As my foundation begins it strategic planning for the future, a question was posed in a staff meeting today that got me to thinking.

What are the characteristics of a great foundation in the early 21st Century?

Since I eventually want to run a foundation I have asked a similar question to myself.  My past questions, though, have been more around the scenario of new leadership at an established foundation.  But what if tomorrow I won one of those outrageous multi-million dollar lotteries that you hear about occasionally on the news and could start a foundation from scratch?  What would it look like?

I think mine would study closely the “Tao of Trista”: allow Program (and maybe even grants) staff to be outside of the office more than inside.  I too believe that program staff needs to know the ins and outs of the community being served, the challenges and potential solutions, the key players and the effective organizations.  They can’t know that from staying inside at their desks, reviewing proposals.  We would fund operational support in addition to specific programs.  We would be front and center in the digital age, taking advantage of all that technology has to offer.  We would be transparent, possibly even allowing the public to attend board or program review committee meetings.  And we would continually learn from both the failures and the successes.

What are the characteristics of your 21st century foundation?

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Obama’s digital strategist (I love his title) has recently said in an interview that nonprofit e-newsletters are a waste of time. I know you are probably thinking, “they can’t be a waste of time, I just spent six hours writing our e-newsletter and it is a great way to connect with our donors.” As a personal donor and as an foundation representative, I can honestly say that most e-newsletter immediately get deleted. I don’t have time to read the 7-10 that are in my in-box everytime I open it and I don’t feel like they make me feel closer to the organization because I read their 3 short articles about their mission.

He did have a suggestion to replace the e-newsletter, which is refreshing because I am sick of reading articles about what is wrong with the sector with no suggestions to improve it. He said that the campaign’s strategy was to write regular, short emails to possible contributors asking them to do one specific thing (make a gift, help call undecided voters, etc.). The email was also very clear about what would happen if they did that one thing and what would happen next. I understand that this is all very common sense stuff but its easy to leave your common sense at home when it comes to fundraising because everyone else is sending e-newsletters so it must work. I know there is probably an urban legend about a well written e-newsletter that got a nonprofit a million dollar gift from someone who got a forwarded copy from a friend. You know deep down inside that this isn’t true, so step away from the constant contact website and think about how you can authentically connect with your supporters.

The full article is here.

Who have you seen that is doing effective e-communication?

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Normally, after one grant cycle concludes, acceptance letters as well as declination letters get mailed. When my grantees receive acceptance letters they’re so excited and grateful, their thank-you calls make my day. The recipients of the declination letters……not so much. I find myself fumbling and being put on the defensive as to why we didn’t fund this or that program. In my tenure as a program officer, I have been on the receiving end of a few not-so-pleasant phone calls. To prevent them from getting under my skin, I started categorizing them:

• Immediate declines. This is very succinct: The proposed program just did not fit within our guidelines. Do not pass “GO” and do not collect $200.
• “Maybe but…….” With these we weigh the qualitative component of the proposal and ask a few pertinent questions: Is this organization the strongest and the best to undertake this program? If other organizations are doing similar work, why reinvent the wheel? This came up with a recent decline and the organization phoned me. They proposed a capacity grant for an advocacy and policy staff position. A noble enough endeavor to be sure. But I had to point out that two much larger and better equipped organizations in the city were doing the same work with a stronger policy team. This organization seemed surprised when I mentioned this bit of information. But she was very understanding of our position and thanked me for taking the time to explain the declination. This was actually one of the nicer calls I received.
• Don’t shoot the messenger. These are declines from our board of directors. At this point I have done all I can to get a program funded but, for whatever reason, our board decided otherwise. It is truly out of my hands.
• Blind-sided declines. These declines are the toughest. These proposals have you the most invested emotionally because you have built a relationship with the potential grantee. After all due diligence is performed and it passes the staff vetting process, something crops up that you could not have anticipated. This was the type of call I received about a week ago. This organization had proposed a phenomenal science education program for disadvantaged youth. It was the kind of program that had me more excited than any other I had participated in before. They were partnering with another local non-profit which was to provide them with the teaching staff needed to carry out said program. Unfortunately, disturbing news came to light about this partner organization’s financial stability. My Executive Director said it was my call. So, due to the questionable circumstances and the current economic climate, I decided it was not prudent to move forward with this grant. Fortunately, the grantee understood my foundation’s position. I think it upset me more than it did her.

With so many nonprofits chasing so few dollars, it’s impossible to fund every worthy proposal that lands in my lap. With the economy circling the drain, a staggering number of organizations desperately need foundation dollars to fund the vital services that often fall by the wayside in down economies. I am proud of the fact my foundation has decided to maintain our level of giving as much as possible.

I still believe my days of saying “no” have just begun.

Paulette Pierre is a Program Officer intern at The Field Foundation of Illinois. She has a graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy from Loyola University and is currently pursuing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University.

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I’ve been recently reintroduced to the wonders of Sesame Street through my four year old son who saw it for the seemingly FIRST time last week. I refuse to believe that it really is the first time because I believe that getting to know this little utopia of a street, where diversity is celebrated and being smart if fun, is the birthright of every child and for some reason my child stared at Big Bird in confusion when we were flipping through channels. “Wow, that’s a funny looking bird”, he said. When I asked him what the bird’s name was he said, “how would I know?” Yikes! It has now become my personal mission to throne the Sesame Street muppets as the preferred characters in my house. I’m sick of that smug little SpongeBob anyway, with his fancy square pants and pineapple house.  This all being said, I started to wonder where the idea of Sesame Street came from? Did some bigwig exec at PBS have a meeting where he said, “I need a show with an infinite amount of marketing opportunities and a lock on the preschool demographic?”  I highly doubt it.

Today I was reading an article about the roots of Sesame Street and found that the show was the result of a conversation between a Carnegie Foundation exec and a producer. From the article:

“The idea they came up with was kind of radical: If you can sell kids sugared cereal and toys using Madison Avenue techniques, why couldn’t you use the same techniques for teaching counting, the alphabet and basic social skills? And it works.”

Indeed, as Davis notes in “Street Gang” (Viking), the genesis of Sesame Street was when the 3-year-old daughter of a Carnegie foundation executive was fascinated by television, waking up to watch the broadcast day begin and memorizing commercial jingles. He talked about his daughter with a friend, producer Joan Ganz Cooney. In the liberal ferment of the mid-’60s, both wondered whether educational TV could go beyond the staid classroom shows of the era.

Foundations are perfectly positioned to encourage this kind of innovation. Foundation staff meet with experts from a wide variety of fields and can bring  ideas from one sector to another. This foundation exec had the interest in improving children’s education and the connections with a producer to ensure that this innovation happened.

How are you expanding your network to make sure that you have the right experts in your network to make the next Sesame Street Happen?

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For the past few months the staff at Headwaters has been thinking a lot about how social media tools fit into our charge of being a transparent grantmaker. Tools like blogs, facebook, Twitter can start an effective two way dialog where the foundation and our various constituencies (grantees, donors, community organizers, and interested individuals) can exchange information and together build effective movements for social change or social media tools can be an amazing time suck that alienates your audience and undermines your brand.Yikes, nothing like a little pressure to help clarify your communications strategy. We’ve been taking the slow and steady approach to social media (not usually my style but it works in this case). Instead of throwing out a bunch of content and hoping something sticks, we are organically growing our Facebook friends and inviting them to our events, twittering program updates, and actively searching for content that will be useful for our audience.

What nonprofits are at the cutting edge of social media and what do you like about their content or strategy?

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New Voices of Philanthropy has moved to its new site, look around, tell me what you like and what you don’t like, and what you want to see more of. Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Trista

P.S. If you subscribed to the RSS feed for New Voies of Philanthropy at the old site, please re-subscribe above

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My former foundation is doing a survey on what web tools donors use when they give. I think it is wonderful that they are asking donors what they want instead of building a tool and then hoping that everyone will line up to use it. It’s also great that the survey is a partnership between multiple community foundations. Please take a few minutes to fill it out. It is a great opportunity to help foundations begin to use cutting edge tools to connect with donors in new ways. From the Saint Paul and Minnesota Community Foundations:

Social media and e-philanthropy are changing what donors want and expect from nonprofits. Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation are partnering with community foundations in Columbus and San Francisco to sponsor joint research to learn directly from donors about what web tools they may use for charitable purposes.

As part of this effort, they want to survey as many people as possible who are already givers to nonprofit organizations. I hope that you will take a few minutes to complete the survey attached below. They will not collect e-mails and all responses will be anonymous.

Thank you for your time to complete this!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=p8nhnNYPQtNjQNo_2fM395CA_3d_3d

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Paulette is a new voice in the field of philanthropy. She has contributed a great post to New Voices of philanthropy about how she built her base of knowledge in the field. From Paulette:

A colleague of mine sent me this link- http://www.mcf.org/mcf/resource/philanth.htm-to get my opinion. She was planning to use it for the philanthropy course she taught and she figured it was a great ice breaker for her students. As I watched it I had to chuckle at some of the responses given. Then I realized I was probably just as naive about the real meaning of philanthropy as they were when I embarked on this journey.

I didn’t have a clue as to where to begin. So, I began at the beginning. Believe my when I say that Google is your friend. Aside from information received from my various non-profit and philanthropy courses, I sought out other resources and tools I could use in my work. Below is a list of books, websites and other primers that remain a large part of my philanthropy library:

• • • “The Insider’s Guide to Grant Making” by Joel Orosz. This was a required text for my philanthropy course and is still my go-to guide. Orosz lays out the work and obligations of a program officer along with background and history of the field. A very enjoyable read.
    • “GrantCraft” This is produced by the Ford Foundation and offers a wealth of information on philanthropy, grant making, mission-related investments and anything else related to philanthropy. If you register on the site you can download virtually all of the guides for free or you can purchase a hard copy.
    • “The Complete Guide to Grant Making Basics” This was originally put out in two parts but the updated version combines both. It costs around $65 as an individual (cheaper if your foundation is a member) but well worth the cost for anyone who wants a grant making 101 course. It covers everything—from reading proposals, to how to conduct site visits and understanding non-profit finances (a personal thorn in my side).
    • Philanthropy and non-profit blogs. I can’t say enough about them. These offer a great perspective on the current trends in the field—Perspectives from the Pipeline; New Voices in Philanthropy (shameless plug but true-this blog was the one of the first I discovered while on my journey); and Tactical Philanthropy. Also, sign up to receive newsletters and blog information from the various foundations. This is a great resource for seeing what social issues other foundations find imperative and where they are putting their money.
    • Philanthropy magazines and periodicals.

• • Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stanford Social Innovation Review and Non-Profit Quarterly. Most of the articles are free but a subscription is required for some. I am partial to SSI Review due to its abundance of information on social issues that are of interest to me (particularly economic development and poverty).

While there is no dearth of information available and this doesn’t even cover issue- or policy-related blogs I subscribe to, the above list is the one I found most helpful to build my base of knowledge. I continue to use these sources as well as many others I have discovered. Books and blogs are important but networking is key. This avenue worked for me—after joining a local women’s philanthropy group, I met and now work with one of the program officers. The take-away: Stay hungry and never stop learning. I myself have just scratched the surface.

Paulette Pierre is a Program Officer intern at The Field Foundation of Illinois. She has a graduate certificate in Non-Profit Management and Philanthropy from Loyola University and is currently pursuing her MA in Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University.

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