The Mistakes We Make
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.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Jasmine,
Thanks for the post. I think much of the reason for our reluctance to discuss our failures in the foundation world is the very human one of not wanting to be viewed as failures.
Additionally, in my organization, we fundraise as well as make grants. While some acknowledgement of our “less than successful” grants may be in order, I suspect my development folks would get pretty antsy if I spent a lot of time talking about how much I’ve learned from all my failed grants!
But acknowledging that this type of sharing would be valuable, what structure would you suggest? I’ve been part of list serves from time to time but they seem to fade away or drift into more technical areas. How would you create a safe environment for grantmakers to have this conversation?
October 9th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
I agree that listservs are probably not a lasting way to maintain this conversation. Council on Foundations would be a good starting point, either as a session at one of their conferences or as an educational seminar. Or on a smaller scale, have affinity groups like Grantmakers in Health or Grantmakers in Education host an online community or a one-day forum for foundations to learn from each other. I think that being around peers (particularly peers addressing the same program area) would definitely help before we go broadcasting to the world our mistakes.