Corporate Philanthropy

2006, 36 pages. The Meyer Foundation, 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 360, Washington, DC 20036, 202-483-8294, meyer@meyerfdn.org

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   Daring to Lead 2006 (643Kb)

2005, 197 pages plus CD. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 1413 K Street, 2nd floor, Washington, DC 20005, 202-898-1840

Everything you wanted to know about organizational assessment but were afraid to ask. This guidebook is written for grantmakers and grantees alike. Each chapter includes practical advice, success stories, and lessons learned.

September2005, 17 pages. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, Malcolm Weiner Center for Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 617-495-1480

PDF available at The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development

2005, 17 pages. Heritage Preservation, 1012 14th Street, NW, Suite 1200, Washington, DC 20005, 202-233-0800

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2005, 65 pages. McKnight Foundation, 710 Second Street South, Suite 400, Minneapolis, MN 55401, 612-333-4220

Carolyn Bye, executive director of the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, writes in the introduction that You Are Here reports on the "small steps" taken by communities in the Twin Cities suburbs since the publication of A New Angle: Arts Development in the Suburbs in 2002. The report features profiles of twelve suburban art projects and a detailed pull-out map showing where to find them and many others.

The annual conference of the International Funders of Indigenous Peoples (IFIP) met for two days at the Ford Foundation and the United Nations in May of 2006. In her opening remarks, Evelyn Arce-White, IFIP executive director, noted that it was rare to have funders, Indigenous Peoples, and NGOs together in the same room and that the value of such a meeting was not to be measured in financial terms but should be considered spiritual in nature. The spirit of this idea was evident throughout the conference.

We live in a world of "widespread hostility toward the United States and its policies."1 This antipathy is not limited to the countries and peoples that are directly affected by the U.S. "war on terror" and its attendant pol-icies, but includes many of our former allies and fellow democracies. A friend who just returned from a year in Spain reports that she spent a significant amount of time and energy convincing people she met there that the U.S.

Years ago, after reading a case statement from one of my earliest experiences with fundraising, my husband, who is in the wine business, told me the three "s's" of salesmanship. He said that a salesman should have

Something to say
Say it, and
Stop.

He made it sound fairly easy and apparently it works if you are approaching a reluctant wine buyer who should prefer the rare Aglianico you're offering to an ordinary Chianti from your competitor. Sales have been good and my husband has a thriving company.

This time it was the catastrophic devastation in the Gulf States. Last time it was the 9/11 attack. Before that were the floods in North Dakota, the earthquakes in San Francisco and Seattle, and Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and then

Each time disaster strikes — whether natural or man made — communities face inestimable emotional and economic suffering. When artists, arts organizations, and cultural institutions are affected by these disasters, the confusion and bewilderment about what to do and how to help extends very directly to us as arts grantmakers.

When I mentioned to an arts funder that I was reading a book called Integrating Mission and Strategy for Nonprofit Organizations she sighed and said we needed to stop using words like strategy. I asked why and she said, "Funders got arts organizations to start using these business words years ago, but nothing has changed. They are not in better shape." The author of the book, James A. Phills, Jr., might suggest the problem was not so much the concept of strategy, but rather a general misunderstanding and misuse of the word itself.