Monthly Archives: August 2012

Aug 31 2012
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Effectiveness Skills, Janice Simsohn Shaw

Facilitation for Foundation Leaders

Janice-Simsohn-ShawBy Janice Simsohn Shaw, ASF

I’ll admit it, I’m a facilitation geek. I love facilitating. I love learning about facilitating (as I have been lucky enough to do in multiple trainings with the Interaction Institute for Social Change). I love observing other facilitators and learning from their multitude of styles and approaches. And I love helping others gain and refine facilitation skills, as I have been fortunate to do at various ASF programs.

What, you may be asking, does facilitation have to do with philanthropy? Well, giving thoughtfully and strategically involves engaging with others around decision making, complex power dynamics, and social change, right? The stakes are often high, and skilled facilitation can help ease the way to more efficient and satisfying board meetings, more open and efficient collaborations and grantee convenings, better focus groups, and more successful community meetings. Continue reading →

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Aug 28 2012
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Impact & Evaluation, Lindsay Matush

Ask Your Way to Impact: Funder Dialogue

Lindsay MatushBy Lindsay Matush, The Brown Sisters Foundation

How can a small foundation with a limited grantmaking budget leverage its resources to make an even greater impact? In Part One of a three-part series, ASF member Lindsay Matush shares questions to ask other funders – conversation-starters she used to gather information as she sought to leverage and maximize her foundation’s impact. Part Two will address questions to ask nonprofit organizations. Part Three will explore foundation self-assessment on the road to achieving impact.

If one thing is certain about philanthropic impact, it is that the path there isn’t as direct as one might think. Rather, it’s windy and marked by accidental and deliberate successes, insightful conversations and observations, timely articles, and always really great dialogue.

This was my experience in 2009 after The Brown Sisters Foundation was endowed with minimal direction for funding criteria. In my quest to create an impactful foundation I became a student of the field, other funders, the nonprofit community, and the community at large.

I began by asking good questions to different audiences. The conversations I had were energizing, the insight phenomenal, and the relationships enduring. Continue reading →

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Aug 23 2012
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Leadership, Sharon Stewart

Growing Philanthropic Leaders Through Giving Circles

Sharon StewartBy Sharon Stewart, Anne Arundel Women Giving Together

As foundation leaders, we all have a vested interest in growing philanthropy in our communities. Every day we see the need for a more fully involved community.

One tool for growing philanthropy and developing leaders is giving circles, a collective form of philanthropy where members pool funds and make grants to charities. Giving circles have seen phenomenal growth nationally and are a way to get more people involved in grantmaking and learning about local community needs.

One of my most exciting ventures was helping to start Anne Arundel Women Giving Together (AAWGT), a 200-member women’s giving circle based in Annapolis, MD and a fund of the Community Foundation of Anne Arundel County. Since its founding in 2006, I have seen an incredible growth in philanthropy in our community. How do giving circles make this kind of growth happen? Continue reading →

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Aug 20 2012
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Grantmaking, Rachel Humphrey

Experience Informs Focus for Making International Grants

By Rachel Humphrey

Rachel HumphreyLong interested in issues of international development and aid, in 2003 I conducted a qualitative study on Barriers to International Giving by US-based Foundations. Nearly a decade later, the findings from this research are still relevant to funders engaged in or interested in international philanthropy.

One of the interesting findings from my research was that small foundations have a compelling opportunity for impact, and in fact a pivotal role to play, in international philanthropy.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Sasha Rabsey, philanthropist and founder of The HOW Fund, to learn more about how she and her family became engaged in making international grants.

Sasha shared her story with me, beginning with her and her daughter volunteering at a local Catholic mission every Saturday for years. When her daughter expressed an interest in going to Africa to volunteer, Sasha was not only supportive, but joined her daughter on a five-week volunteer experience in Ghana. Continue reading →

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Aug 17 2012
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Akilah Massey, Technology

More Nonprofits Use Text Messaging: Does Your Foundation Support This Trend?

By Akilah Massey, ASF

You may have heard that the Federal Election Commission (FEC) recently decided that political campaigns’ political action committees, or PACs, can raise money by text message.

Yes, that’s right. In between confirming dinner plans or asking your husband to pick up an extra bag of salad at the grocery store, you can make a quick donation to support a political candidate.

Looking back, it’s not completely surprising. Our society has been trending this way for some time. For instance, in the wake of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the Red Cross received $22 million in $10 text message donations from the U.S – within a week.

So the idea that the cell phones most of carry around all day can be used to quickly support causes isn’t new. But the FEC’s decision illustrates that this method of giving is becoming even more ingrained in our society. Furthermore, it shows the increasing power that lies at the intersection of small-scale philanthropy and public interest. Continue reading →

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Aug 15 2012
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Henry Berman, Leadership

Entrepreneurship in Philanthropy: More Than Just Risk?

By Henry Berman, ASF

Henry BermanFor most of my life, and certainly all of my working life, I have always fashioned myself an entrepreneur. For a long time my definition, rightly or wrongly, focused on the word as a noun, describing someone who typically takes risks and tries new things – one who starts new ventures. In fact, one online dictionary defines the word entrepreneur as a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.

As I began spending more of my time in the philanthropic sector I started questioning whether I was still an entrepreneur. After all, was I taking initiative and risk? Was I helping generate the big returns, in a social impact sense, that I imagined high-tech entrepreneurs reaped in terms of dollars for the risk they took? Continue reading →

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Aug 13 2012
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Grantmaking, Lynne O’Hara

How a Small Foundation Made a Big Impact on a Government Program – Part II

By Lynne O’Hara, The Special Hope Foundation

In Part One of her blog, Lynne O’Hara described how she used landscape scanning to help her board see the benefits of a high-risk grant that was very different from The Special Hope Foundation’s usual direct service grants. The grant was to fund SmartWorks, a computerized system to help placement agencies that contract with the Social Security Administration (SSA) under the Ticket to Work Program, which helps SSA disability beneficiaries find jobs. In this entry, she talks about the impact of the grant on job placement agencies in 10 states and a government program—an impact that will ultimately affect thousands of people with disabilities. 

Leveraging Other Funding

With a grant of $50,000 to support SmartWorks operations in California, we became the project’s first funder and catalyzed other state and foundation funding totaling over $1,000,000—including a second grant from The Special Hope Foundation. We were the small foundation that flipped the switch. Not only did we leverage other funding, but our support is enabling nonprofits to work more effectively with the Ticket to Work Program and access a stream of government funding in the form of payments for placement services. Continue reading →

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Aug 10 2012
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Grantmaking, Lynne O’Hara

How a Small Foundation Made a Big Impact on a Government Program – Part I

By Lynne O’Hara, The Special Hope Foundation

A few years ago, my foundation made a high-risk grant that was far from “business-as-usual.” To convince and engage board members who only felt comfortable with the direct service grants making up most of our portfolio, I used landscape scanning to educate them—and myself!—about the potential of funding a software development effort that had the long-range potential to serve thousands of job-seekers with disabilities while also leveraging other foundation and government funding.

The grant also gave us the rare opportunity to demonstrate the agility of a small foundation to initiate improvements in a federal program that the government found it difficult to do itself because of bureaucratic limitations.

The Project and the Challenge

SmartWorks is a web-based client administration system that helps job-placement programs find employment for Social Security beneficiaries with disabilities. The goal—supporting nonprofits that help people with significant disabilities move from poverty and dependence on benefits to productive work and independence—fit our program guidelines perfectly. However, SmartWorks was connected to a government program, the Ticket to Work (TTW) Program, that was not only complicated but had a mixed history of success. Continue reading →

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Aug 08 2012
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Leadership, Ted Adams

Khan Academy: An Inspiration for Philanthropy

By Ted Adams, ASF

If the name Sal Khan doesn’t ring a bell, check out Time Magazine’s annual list of The 100 Most Influential People in the World. Or ask my ten-year-old to tell you about Mr. Khan’s video on the Revolutionary War and subtracting fractions.

Salman Amin ‘Sal’ Khan is the founder of the Khan Academy, a free online education platform and nonprofit organization. From a small office in his home, Khan has produced over 3,000 videos elucidating a wide spectrum of academic subjects, mainly focusing on mathematics and the sciences. As of July 2012, the Khan Academy channel on YouTube has attracted more than 355,000 subscribers. …Wikipedia

I asked my son why he likes Sal Khan from the Khan Academy. “I can stop him and start him in a way that I can’t in class,” he said. “I like him because he’s having a conversation with just me. He keeps my attention and uses the computer and pictures and real examples. I can learn as much as I want and it doesn’t matter what grade level.”

As a father, that was sufficient endorsement for me.

Beyond creating a learning platform that engages millions of people around the world, Mr. Khan’s story (from 60 Minutes) is also inspiring and relevant as a case study that reflects key elements of effective philanthropy. Continue reading →

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Aug 06 2012
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Henry Berman, Leadership

The Language of What We Do

By Henry Berman, ASF

Henry BermanHow do you describe what you do?

Over the past several years I’ve become a fan of words; how we use them and what they mean. This interest was ignited as I listened to a photographer speak about the way people typically describe how he works. What particularly resonated with me was his discussion about the undertones or implied meaning of words and phrases.

  • Shoot a picture has a rather violent connotation.
  • Take a picture can imply something is not given willingly.
  • Capture images conjurers thoughts of a competition.

“What if,” he suggested, “we said ‘Make a picture?’” It was a passing conversation but the concept has remained with me.

Recently while making some photographs of my own, I started thinking about the words we use in philanthropic conversations. Continue reading →

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