PHILANTHROPY
Practical Issues in Philanthropy:A Study Group for Practitioners and Researchers
Formed in October 2008, the Practical Issues in Philanthropy Study Group (PSG) brings together students, researchers, faculty and practitioners to explore contemporary issues, controversies and challenges within philanthropy. The PSG will be of interest to students who wish to better understand the role of philanthropy in society, in the US and globally. The monthly meetings feature practitioners and researchers working in the sector. Topics include the growth of philanthropy globally, the rise of new funding and management approaches, questions around accountability and the role of intermediary organizations, and the relationship between philanthropies, the state and the private sector.
The group is convened by Steven Lawry, a Senior Research Fellow at the Hauser Center, and Mary Alice McCarthy, a master’s student at the Kennedy School and Midcareer Fellow in Philanthropy at the Hauser Center. Monthly meetings take place in the Hauser Center conference room. For more information about upcoming and past meetings, see below.
Meetings
Thursday, October 22
4:00 – 5:30 PM
Philanthropy Study Group:
Fully Leveraging Philanthropic Assets for Long-Term Social and Environmental Impact
@ Weil Town Hall in Belfer Building at Harvard Kennedy School
Future meeting dates will be posted here. Please come prepared with your comments and questions. We are hoping for a lively and vigorous discussion around the central questions facing philanthropy today.
Also, PSG co-convener Steve Lawry is currently guest-blogging about philanthropy issues on the Hauser Center Humanitarian NGOs blog. You can read his entries at http://hausercenter.org/iha/
Friday, November 6
12noon - 1:30pm
Catalytic Philanthropy
Mark Kramer, Managing Director of FSG Social Advisors
Location: Weil Town Hall at Belfer Building at Harvard Kennedy School
Hosted by: The Philanthropy Study Group of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Summaries of Recent Meetings
April 8th, 2009: Foundations and Education Reform: Alison Bernstein of the Ford Foundation and Jim Honan of the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE)
On April 8th, the PSG welcomed Alison Bernstein, Vice President for Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom at the Ford Foundation, and Jim Honan of the HGSE to discuss foundation approaches to education reform.
Alison focused on private philanthropy's role in expanding access to higher education and supporting curricular reform. She kicked off the discussion with a fundraising letter sent to a potential donor from a Harvard College trustee dating back to the 17th century. The relationship between philanthropy and higher education dates back to the earliest institutions in the United States and remains strong. While demonstrating that private philanthropy has played a central role in the development of higher education, Alison was critical of philanthropy’s impact, arguing that it had done too little to equalize opportunity and democratize access to knowledge. That said, she did point to some promising trends, particularly the new focus of the Gates and Lumina Foundations on access to post-secondary education. In all cases, however, she advised for greater focus on education policy, as opposed to supporting specific institutions.
Jim Honan is the Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Co-Chair of the Institute of Educational Management. Jim has worked closely with Grantmakers for Education to develop principles and practices for effective grant-making in education. Jim explained that grant-makers of all sizes are generally looking to fund results-driven organizations with clear strategies and strong management. He shared a number of specific examples of organizations supporting K-12 education and emphasized the importance of clear metrics and explicit evaluation systems to funders.
April 2, 2009: Mission-Related Investing: A Primer from Luther Ragin of the FB Heron Foundation
On April 2nd, the PSG welcomed Luther Ragin, Jr., Vice President for Investments at the FB Heron Foundation, for a discussion on the value and practice of mission-related investing. Luther is a widely recognized expert on this growing practice in philanthropic investing. Mission-related investing refers to investment strategies that prioritize both economic and social returns, often by directly investing in grantee organizations. According to Luther, a lack of alignment between investment offices and program offices is typical of most foundations. The staff in charge of managing the endowment are rarely expected to be intimately familiar with the foundation’s grant-making priorities, much less seeking ways to invest in the activities of grantees. Luther made a strong argument in favor of greater alignment between the two and provided a number of concrete examples from FB Heron’s work of successful mission investing. In fact, according to Luther, mission-related investments in affordable housing and economic development have fared better than many of the foundation’s non-mission related investments.
Luther’s comments provoked a wide-ranging discussion on mission-related investing. A number of participants were interested in how the legal and regulatory systems could be used to encourage mission investing. Other questions focused on whether a move toward mission-related investing strategies might lead foundations away from funding nonprofits specializing in advocacy and rights-based work. While he agreed that project-based work (housing, economic development) lent itself better to mission-investing than advocacy work, Luther did not rule out the possibility of finding creative investment strategies that would support the work of advocacy nonprofits.
January 2009: The Drive to Measure Impact: Help or Hindrance?
Professor Alnoor Ebrahim of the Harvard Business School and Hauser Senior Research Fellow Steven Lawry engaged in a lively debate over the role of impact measurement in shaping the programs and organizations receiving foundation funding today. While both presenters agreed on the value of performance monitoring and long-term impact studies, they disagreed on the role of short-term impact measures in evaluating program effectiveness. Steve presented a critique of the growing emphasis on short-term, quantitative measures, arguing that they drive nonprofits toward technical approaches to social change and away from programs that produce long-term, systemic change. He argued that programs based on a rights-based, or “humanistic” approach to social change may not produce strong results in the short-term, but are much more likely to generate long-term, sustainable change. Steve pointed to the Ford Foundation’s support for the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa as an example of the kind of work that might not be funded today given the emphasis on short-term impact measures.
Alnoor presented a strong defense of the need for on-going impact assessment, arguing that the focus should not be on lifting the requirement for short-term measures, but on improving them. He questioned the assertion that the need to measure impact drives nonprofits away from complex, systemic problems, arguing instead that it forces them to think more systematically about how their theories of change are linked to their program models. Both presenters agreed that funders must take greater responsibility in helping grantee organizations design evaluation models that are rigorous, but also grounded in the complex reality facing social change organizations.
December 2008: An Overview of Foundations: Trends in Funding, Practice and Impact
Hauser Center Senior Research Fellow Steven Lawry presented an overview of foundations and trends in funding and organizational practice. The presentation focused on the tremendous growth in both the number of foundations and in the funding flowing through foundations since the 1990s. The marked increase in the number of wealthy individuals over the last two decades has given rise to many new family foundations. New approaches to managing the operation of philanthropies and their relationships with grantees have also emerged over the last two decades, drawn largely from techniques used in finance and information technology fields where much of the new wealth was created. Most notably, “venture philanthropy” approaches are increasingly popular among new foundations and are based on some of the practices used by venture capitalists for identifying and developing successful start-ups. Steve also outlined the effects of the economic crisis on foundation endowments and a discussion ensued bout the possible effects of the crisis on the sector.
November 2008: Philanthropy in a Globalized World: A Report from the meeting of the Philanthropy Council of the World Economic Forum
Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean Christine Letts led the first meeting of the PSG and provided the group with an overview of the meeting of the Philanthropy Council of the World Economic Forum in Dubai. According to Dean Letts, the key feature driving the major challenges and opportunities in philanthropy today is the highly decentralized nature of the sector. On the hand, decentralization creates a pluralistic environment in which creativity flourishes and programs can be tailored to meet specific needs and goals. On the other hand, decentralization may lead to redundancy and inefficiency as philanthropies re-invent the wheel and fail to take advantage of opportunities to replicate successful models. Decentralization and fragmentation also makes it difficult to link funders to new and capable nonprofits, leaving many good ideas under-funded. The group had a lively discussion around the role of intermediary organizations in matching donors to NGOs and sharing best practices.