Monthly Archives: April 2010

A Call To Action: What Young Leaders, Nonprofits, and Foundations Need to Know About Social Change #EPIP10


Posted by ajlovesya

It’s been two days since I returned home from the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy Conference in Denver and my head is still spinning. In addition to meeting some amazing people, I was pushed to evaluate what I stand for and how I will work effectively for social change.

Ben Jealous, the President and CEO of the NAACP and Gara LaMarche, CEO of Atlantic Philanthropies gave closing remarks that really summarized the heart of the conference. Jealous emphasized the importance of taking a stand and being open to unexpected allies, while LaMarche noted that leadership doesn’t arise when you hit a magical number—young people can and must lead right now where they are. The conference wasn’t just a space for sharing ideas and best practices; in many ways it was a call to action for both young people, nonprofits,  and foundations.

We have to lead, right now: Here’s the thing: social problems won’t disappear when you hit 35. Nor will they be easier to solve. If anything, the pervasive inequality many people endure demands action now with everyone, regardless of age and background, harnessing their skills and experiences to make an impact. As LaMarche stated “Young people are already where they need to be, and older people are emerging in every stage of their lives.” We can create change wherever we are and our goal should be just that. Instead of asking “Which leadership position should I be aiming for?” Ask, “What change do I wish to see and how am I living my life to ensure this change comes?”

We have to be ready for an overhaul: An audience member commented that if social change is easy, then we aren’t doing right. Everyone wants a tool kit or a step-by-step guide to change the world. We see it all the time: 10 Ways to Save the Planet by Going Green! 5 Ways You Can Eradicate Hunger in America! On the one hand the “add-water-and-grow” approach to social change makes it seem more accessible to those who feel the problems are too big for them to even bother trying. But that’s just it—the problems are too big for us to pretend that all it takes it a light bulb change to curb global warming. We have to rethink our relationships with each other and the world around us and develop a new framework to guide our interactions. Then we must be willing to move our resources and time to addressing inequality.

We must challenge ourselves: Not just when it comes to addressing our cause but also when it comes to running our organizations. Social change is often presented as something you do to or for someone or something else. However, within our organizations lack of trust and inequality may run rampant. For example, the frequently asked question “How can we make our organization/board more diverse?” is often a symptom of larger problem of how we engage with diverse communities in the first place.   Another concern often discussed is the mistreatment of employees and the lack of investment in them and the infrastructure of the organization, which translates to a weaker sector overall.  As Barry Gaberman, former Senior VP of Ford Foundation pointed out: “Don’t let your projects be diminished by the myth of low overhead costs. You have to pay the fee.”  We can only tackle those larger problems if we push ourselves and demand that we do better.

We must operate with love and a desire to learn in mind: When we talk about a need for things to be different, it can come off as dismissive. For example, social change brought about through protesting may have been effective before, but it isn’t as effective now. Does this mean that those who protested are no longer valuable to our cause? No. Does this mean we can’t build off of the successes and lessons learned through protests? No. If anything, the emphasis on change is both a reflection and a result of the legacy of the older social change efforts many of us enjoy today. Additionally, the definition of social change is not universal and in working towards it we must strike a balance between taking a firm stand and not excluding those who may not express themselves as we do. This approach of openness and understanding is crucial to building a better world.

The conference was a transformative experience and I am grateful to have been able to attend.  I left feeling energized, inspired, and ready to lead.  If you couldn’t attend the conference you can check out the video or follow the conversation on twitter.   You can also visit Rosetta Thurman and Trista Harris for their insights and look through my previous posts on  the conference listed below:

Join Me at the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy Conference in Denver!

Generational Issues in the Nonprofit Sector: What Can Be Done? #EPIP10

Why foundations need to change how they support nonprofits, and how they can–starting now #EPIP10

Race, Gender, and Justice in Philanthropy: Strategies for Ensuring Philanthropy Challenges the Root of Inequality #EPIP10

Grantmakers share what we can do to advance social justice philanthropy #EPIP10

Youth Philanthropy: Why It’s Key to the Future of Giving and How Foundations and Nonprofits Can Get Involved #EPIP10

A new name for nonprofits and rethinking the role of philanthropists #EPIP10

Actions speak louder than words: How nonprofits can get serious about next generation leaders and leadership development #EPIP10


Actions speak louder than words: How nonprofits can get serious about next generation leaders and leadership development #EPIP10


Posted by ajlovesya

“I cant think of any field or vocation that is less intentional in its leadership development than the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. “ ~ Jeff W. Pryor Anshutz Family Foundation

Research shows that the number one predictor of sustainability is leadership. Yet 78% of nonprofits and foundations have no leadership development or succession plan. However, Jeff W. Pryor Anshutz Family Foundation, noted that problem with this extends beyond finding someone to be the next ED of an org; it is often goes hand-in-hand with a lack of attention paid to recruiting talent at all levels of the organization.

Current state of nonprofit leadership and talent recruitment/retainment:

1. Leaders leaving 70-80% in next 10 years
2. Young people leaving due to lack of resources, infrastructure, and innovation in sector.
3. Must develop robust leadership pathway to nonprofit. Most people fall into the nonprofit sector, not a deliberate path.
4. More intentional about recruiting, developing, and retaining talent.

However, the lack of interest/support of the nonprofit sector comes from various places. Firstly is that as a society we simply don’t talk about public service as a viable or exciting career path. Alexandra Mitchell, Pathfinder Solutions Inc shared the following from a survey of high school and college students:

  • ¼ cant name any nonprofits
  • Less than 50% can name three
  • 33,000 college students, 65% intend to volunteer only 15% do volunteer
  • 93% of high school and college grads never had a counselor talk to them about nonprofit work. Some actually are discouraged because of questions about viability of sector.

Secondly, within the sector how we treat nonprofit employees embodies our own ambivalence towards our work.

  • 48% of nonprofit employees started out with passion for the cause, not interest in the sector.
  • View of marketing, professional development, and talent recruitment as overhead

How can we on a social level and on an organizational level make the sector more appealing to the next generation? Steven Bauer of Nonprofit Workforce Coalition shared some great ideas:

Children: Create a culture of giving at home and school through engaging activities and curriculum; celebrate children who have made a difference, build nonprofit capacity to involve families.

Teens: Develop paid and unpaid internships, introduce students to nonprofit jobs, allow young people to develop projects, acknowledge diversity and teens who make a difference.

Young adults/college students: Develop nonprofit course work, focus on social justice, promote and offer counseling for nonprofit careers, offer loan repayment, allow for applied research opportunities, address next-gen leadership style

Entry level employees: Nonprofit can recruit at job fairs, develop networking opportunities, create peer networks, flatten hierarchies, address generational style variances.

Mid career staff: build intentional career leader strategies, promote coaching and mentoring opportunities, incorporate creative compensation strategies, focus on true organizational learning, engage in succession planning.

Seasoned staff: Develop leadership succession, create transition and phase out strategies like part time work, consider internal and external replacement options, offer retirement benefits.

Foundations also have a unique role in that their behaviors tend to spill over to the nonprofit sector Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy stated that not only can foundations fund more leadership development opportunities and succession planning but also foundations themselves can let go their culture of “anti-professionalism.” Instead, foundations can have open transformative dialogue about leadership.

When it comes to leadership, though, nothing is ever as cut and dry as simply finding someone to fill a departing leader’s shoes. The audience had some great questions about leadership:

What other models of leading exist?
Do we need to redefine leadership?
How can get people to focus on the sector as a whole instead of their cause or organization?

Can’t come to the conference?  Check out the livestream or follow the conversation on twitter.  Make sure to visit Rosetta Thurman and  Trista Harris for their insights.


A new name for nonprofits and rethinking the role of philanthropists #EPIP10


Posted by ajlovesya

Barry Gaberman, former Senior VP at the Ford Foundation shared with us a new perspective on how to look at nonprofits and how the government and foundations can best support them.

When it comes to our organizations we label them by what they are not: not for profit or non-governmental. Our other attempts at renaming ourselves fall flat:  Independent sector (independent from what—30% comes from public funding), voluntary sector (but we are paid to work), third sector (no pizzaz).

Instead, let’s use civil society. This is not a new term yet embodies what many nonprofits do: provide needed social services, policy analysis to hold our government accountable, education, advocacy often on behalf of those who have weak voice, and art/culture support to increase our enjoyment and sense of identity.

There are two aspects of civil society that the government engages with regularly: edgy and safe.

Safe civil society: Education and social services. The government loves us, mainly because we take burden of work from them.

Edgy civil society: Lobbying and advocacy. In this regard the government gets worried—they don’t like the fact they gave exemption to organizations that criticize them.

Regardless of which aspect of civil society that emerges and how government responds, philanthropy must nurture both. In fact, organized philanthropy has the best potential to strengthen civil society: their infrastructure allows for greater accountability and the ability to take risks; many are created with then intention of being around for the long haul; and they have the capacity to take on politically sensitive issues.

Unfortuantely, foundations tend to be very cautious, jump to fads of giving, and timid when it comes to speaking out.

Therefore, in order for civil society to thrive, foundations should be implementing and advocating  for the following:

  • An enabling environment where people are free to learn and associate with whomever they please.
  • A regulatory system that empowers rather than shackles.
  • A new tax structure that provides incentives not penalties.

Foundations should also be willing to pay more for overhead, a critical and ethical issue when it comes to the longevity of our organizations: “Don’t let your projects be diminished by the myth of low overhead costs. You have to pay the fee.”

Can’t come to the conference?  Check out the livestream or follow the conversation on twitter.  Make sure to visit Rosetta Thurman and  Trista Harris for their insights.


Youth Philanthropy: Why It’s Key to the Future of Giving and How Foundations and Nonprofits Can Get Involved #EPIP10


Posted by ajlovesya

In this session, Naomi Leapheart of the Matchstick Group in Philadelphia shared some compelling facts about youth philanthropy and why it is crucial to the future of giving. The first formal youth philanthropy initiatives began 25 years ago. They started small and grew into a national movement launched as programs at various foundations and nonprofits. They share the following characteristics:

  • Grants aren’t very big, average $2500
  • Funds come from everywhere—money raised by young people and support from foundations
  • Youth participants are diverse but still mirrors “adult” institutional philanthropy in terms of how money is raised and decisions are made to give
  • Often developing young people as foundation/philanthropy leaders is secondary to raising and giving money

Because youth philanthropy is often small and limited in scope, it often gets a bad rap. It is viewed as an “after school program” created solely to give something for teens to do. However, youth philanthropy offers a myriad of benefits for both teen and organizations:

  • Provides a reliable mechanism to gain new perspectives on community needs and solutions. Shift focuses from deficiencies to assets.
  • Incited more civic involvement and awareness among young people
  • Transform field of philanthropy into a more inclusive and accessible industry
  • Create natural feeder pipeline for leadership development orgs like EPIP
  • Youth Philanthropy can teach us something about grantmaking. i.e. keep it simple. Act of giving doesn’t need to be difficult.

Additionally, the models of youth philanthropy are extensive and diverse, allowing people a variety of ways to engage young people and instituting change. This flexibility also provides examples to organizations and young people on how philanthropy can take on many forms instead of the top-down money focused way we usually think of it:

Giving time and talent:

School based: Service learning and volunteerism
Community based: Affinity groups and volunteerism Example: Youth Leadership Institute in San Francisco, CA
General advisory: Civic/municipal and organizational. Example: Philadelphia Youth Commission by Mayor of Philadelphia

Giving treasure:

Foundation based: Fundraising and grantmaking

Giving time, talent, treasure:

Collaborations between organizations and young people, and giving circles. Example: Common Cents in NYC, Youth United Way of Kalamazoo

Using YOUTHadelphia, a program run by the Philadelphia Foundation that $100,000 each year to youth led and youth engaged projects in philly, as a model we examined the challenges in sustaining a youth philanthropy program at a foundation. Foundations usually have legal/due diligence administration under control. However, they struggle with youth engagement and giving up a degree of control over philanthropic process.

Therefore there are some key questions we should ask when launching a youth philanthropy program:

Rationale: Do we want youth to participate in social change? In institutional philanthropy? Good for community philanthropy?

Support: Will we make a concrete financial contribution? Is this model sustainable?

Programmatic concerns: How large/small should program be? What will curriculum be? How can we ensure a responsible yet equitable grant process?

Engagement: How will we recruit them? Can we develop a meaningfully diverse pool Who will facilitate program? What will role of adults be?

Evaluation: How will we know we’re successful? Impact on community vs impact on youth? What is the feedback loop? Is pipelining important?

Interested in learning more about youth philanthropy?  Check out these resources:

AFP Blog: Youth in Philanthropy

Youth in Philanthropy at the foundation center

Minnesota Toolkit for Giving

Learning to Give- A curriculum on youth philanthropy

The National Youth Philanthropy Clearninghouse

Can’t come to the conference?  Check out the livestream or follow the conversation on twitter.  Make sure to visit Rosetta Thurman and  Trista Harris for their insights.


Grantmakers share what we can do to advance social justice philanthropy #EPIP10


Posted by ajlovesya

Melissa Johnson of the Neighborhood Funders Group moderated a lunch panel of grant-makers on how they define and pursue social justice philanthropy. A lot of strategies and ideas were shared, below are some interesting points:

Ron Powell, Common Counsel Foundation: What are daily practices in advancing social justice philanthropy?

Challenge the current culture of foundations that thinks grantees are “trying to get something from you.” We need to create a culture of yes and give nonprofits the benefit of the doubt.

We tend to confuse good grant writing with good ideas. Typos do not mean someone has a bad idea. We should reexamine the barriers we place on grantees.

Remember this is a relationship business-treat others as you want to be treated.

Daniel Jae-Won Lee, Levi Strauss Foundation: What is your meaning of social justice philanthropy?

“Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” ~Martin Luther King

We should make sure that the money we give is done with love and justice in mind. It takes courage to recognize inequality in funding and to correct it. Between 1994-2004 there was an increase from .2% to .4% grants that went to Asian communities. How will we correct this?

Cynthia Renfro, Marguerite Casey Foundation: Recommendations for staffers who want to move to social justice philanthropy at their organizations.

Spend time understanding political culture of organization—just because you have been hired doesn’t mean they embrace you or your values. This doenst mean you should abandon your ideas but be mindful of who is there. You should also never go in there alone; know who are your allies are internally and externally to help you refine your ideas.

Lori Villarosa, Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity: Strategies that really advance racial justice.

Racial justice isn’t just about intent; we want equity of outcomes. Therefore you should be targeted in your approach when dealing with diverse communities and create more space in grantmaking for a “shared analysis”—what’s working, what’s not working, and where can we improve.

Victor De Luca, Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation: What should we keep in mind when doing social justice work?

Having regular and open conversations about what social justice is and how your organization can move towards becoming involved in it. But we must be ready to actually do the work and realize that it takes time to see change—you have to be in it for the long haul.

Can’t come to the conference?  Check out the livestream or follow the conversation on twitter.  Make sure to visit Rosetta Thurman and  Trista Harris for their insights.