Posted by Trista Harris on October 30, 2008
The Carlson Family Foundation is looking for a Program Associate to assist with foundation projects and philanthropy efforts. Responsibilities include researching and assisting in the evaluation of grant proposals, preparing written reports and updates; monitoring grant reporting and post-grant analyses, coordinating charitable activities and special Foundation projects. The Foundation is seeking a generalist with experience in working in foundations and family philanthropy.
The Carlson Family Foundation has a strong tradition of giving rooted in the philosophy of our founder, Curtis L. Carlson. Curtis and Arleen Carlson fostered a sense of community and a spirit of giving in their family, establishing a family legacy of philanthropy. Please visit http://www.clcfamilyfoundation.com to find more about the Carlson Family Foundation. Apply at www.Carlson.com
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 27, 2008
Every day we’re reading and seeing news reports about our country’s financial crisis and how it is affecting the average American. What we don’t hear about as often is how this crisis is affecting the average non-profit. Lately I’ve been reading article after article about how the bank closures are affecting the local non-profits that depend on them for large contributions to the annual fundraisers. Non-profits that depend on annual support from corporations and individuals are hearing “we can’t do it this year” more often than ever. Scaled back giving of course means scaled back programming, which leads to more people being left out of some very important activities provided by their local charity organization.
In times like this, creative philanthropy is necessary. When I was in Missouri my foundation had an emergency fund for unexpected situations that might lead to an organization having to close its doors. When a tornado demolished a town in southern Missouri, grants were made from the emergency fund to rebuild the health department. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, we established a fund to assist organizations experiencing an influx of victims transported out of Louisiana.
I just read an article about the Silicon Valley Community Foundation establishing the “Strengthen the Safety Net” fund to assist non profits that provide food and shelter in the San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. These organizations are seeing a dramatic rise in families needing their services due to the economic crisis. As a result the foundation is using this fund to challenge individuals and corporations to donate money; the foundation will match dollar for dollar up to $1 million through the end of this year. Now that’s creative philanthropy in a time of crisis.
I certainly understand that some foundations are getting hit by the crisis just like the nonprofits, but there are others whose losses may be minimal and thus can afford to pitch in a little extra. I’d be interested to hear other creative solutions that your foundations (or foundations you’ve read about) may be instituting to respond to these desperate times.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 24, 2008
From November 9-11, I will be blogging from the Independent Sector Conference. Quite honestly I was going to skip their conference this year given the recent job transition but then I heard that they will be having a Next Generation track. It is really encouraging to see that an important institution like Independent Sector realizes how important it is to prepare the pipleline of leadership. It will also be great for me to meet with other foundation and nonprofit staff members from around the country. Some of my best ideas have come to me during conference sessions. They give you the opportunity to look beyong your normal way of looking at the world and envisioning something better.
If you are also attending the conference and are interested in blogging about any of the sessions or want to meet up for coffee at the conference send me an email at tristaharris (at) gmail (dot) com.
Independent Sector 2008 Annual Conference
NGen: Moving Nonprofit Leaders from Next to Now- Sponsored by Comcast
Developing the next generation of nonprofit leaders is critical to the ability of charities and foundations to improve lives around the world. The “NGen: Moving Nonprofit Leaders from Next to Now” program, which is new at the Independent Sector 2008 Annual Conference, will help expand and improve the nonprofit talent pool by developing the leadership skills and networks of emerging leaders.
Open to nonprofit professionals under the age of 40, NGen will offer its participants special sessions addressing issues they face as emerging leaders and opportunities to network with leaders of all ages. You must first register for the conference before you can register for this program.
The IS Annual Conference, “Our Hopes, Our Voice, Our Future,” takes place November 9-11 in Philadelphia.
For more information about the Annual Conference and NGen, visit: www.independentsector.org/annualconference/2008/index.html.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 23, 2008
The old school way of building your career was spending long hours at your desk hoping some big wig would notice your innate skills and abilities and move you along your career path. Gen X and Y haven’t been as comfortable with that model and are finding new ways to move ahead in the sector. These generations thrive on network building. For them, Linked In is way more useful than a a static roledex built with cards from hundreds of Rotary and Chamber of Commerce events.
Another way those networks have been built and nurtured is through blogging. A useful and interesting blog is a key communications tool. You are connecting with a willing audience that has a similar viewpoint of the world you are writing about. Blogging puts your authentic voice out there for the whole world to see. That openess creates many fabulous opportunities that are tailormade for your interests and expertise. There are many great examples out there: Rosetta Thurman from Perspectives from the Pipeline has begun teaching at American University and speaks nationally about the issues covered in her blog and Sean Stannard-Stockton from Tactical Philanthropy has a column at the Financial Times. I have been able to speak about next generation issues in philanthropy at a lot of great events and my new board members are getting to know me better through the posts that I make here.
Don’t be afraid to get your voice out there, great things can happen when you take that leap of faith.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 20, 2008
Every October for the past 2 years I have traveled to New York to have a session with members of my support group. This group is the Connecting Leaders Fellows, a program hosted by the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE). I was selected as a Fellow in 2006–in fact, that’s how I met Trista. The introductory activity for each class of Fellows is a week-long leadership summit in NYC; activities include panel sessions with Foundation leaders about current issues in philanthropy and professional development strategies from career coaches. But to me, the most important activity of the week is the meeting the potential members of a support group consisting of folks with similar perspectives and challenges as we work in this field. Each year ABFE selects a new class and invites the past fellows to participate in the final days of the summit. So last week I expanded my support group to include the new class. I also re-connected with past Fellows who are already members of this group.
I consider my support group different from my network. My network includes professionals both inside and outside of philanthropy: former grad school classmates, consultants whom I’ve met over the years, and leaders of non-profits where I volunteered. But my support group consists of folks with whom I share a particular bond because they are all current or past professionals in philanthropy. I can call on them at anytime for a listening ear, a word of encouragement or help in plotting my next move. Indeed, they are friends–but even a little more than that because they also share my professional experience. Not all of the members of my support group are ABFE Fellows, but in truth they make up a large contingent.
I think everyone needs a support group, particularly those of us working in philanthropy. This can be a wild, wacky, frustrating field and it’s easier to commiserate with those who know it first-hand. My support group did it’s job, and now I feel invigorated and re-energized as I continue to work on making my mark in philanthropy.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 13, 2008
I have been busy with work lately, not sleep under my desk busy, but busy enough where I don’t have a lot of spare time to think about what to eat at home. It is not like when I have lots of spare time I am a wonderful chef who makes home cooked meals for the neighborhood but I can get a protein, vegetable, and a starch on the table pretty consistently. For the first three weeks of my new job my husband has been handling almost all of the home duties and when it comes to food that means we had eaten a wide variety of fast food for three weeks straight. I was starting to feel like the guy from Supersize Me, so I finally ventured to the grocery store. I have found that when I have a large number of decisions to make at work, facing the infinite number of possibilities at the grocery store makes my head feel like it is going to explode. Instead of picking fresh food that would require me to figure out what to do with it I gravitated towards the dangerous middle aisles, where there are pictures of completed meals on the box and numbered directions on how to make it happen. At 9pm on a Tuesday night at a grocery store, numbered directions start looking pretty attractive. The next night when I cooked my “1-2-3″ meal I noticed that it had a very unappetizing grey color and it had a nice chemical aftertaste. That’s when I remembered that work-life balance isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.
I have no false illusions that I will be running a board meeting, speaking at a conference, and then cooking a three course meal for dinner but I can do a better job of using the same strategic planning that I use to decide what I need to accomplish for the week at work, at home. I can set broad goals about the sort of food I would like my family to eat and how we spend our time together. I can also celebrate those successes at home the same way I celebrate those successes at work with staff. The hard thing about being a parent or a partner is that you don’t get performance reviews to tell you that you are doing a good job. You need to figure out what let’s you know you are doing a good job, is it well adjusted kids, a happy partner who says nice things about you to their friends, or a family without scurvy? Then enjoy those successes.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 9, 2008
A couple of the case studies we’ve read for my philanthropy class come from the book Great Philanthropic Mistakes by Martin Morse Wooster. So far I’ve read chapters discussing the Carnegie Corporation’s involvement in creating public television and the massive blind investment the Rockefeller Foundation made in standardizing medical education. Wooster also tackles the Annenberg Foundation’s role in school reform (we’re reading that chapter next week) and the MacArthur Foundation’s Fellows Program. I’m intrigued enough that I may have to go ahead and buy the book for my own collection!
These readings got me to thinking about foundation mistakes–failed programs that sounded fantastic at the start but, through either environmental circumstance (such as PBS’s competition with the new cable channels) or non-acceptance from the target community (like prominent medical schools dismissing the proposed standardization). Only recently in my 6 years of foundation work have I seen public acknowledgement of foundation mistakes. The first was a Grantcraft publication called When Projects Flounder. The second was a discussion this year at my foundation about learning from failed programs. There have been others here and there, but they seem few and far between.
Why have foundations been so hush-hush about failed programs? With all the emphasis foundations put on grantees talking to each other at our annual convenings about lessons learned, you’d think those of us who work in foundations would be more willing to also trade stories of the grantees that didn’t quite meet our expectations. When I work on developing new funding programs, I would love to not only talk to the foundations who succeeded in a similar initiative but also those who failed miserably. Then, just like my grantees who exchange such stories with each other, I can learn from the mistakes that were made.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 6, 2008
I was at a great meeting of African American women last week who have been brought together to help a local foundation develop a policy strategy for the African American community here in the Twin Cities. We are a varied group of women, both Minnesota natives and recent transplants, younger and older, from the nonprofit, corporate, and business sectors. Each of the participants in well connected in the community and leads their institution. Minnesota is a diverse place but in a spread out, you are often the only one from your community in most meetings type of way. As I have been developing my network of support in my new role at
Headwaters, I have found that it is difficult, if not impossible to find women of color in leadership roles in philanthropy. It would be great if I could find another young African American woman running a community foundation that is passionate about social justice so we could compare notes and bond over our similar challenges (if you know that woman let me know). What is more realistic and what I have done for most of my career is to find a varied network of support. I have a variety of roles in this new position: fundraiser, manager, strategic planner, chief networker, spokesperson, and administrator. I have found a lot of amazing women and men with experiences in each of these roles and have relied on them to give me good advice and lots of encouragement as I chart new paths and try new ideas out. For me, there has never been just one great mentor. My mentors are in lots of different fields and have a variety of experiences. Most wouldn’t call themselves my mentor if you asked them but they have always been available when I have needed help.
My advice to you is to not wait around for your fairy godmentor either, there are lots of great people already in your network who would be willing to fill that role if you only asked.
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Posted by Trista Harris on October 2, 2008
This morning I was thinking about why it is so important for me to be doing social justice work at this point in time. Every day when I read the news it seems like it gets worse and worse, the economy is collapsing and injustice is at every turn. There is this sort of dread that I have where I don’t want to go to CNN.com but feel like I have to. It reminds me a little of the game operation. I have a four year old son that has just learned the joys of that game. There is sort of hesitation because you want to pull out the funny bone or the spare rib but you are afraid of the consequences (that horrible noise and blinking nose). I also feel that way when I think about fighting injustice. Will my blog posting about racism in the nonprofit sector or a grant that we have made to increase Latino voting bring negative attention to the issue and actually make it harder to fight those injustices because people mobilize against it? So sometimes I feel like with traditional grantmaking you take a pass on those riskier grants when your hands are too shaky and you feel like you might set off the buzzer , what I have found with Headwaters is that our grantees do what my son does, they shut off the game, turn the whole board upside down and shake out what they need. Social justice is about changing the rules of the game when they are unfair.
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