the workplace. The book covers why equitable environments are key to organizational success and long-term health of the Jewish community. This argument is much like the continued call for diversity in the foundation field to strengthen not just organizations but the communities that foundations are committed to enriching.

The authors have an interesting point that if you are committed to increasing equity in organizations the you must expand your own advancement opportunities because your “ability to support gender equity depends on where you sit in the organization.” One way to do this is ask for what you want and need within your organization. Don’t expect your talents to be noticed and recognized. “Women professionals benefit when they state their aspirations clearly and enlist their colleagues and supervisors in helping them meet their goals.” If you want to be promoted to vice president in your organization within five years, tell your organizational leadership that that’s what you aspire to. Being honest about your goals decreases the chance that you will be mistakenly overlooked when that position comes open. It will also give you time to prove your skills in the context of that aspirational position. People will start to look at you as a possible candidate, so make sure you are acting like a candidate. More on branding yourself for future positions can be found in my professional development guide on branding yourself for success.

I liked that this book had practical tools that are useful for any type of organization that is working to increase diverse perspectives. The authors have also developed a great conversation kit that helps you facilitate your own discussion about equity. The toolkit and book are available at www.advancingwomen.org

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Diversity has long been as issue in philanthropy. One of the earlier examples was the courageous African American foundation staff that decided in 1971 to propose an all Black slate of new members for the Council on Foundations board of directors in protest of the foundation world’s racial exclusiveness. As a result of that act 5 African American members were added to the board and ABFE was created and became the first Council on Foundations’ affinity group. This is painful work that puts individual foundation staff members at risk but also creates important change in the sector. Fast forward 37 years to the Council on Foundation’s conference in DC , where the organization was having its first conference plenary session on diversity. I find it a little bit shocking that in COF’s 59 year history that there has never been a time where the organization felt like the entire membership would benefit from a session on diversity but I digress.

The session was an opportunity for council members and a California congressman to debate the merits of recent legislation in California that would require a small percentage of large California foundation to report the race and gender of grantees, staff members, and board members. I’d like to start by saying that the government doesn’t really have the moral high ground on this issue, given the extreme lack of diversity in public office. Foundations aren’t squeaky clean on this either since most changes related to this issue have happened because of mass protest (ala ABFE) or legislation (ala the California law).

There were a variety of perspectives on the panel from “diversity improves the quality of our grantmaking” to “you can’t force us to have “others” on the board”. Watching the panel in action was a painful reminder that we have a long way to go until there is true equality in philanthropy and some of that journey to equality will be voluntary and a part of that journey may need to be legislated. A summary of the session is available here.

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of legislation related to diversity? Is it needed? Is it overkill? Do foundations need diverse staff members to make grants in diverse communities?

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Hi Trista! First let me apologize – this post is late. The Council on Foundations conference ended two weeks ago and I planned on posting my highlights of this session on youth philanthropy I attended then. But right after the conference I jetted off to Baltimore for three days to attend the 4th annual Eastern Regional Conference on Afterschool. I got a little sidetracked.

For those of you who did attend the Council on Foundations conference, did you get a chance to see any of the great youth performers in the exhibit hall?

During the session I attended titled, Seeding Our Future: Growing the Next Generation of Givers, one panelist wondered if those youth were informed about the purpose of the conference and why they were there. Did they know who they were performing for? Do they know what philanthropy is? If we want to engage youth in philanthropy, we must educate them and it must start early.

The session was sponsored by The Lawrence Welk Family Foundation and highlighted best practices and programs that are engaging youth in philanthropy and how funders can support this vital movement. Panelists participating in the session were Tracy Gary, co-founder of Inspired Legacies and author of the book Inspired Philanthropy; Nora Gross, Board Member of Common Cents; and Jenny Yancey, Co-President of Youth Give.

Moderator Eric Kessler, Principal and Founder of Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, began the session by sharing his first experience with giving. He was seven years old, on a trip with his family in Israel. His parents gave him $50 and told him to do something charitable. He then asked the audience and the panelists to share their first experiences with giving. For many, it was watching their parents and family members doing good deeds while they themselves were young. It was very evident from the audience responses that the act of giving is instilled at an early age.

So what are some ways to promote philanthropy among youth? One program highlighted during the session was the non profit organization Youth Give, whose mission is to lower the barriers for young people to give back and make a difference with their time, talent and treasure.

One way they achieve their mission is by enabling young people to have their own philanthropic giving account that puts them in the driver’s seat of giving. A parent can open a free youth account online for any amount, $1, $20 or $100. Youth then choose which non profit organizations they want to fund.

In a nutshell, the panelists stated that youth philanthropy is the wave of the future and we must invest in it now. Whether it be through including philanthropy in a school curriculum or funding organizations such as Youth Give or the Penny Harvest program, funders must ask themselves, how much are you spending to promote philanthropy to the next generation?

Panelist Jenny Yancey summed it up perfectly: “We’re all born with a giving gene, but it needs to be nurtured.”

On the web:

Youth Give: http://www.youthgive.org/
Penny Harvest: http://www.pennyharvest.org/

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I was recently on Rosetta Thurman’s blog talk radio show. Rosetta is a fabulous blogger who had the recent fortune of meeting at the COF conference. The description of the show and a link is below, you can listen to the show there or download it as a podcast:

We’re gonna shine the spotlight on 3 emerging leaders in philanthropy: Melissa Johnson at
NCRP, Trista Harris at the St. Paul Foundation, and Faith Bynoe mostrecently at the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund. We’ll discuss how they alllanded jobs at foundations and what the grantmaking experience is like.

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/rosettathurman/2008/05/12/How-to-Get-a-Job-in-Philanthropy

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Chris Cardona, from the Venture Philanthropy Fund is one of my favorite philanthropy thinkers and an all around nice guy. Chris did conference coverage for a variety of blogs and he did a great summary of the conference for the Doing Giving Differently blog.

• Institutional philanthropy is in the midst of a full-fledged identity crisis.
• The “next gen” is the place to be.
• We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of engagement with our counterparts in other countries.
• Strategic philanthropy is important, but don’t underestimate charity.
• It’s not clear to me that most foundations are ready to engage with giving circles in a meaningful way.

For Chris’ full post go here.

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Entering the ‘Millennials and the Moment’ session, I scanned the room and noticed a much wider and well-distributed range of generations in the crowd. After a few days milling around in the Gaylord, I realized that I now recognized many in the once-indiscernible herd of philanthropists.

The panelists Cassie, Eddie, Andrew, and Carmen maturely reflected on their leadership experiences. Particularly striking points below:

• Cassie started Campus Climate Challenge and hosted a conference of over 6,000 environmentalists featuring Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi.
• Eddie started an organization for improvement of public housing in Oregon – at the age of twenty.
• Andrew, a young City Councilperson from Tallahassee, wanted more opportunity to network with other young elected officials so he started an organization that now serves over 400 young elected officials.
• Carmen is the Vice President of USSA a student-led and -run organization that advocates for educational equality.

Other than talking about their specific experiences, the students made the salient point that ours is the most diverse generation in US history and that it is up to us to reverse the polarization perpetuated by past generations.

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A gigantic thank you to all of New Voices of Philanthropies guest bloggers at the COF Conference. Your varied perspectives created a great picture of what was happening at the conference and is much appreciated.

A big hello to all of the new readers of the blog that were introduced to the site at the conference, there are new posts every Monday and Thursday and you can find some background on the blog here and you can subscribe to our RSS feed here.

There will be continuing coverage of the conference by me and our fabulous guest bloggers. I would also like to hear your perspectives of the conference in the comments section below. What was a highlight of the conference for you? What did you learn? What lessons will you use? What ticked you off? (Hint: the thing that ticked me off happened at the diversity plenary…more to come on that later)

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I’m blogging live from the philathropy 2.0 event sponsored by the Case Foundation, EPIP, and 3rd Wave. Packed, hot, techie. About to break a sweat hot.

Just a quick observation. In today’s session on faith and feminism, the director of the Women’s Funding Network, Chris, pushed me to present my small group’s discussion points. Although the rest of the group urged her to speak, she clearly indicated that she wanted me to present because I am an emerging voice in the feminist movement.

This is not the only time this has happened. Today, in the session I co-designed, Luz gave way to Charles and Trista to allow them airtime. This level of collegiality and respect for the voices of young people in philanthropy is new to me. Just by creating it as a focus area of the summit and by hearing leadership frame the conference on Sunday, people are already taking action.

We are not just here to learn, existing leadership is not just here to teach. It is an exchange.

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Personal journey? Professional mission? How do new CEO’s find their paths?

This session focused on the personal journeys of three young and/or new CEO’s. Jamie Merisotis talked about his move to Lumina instantly making him smarter, taller, and prettier… something everyone new to the field experiences. He went on to discuss how he is always looking for new avenues to make scalable change. His career has been in creating educational opportunity and Lumina was the obvious next step. While not an emerging leader anymore, he is the youngest CEO of one of the 50 largest foundations, and as such, he still carries the mantle of young leadership.

Monique Mehta from the Third Wave Foundation talked about her move to CEO as part of her journey from social services and volunteering as a high school and college student to moving into the corporate sector, becoming a volunteer, then a law student, finally coming full circle to Third Wave. While hers was a personal journey, it sounded like her turning point was her volunteer work after college. She found a personally compelling mission which put her on the CEO path. Now she works with her colleagues to make sure that she and her foundation have a seat at the table.

Perhaps the most compelling story was Nathanial Williams. He talked about his five year plan to become a foundation CEO, which happened a couple of years ago, but more importantly he talked about his background, both his family background and his educational experiences informing what he brought to his job. Because of his focus, I think he gave the most concrete path to executive leadership.–becoming part of national networks, taking on board work and taking leadership roles in everything he did. His career is clearly personal, but like Jaime he has had a relatively narrow focus area– in youth leadership development and organizing.

Other key learnings from this session include: taking advantage of the fact that as a young person, you will be underestimated–excel when you can, marshall your resources when you can’t. Create a “kitchen cabinet,” that is, smart, accomplished colleagues and friends that will give you good, sometimes tough, feedback. No one climbs the executive mountain alone. And lastly, reclaim philanthropy. It doesn’t mean rich, it doesn’t mean old and it doesn’t mean white. it means “love of mankind,” we can embrace the term and redefine it.

Athena Adkins is a senior manager for community relations at Travelers and membership chair for the Minnesota chapter of EPIP

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