Foundation management

For-profit Experience and Foundation Leadership

May 31, 2008 by admin

Is a trend developing that favors drawing foundation leaders from the for-profit sector rather than from philanthropy or the nonprofit sector? If so, does it change senior grantmaking staff's challenges and opportunities? Would a more corporate view of private philanthropy affect how foundations view the arts?

A Call to Action

August 31, 2007 by admin

2007, 24 pages. National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, 2001 S Street NW, Suite 620, Washington, D.C. 20009, 202-387-9177, www.ncrp.org

Download pdf: www.ncrp.org

Compounding Impact

August 31, 2007 by admin

2007, 54 pages. FSG Social Impact Advisors, 20 Park Plaza, Suite 320, Boston, MA 02116, 617-357-4000

Download pdf: www.fsg-impact.org

Funding Social Change

August 31, 2007 by admin

2006, 66 pages. Haigh-Scatena Foundation, P.O. Box 4399, Davis, CA 95617, 530-758-5327

This book by Ronald W. Clement, who has worked as both a grantmaker and grant seeker, details ways in which grantmakers can foster social change. Clement uses his forty years of experience in the field of social change to elucidate the obstacles that funders face

August 31, 2007 by admin

2006, 336 pages. Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th St, New York, NY 10021, 212-750-6000, info@rsage.org

A Profession of Philanthropy

August 31, 2007 by admin

Our Taos Journey essays depart by looking back at philanthropy's recent past. As the field has become more formalized as a profession, it also has attracted exposés and critiques. Many have called for greater accountability, transparency, and proof of effectiveness. While the critique is worthy and perhaps overdue, historian, philanthropist, and former GIA board member James Allen Smith calls for a deeper, shared understanding of professionalism.

Cultural Donors Were Different

August 31, 2007 by admin

Another project underway for historian Jim Smith, author of the preceding “A Profession of Philanthropy,” is a new piece, commissioned by the Aspen Institute, that examines the ways that foundation giving to arts and culture is fundamentally different from giving to other fields. We coaxed Jim to contribute a brief preview of this line of inquiry. Excerpts from this nascent work in progress have been woven together by Jim and Anne Focke into this brief, provocative piece.

August 31, 2007 by admin

Nonprofit organizations face a growing challenge of identifying sufficient numbers of future leaders and passing on leadership responsibilities. For a story about the needs of emerging leaders, we approached Alvin Warren, a young tribal leader and lieutenant governor of Santa Clara Pueblo, who played a seminal role in his Pueblo's success at recovering part of its ancestral land. Many funders who are concerned about the challenge of developing future leaders are addressing it by supporting workshops, training, and coaching.

Made to Stick

July 31, 2007 by admin

2007, 304 pages, $24.97. Random House, New York.

Writers set a rigorous challenge for themselves when they write books about how to communicate well. The book itself must be a sound example of good communication, or the reader will discount it from page one. In the same vein, writing a book about how to effectively communicate ideas and make them stick sets the bar even higher: the book must be both well written and memorable. Made to Stick easily passes both of these tests.

2007, 304 pages, $24.97. Random House, New York.

Criticism of Foundations

April 30, 2007 by admin

In June 1998 the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers held a forum on "Conflicting Visions of Philanthropy" and I was invited to place the recent criticism of the field of philanthropy in historical perspective. [See page 44 for a short report on the session as a whole.] My objective at the forum, and in this revision of those remarks, is to put the problem in bold historical relief and to provide a context for understanding the long tradition of criticism of foundations and philanthropy. In doing so, I want to make five basic points.