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| Best Practices: Philanthropy |
Sum of the Parts
Eileen Gunn
10/01/2004
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“You
have to have a lot of risk tolerance and the flexibility to change direction
midstream, and not everyone does,” notes Chris Page, senior vice president of
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors in New York, a firm that advises individuals
and foundations on their philanthropic strategies, manages administrative
details and helps clients set up collaborations. One of the firm’s earlier
collaborative missions was to help individual members of the Rockefeller family
join together with one another and other philanthropists on projects, including
one they started in 1993 to keep community gardens growing in New York.
Gabfests Galore
Anyone thinking of embarking on a collaborative effort
should be prepared to spend many months just talking with other interested
people. Once the group actually gets off the ground—assuming it does—the
dialogue will continue in periodic meetings, and members should have an
agreement as to whether those meetings are monthly, quarterly or semiannual. “It
takes a lot of time and effort and management to make a collaboration work. You
have to count on it taking more time than you plan,” cautions Page.
“Information-sharing, evaluation and assessment throughout are really important.
You might have to alter your plans, and you want to have all the information you
need in time to make those kinds of decisions promptly.”
Melinda Marble found
that it took more than a year of talking to get a collaborative venture going.
She is executive director of the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation
in Boston, where the focus is on combating homelessness in the area. Last year,
the Fireman Foundation joined with four other foundations to form a group called
Home Funders, which plans to provide home loans for 4,000 low-income families in
Massachusetts over the next 10 years. The genesis was in 2001 when Highland
Street Connection invited other grant-makers to a minisummit on homelessness.
“We wanted to keep it simple, but we still had endless conversations,”
Marble says. “Since it’s such a long-term project, we had to protect each
institution. We had to make everyone feel empowered, but at the same time
recognize that some were taking on bigger risks [by committing more funding]
than others.” Some of the people involved decided the plan was too complicated
and opted out, but those who stayed in were the truly committed. In addition to
agreeing on the crucial points of goals, time frame and structure, they also had
to establish consensus on the minutia, such as how often they would meet and
which issues would be subject to group vote versus which would be left to the
biggest funders to decide. The verdict was that while everyone would have an
equal share on the major issues, each member would have shares based on how much
funding it was providing when it came to voting on day-to-day
details.
Because Home Funders was in the business of investing in loans,
rather than bestowing grants, the group found it necessary to work with lawyers
who would make sure their assets were not at undue risk and that they were in
compliance with IRS rules. Not all collaborations need elaborate legal advice.
Page advises, nonetheless, that it is good practice to get the shared beliefs
and objectives down in writing. “That way,” he says, “you have that reminder of
where you were initially headed as you go along.”
The initial objectives are
important, too, when a collaboration is successful enough to attract bigger
brass, as has Home Funders, which currently has 126 homes under construction. In
June, State Street Corp., Fidelity Management Trust and the Annie E. Casey
Foundation joined the project and committed a total of $2.5 million, which the
Fireman Foundation and Highland Street Connection will match.
In a
successful collaboration, every participant has to forego a few accolades in the
interest of a joint mission. Penny George says one of the reasons her group
works well together is that “there isn’t huge ego.” When new philanthropists
express interest in joining the collaborative, the group invites them to a few
meetings to make sure they have both the drive to become active members and the
humility to work well as part of a team. “We could all get more credit and
renown by working on our own locally,” she says, “but we’re doing something more
powerful than any of us could have done ourselves.”
Illustration by Jim Frazier.
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