posted on: Friday, March 23, 2012

By Niki Jagpal

On 23 March 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) putting in place the most significant health insurance reforms that will be operationalized over the next few years. On this second anniversary of the ACA, it’s apropos to lift up Margaret O’Bryon, president and CEO of the Consumer Health Foundation and recipient of this year’s Grantmakers in Health (GIH) Terrance Keenan Leadership Award in Health Philanthropy.

In her acceptance speech, O’Bryon spoke eloquently about observations and learnings from her time at the Consumer Health Foundation, which she has led since its founding in 1998. She spoke of the importance of values and a systems approach in grantmaking, stating:

First … Lead with an explicit set of values. Values are a moral compass. They are a rallying point. They let the community know who we are and what we stand for. Justice has always been a core value of the Consumer Health Foundation, rooted in our predecessor organization, the HMO Group Health Association … created in 1937. Group Health’s vision – which they made a reality – was preventive, pre-paid, quality health care provided in a racially integrated environment.

A Second Observation … Adopt a Systems Approach. We learned that if we were to understand and address the multiple social and economic forces that create and sustain good health, then we needed to take more of a systems approach to our work … and move away from focusing on a single initiative, project or issue.

Using this approach is often complicated, complex, and it’s certainly not linear. It is also grounded in the way individuals, families and communities – indeed, all of us– experience the world. The work is most often place based.

She discussed what the foundation’s trustees and staff learned from a visit to a majority Latino and immigrant neighborhood as they grappled with how to implement a systems approach in their grantmaking and offered three lessons:

With the help of an interpreter, we listened to stories about tenuous relationships with law enforcement; and the entrepreneurial spirit of the community coupled with the lack of jobs. We heard disturbing stories about racial and ethnic profiling. We experienced deep, personal emotion and fear around immigration issues, including deportation and the heart-wrenching pain of families being separated. And, we also talked with young people about the Dream Act recently passed by Maryland legislature.

So what did we learn? For one … through those conversations and others we learned that jobs, housing and issues around immigration are most frequently the priority concerns for a community … and that addressing these issues can become the entry point for work around health and health care. In essence, we talked about the social and economic determinants of health.

We also came to realize that adopting this longer-view requires supporting groups over time; providing general operating support; ability to work at the intersections; relentless pursuit of partners; and an openness to supporting a variety of community capacities, including community organizing, communications, policy analysis and engagement with the policy process.

The third thing we learned is that equity in health – especially as it relates to the elimination of racial health disparities and inequities … in communities of color – can NEVER be fully addressed without addressing head on the realities of race and racism.


As author Terri Langston, who received the same award in 2008, noted in NCRP’s Towards Transformative Change in Health Care, this is precisely how foundations that want to contribute to successful implementation of ACA should consider going about their grantmaking. Addressing the social determinants of health, identifying disparities, prioritizing the most underserved among us and investing in advocacy and community organizing are her recommended ways for health grantmakers to boost their impact.

Imagine where we might be if more foundations followed O’Bryon the Consumer Health Foundation’s lead and took the necessary risks, moved out of their issue silos and really engaged authentically with the communities they seek to serve. My guess is we’d be a lot farther than we are right now.

Kudos to Margaret and her foundation for leading by example and to GIH for recognizing this exemplary equity-focused funder at their annual conference.

Niki Jagpal is research and policy director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)

posted on: Tuesday, March 13, 2012

By Kevin Laskowski 

In 2009, more than half of all contributions, gifts and grants to environmental public charities went to just two percent of organizations: those with budgets of more than $5 million. Data from the National Center for Charitable Statistics show that, despite never comprising more than 2 percent of all environmental organizations, these organizations consistently received at least 40 percent of all contributions going to environment and climate-focused work from 1989 to 2009.  

In the face of ecological damage and catastrophic climate change, this has been the response of the environmental funding community. Two percent of groups receive an outsized share of contributions, gifts and grants while the smaller groups that test and build political will for their initiatives struggle.

Additional data from the Foundation Center confirms this turn away from the grassroots. For our latest report Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders, NCRP examined the grantmaking of 701 foundations with at least some grantmaking in the environment from 2007-2009. These organizations averaged more than 8,000 grants totaling $1.6 billion over the time period analyzed. 

Yet, among these grantmakers, 46 percent of average grant dollars went to just 50 organizations. Nearly a third went to just 10 organizations. 

For grantmakers seeking to build a broad movement to save the planet, this level of concentration is astonishing and should prompt some urgent self-reflection. 

Sarah Hansen, author of Cultivating the Grassroots, argues these numbers reflect the tendency of environmental grantmakers to invest in large, well-known national groups:

“Environment and climate funders tend to favor influencing national policy directly – whether because, in their personal experience, change has always been top-down or because, faced with the urgency of our warming planet, they believe top-down approaches are the most expedient option.

Perhaps this approach has its appeal because of current philanthropic trends whereby the boards and CEOs of large foundations desire big impact, or maybe, especially for large funders, it’s easier to make grants to a small number of top-down institutions than many smaller grants to smaller grassroots organizations or even funding intermediaries that regrant smaller amounts.

Whatever the reason, the tendency toward funding large, national, top-down environmental organizations carries with it the assumption that if we assemble and concentrate resources, we can move the needle.”

When the needle by some measures hasn’t moved in two decades, it’s time to question whether this distribution truly helps or hurts the pro-environmental movement. 

On the one hand, there are likely a lot of groups too small to have the kind of impact grantmakers are looking for (in which case grantmakers should consider giving large grants to re-granting organizations who could distribute those grants among smaller grassroots organizations). On the other hand, there are big-budget organizations that already enjoy an ample share of foundation attention and resources.

No doubt many organizations at both ends of the budget spectrum do amazing work, but, in between, there is a nonprofit ecosystem of thousands of groups working on everything from green jobs and air pollution to toxics and climate change. 

What could these groups accomplish with foundation dollars? Are environmental grantmakers interested in finding out?

Kevin Laskowski is research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

posted on: Sunday, March 11, 2012

by Yna C. Moore

Here are some of the past week's notable news and postings on philanthropy and nonprofits:

• The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Foundation Boards
  by Phil Buchanan  | The CEP Blog
• Philanthropy in the 21st Century: A Guide for Thinkers and Doers
  by Rahim Kanani  |  Forbes
  
• New Site Aids Evaluation Process to Increase Impact
  by Nicole Wallace  |  The Chronicle of Philanthropy
  
• Foundations Face Growing Turnover, Causing Instability for Many Charities
  by Ben Gose  |  The Chronicle of Philanthropy

 Yna C. Moore is communications director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).

posted on: Friday, March 09, 2012

By Lisa Ranghelli

Image credit: Renjith Krishnan
William Schambra has raised important questions about the influence of conservative politics on conservative philanthropy in his latest Chronicle of Philanthropy article, “Is Conservative Philanthropy Ignoring the Poor?” Speaking from his own experience, he recounts the ways in which conservative thinkers and actors in the 80s and 90s articulated an alternative to “big government” that envisioned small scale, local efforts to combat poverty as well as more “choice” in school options.
Whether one agrees with these proposals or not, Schambra asserts that there was a clear conservative agenda to help those who would traditionally rely on a government safety net. There no longer is one. Instead, conservative philanthropy, “now simply reinforces unfavorable impressions by focusing on short-term political advocacy rather than long-term civic problem solving.” He argues that this problem plagues both ends of the political spectrum, but in the case of conservatives, it has resulted in the abandonment of any sort of moral obligation to help the poor.

Schambra issues a call to action: “For conservatives to escape not only the appearance but also the damning reality of hardheartedness, their philanthropies must devote serious resources once again to the revival of civil society. Above all, they must locate, support and become directly involved with the grass-roots groups in their own communities that best demonstrate the power of civil society.”

I applaud Schambra for supporting grassroots community activism to tackle poverty, especially if it is truly led by local residents and other stakeholders. Ironically, grassroots political activists may be coming to the same conclusion on their own.

Rick Cohen notes that some local Tea Party groups are frustrated with the national conservative fixation on divisive hot button social issues that aren’t relevant to people’s day to day concerns. I just attended gatherings of nonprofits and grantmakers in Alabama, where I learned that there are at least one or two pressing issues that Tea Party activists and progressives alike are eager to solve, possibly together.

Who in philanthropy is looking at ways to cut through the polarized political environment nationally to support grassroots civic engagement on local issues? What would happen if Tea Partiers and progressive organizers got together at the community level to talk about common concerns? The foreclosure crisis, recession and slow recovery have shown that homeowner evictions and job losses are blind to political affiliation. Anger toward corporate America is pretty widespread. Maybe a meeting of the minds isn’t too likely on very many issues, but who knows.

Schambra sidesteps the elephant in the room of money in politics. If all the money funneled into super PACs and campaign coffers on the left and right was instead invested in grassroots organizations helping vulnerable communities, perhaps our society would be in better shape. Grantmakers of all stripes can exercise leadership by being a voice for clean politics and truly local grassroots activism.

Lisa Ranghelli is the director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) Grantmaking for Community Impact Project.

posted on: Tuesday, March 06, 2012

By Kevin Laskowski

When we began collecting data for our High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy (HISP) series of reports, I had one hypothesis that I’d hoped the data would confirm: “serious” grantmakers would invest in ways that intentionally benefit marginalized communities (such as lower-income communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, women and girls and other underserved populations) and in ways that intentionally work towards “social justice,” a convenient but important proxy for the kinds of systemic efforts that accompany tangible, lasting change. 

My thought was that the “serious” funders of various sectors, the ones devote a larger share of their grantmaking to a given program area, would be more likely to target particular beneficiaries and to fund systems reform efforts in that area. To a community often motivated by the behavior of its peers, I could then say, “Look, the ‘serious’ funders do things this way. If you’re looking to get serious and get results, then it’s time to invest in these high-impact approaches.” So we looked at the available data, and I was surprised by what I found. 

In the world of environmental funding, it appears that the “serious” funders may need to change strategies the most to boost their impact. As noted in NCRP’s latest report Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders, environmental grantmaking is upside-down: those that invest larger shares of their grant dollars in the environment are less likely to employ these high-impact strategies in their environmental grantmaking than those that invest considerably less of their portfolio in the environment. 

In fact, environmental grant dollars donated by funders who committed more than 25 percent of their total dollars to the environment were 10 times less likely to be classified as benefitting marginalized groups and 9 times less likely to be classified as having a social justice purpose than those environmental grant dollars given by funders that gave less than 5 percent of their portfolio to the environment. 

Optimistically, I would like to think that grantmakers with comparatively less of their portfolio to spend on environmental causes are consciously trying to get the greatest bang for their limited philanthropic buck. One can hope. 

However, for report author Sarah Hansen, the data reflect the field’s detrimental neglect of the grassroots: 

“For too long, national environmental advocates and scientists have been hanging pleas for environmental change on the apolitical hook of rational appeals, expecting decision-makers to do the right thing when confronted with powerful evidence. Yet, in many ways, complex political systems are like the human body. No matter how smart and articulate our agenda, our pleas for change will continue to be ignored if we lack the power to back them up. Even if we fund in single, focused-issue areas, we can benefit from a broader analysis of the systemic forces behind environmental crises and understanding how any one solution complements or contradicts others. We must make our demands for change impossible to ignore. That means working at every level of the system to achieve change, including the grassroots.” 

Hansen points out that, for all foundation resources devoted to protecting the planet (at least $10 billion in grants from 2000 - 2009), the movement has not seen the level of success “remotely commensurate with the level of funding invested toward these ends.” In his review of the report, David Roberts at Grist agrees: “The top-down, elite-focused strategy that has come to dominate the environmental movement is not working. Progress in D.C., on both policy and politics, has all but ground to a halt. There hasn’t been major green legislation passed since the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments.” 

If environmental grantmakers are comfortable with 22 years of holding down the fort, then there’s not much I can say, but, if funders are looking to get serious and get results, it is time to look again to the grassroots, to organizations that are working with and on behalf of those most affected by environmental harm, to test and build the will and resolve for national and even global reform. 

Roberts continues: 

“Environmentalism lacks political power because it is not backed by enough intensity at the grassroots level, particularly in non-coastal areas. Resources need to be diverted in that direction.

Environmentalism needs to connect with the working-class poor, minorities and other communities most directly impacted by environmental problems.

Environmentalism is in for a century of fights. It badly needs to take the long view and start laying down infrastructure, starting with a foundation of community-level support.

This kind of shift won’t be possible without the support of the philanthropic community.” 

It is time that serious grantmaking was defined as much by its embrace of inclusiveness and systemic effort as it is by its embrace of strategic focus and metrics. To continue to ignore marginalized communities and social justice activities is to pursue what Albert Ruesga, president of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, has called “philanthropy in bad faith:” 

“The persistent racial and other disparities in our communities highlight, in my view, the shortcomings of philanthropy-as-usual and prompt us to look for a new kind of giving. To make the same kinds of grants year after year to the same communities, to see the same disparities persist and even widen, and not to question one’s approach to grantmaking is, in my view, to do philanthropy in bad faith.” 

I’m not saying that the large environmental funders aren’t serious about the environment, but I am saying that good environmental grantmakers are serious about the grassroots. 

Kevin Laskowski is research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.