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Self-Care During Challenging Times

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As we all grapple with the upheaval and uncertainty produced by COVID-19 and its impact on communities and the economy, one thing is certain: Communities will call on nonprofits – especially those working in human services – to meet rapidly growing needs as schools and businesses remain closed, unemployment rises, and healthcare needs increase. As nonprofit leaders are faced with increased demand for services and massive disruptions to funding and operations, they must grapple with the urgent dilemma of balancing short-term and long-term priorities.

Leaders across the sector have the entrepreneurial spirit and skill that it takes to respond to the short term and ensure that their organizations are well-positioned for the long haul. However, nonprofits are facing potential challenges such as disruptions that impact service delivery, periods of negative cash flow, and burned-out and overwhelmed staff. These pressures can leave many leaders feeling that their organizations’ very existence is threatened, and managing these challenges can feel scary, isolating, and exhausting.

To lead effectively during a crisis, Bill Shore, founder and executive chairman of Share Our Strength and chair of Community Wealth Partners, advises “putting your own oxygen mask on before trying to assist others.” Although by now we’ve likely all heard the value of self-care to promote mental health and avoid burnout, for nonprofit leaders who place great value in serving others, self-care often takes a back seat – especially in times of crisis. It can feel almost impossible to lead others when at the same time you’re trying to figure out how to tend the health and safety of yourself and your loved ones.

Now more than ever we need strong leaders at the helm of nonprofits to guide teams through the challenges they confront. Leaders cannot provide strong leadership if they are not feeling strong and healthy themselves.

Self-Care for Nonprofit Leaders

Self-care will look different for different individuals, and there are a variety of resources that offer recommendations for nonprofit leaders. (For example, here are some questions to ask yourself, tips for nonprofit professionals, and 21 self-care resources.) From the conversations we’ve had with leaders over the past couple weeks, there are a few key practices I’d recommend.

  • Accept that this is not business as usual. We don’t know what our world will look like three months or three years from now, but we do know that we are likely to come out on the other side of this changed in some way. Some leaders we’ve spoken with have felt pressure to push forward plans they set weeks, months, or years ago without pausing to reassess whether to continue the work. Acknowledge that times are different and ask yourself, does this still feel like the right thing to do right now? Accept that the answer may be no.
  • Give grace to yourself and others. None of us has lived through something like this before. We may make bad decisions. We may be unable to follow through on commitments. We may let people down. Leaders who model patience and grace with themselves and others will be the ones who are able to rally their teams and pull through.
  • Lean on others for connection and support. Remember that you are not alone. While we may not be able to come together physically for connection and support, there are a variety of tools available to facilitate virtual connection. Lean on your colleagues and networks for support, solidarity, and help navigating thorny challenges.

Self-Care for Nonprofit Organizations

Just as personal self-care will look different for different individuals, organizational self-care could take many forms. As you prioritize the well-being of your organization, here are four places you can start:

  • Prioritize your people. Does your staff have what they need to take care of themselves and their loved ones and continue to work as best they can? What adjustments can you make to help them cope with change and uncertainty, so that they have what they need to help your beneficiaries?
  • Bolster and adapt your processes and systems. The chaos of the past few weeks has shown limitations and flaws in the systems, policies, and processes in governments, businesses, and nonprofits around the globe. For example, at a systems level, the current crisis has shown the limitations of U.S. policies on healthcare and nutrition. For some nonprofits, transitioning staff to telework may have surfaced gaps in the organization’s IT systems or inequities in personnel policies. In the short term, you may need to adapt your policies and processes in order to continue to deliver your services; this has been especially true for organizations that distribute food to children, senior citizens, and other food-insecure populations. Balance short-term adjustments needed to address current challenges with long-term considerations of the policies, processes, and systems that may be required for new ways of working in the months ahead.
  • Invest in yourself. Some funders are releasing restrictions on funding to give nonprofits the flexibility they need to respond to rapidly changing circumstances, and some organizations may receive unexpected gifts in recognition of the critical services they provide. Don’t hesitate to invest some of these resources in your own organization. Consider what your organization needs to stay strong for the long haul. If you have the resources to invest in what you need, use them.
  • Stay focused on your true purpose. During a time of crisis, a nonprofit’s first instinct may be to do whatever is needed to be of service. It can feel difficult to say no. But stretching your organization too thin can drain resources from core services and hamper the organization’s overall impact. While many organizations will likely need to evolve and adapt to changing circumstances, you can help ensure long-term sustainability by keeping an eye on the organization’s true purpose and not being afraid to say no at times.

We don’t know what lies ahead, but we know the coming weeks and months will be tough. Through this difficult period, Community Wealth Partners remains committed to supporting the nonprofits and foundations who are doing critical work in our communities. We want to help you address the challenges keeping you up at night by offering resources, connections, and support.

You can let us know how we can best help you by commenting below or reaching me directly at acelep@communitywealth.com. In the weeks ahead, we will develop resources and offerings to support leaders with the challenges that we keep hearing are top-of-mind right now.

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What Foundations Are Learning About Supporting DEI Capacity

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For the past three years, Community Wealth Partners has worked with the Kresge Foundation to help design and deliver a capacity-building program focused on supporting nonprofit talent and leadership development through an equity lens.

The Fostering Urban Equitable Leadership (FUEL) program gives approximately 125 nominated Kresge grantees an opportunity to select talent and leadership development programs and resources from a cadre of service providers. The programs focus on a range of areas including racial equity and succession planning, managing for more equitable outcomes, and embedding equity into organizational processes and structures. This work has yielded rich learning among participating service providers, grantees, the foundation, and our team about “what works” in efforts to build racial equity capacity.

The FUEL program is one of many approaches that funders across the country are taking to build diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) capacity among grantees. In December 2019, Kresge hosted a funder convening to facilitate learning across these various approaches. Over 20 funders gathered to share their experiences and explore questions and challenges together. Community Wealth Partners facilitated the convening and developed a report that highlights takeaways from the two days.

In conversations before and during the convening, many funders acknowledged that they are in the early stages of learning and practice when it comes to supporting nonprofits’ DEI capacity and noted that current levels of investment in DEI capacity are not sufficient to meet nonprofits’ needs. At the same time, their experiences and perspectives surfaced some common themes. For example, one recommendation that came up early and often was that foundations who wish to support nonprofits’ DEI capacity must also pay attention to their own DEI capacity in order to lead with authenticity. Other key takeaways are as follows:

In Work with Grantees

  • Right-size outcome expectations to be commensurate with the amount and duration of support provided. Advancing equity inside organizations is complex, ongoing work. Set reasonable expectations for what an organization might accomplish in a grant cycle, and help grantees set reasonable expectations for themselves.
  • Create space for sharing and learning about what’s working and what’s not. Funders can use their convening power to facilitate learning among grantees, service providers, and other funders to help deepen understanding of promising practices and helpful tools.
  • Trust that grantees know best what support they need and what difference it is making. As with any capacity-building support, grantees should have a voice in deciding what they need, what changes they hope to see as a result, and how they will know if the work is having the desired effect.
  • Share openly and honestly with grantees about internal equity work. This is critical for building trust and credibility with grantees. Funders should show humility and vulnerability if they expect the same of their grantees.

 

In Internal Work

  • Continue making the case for greater investment in building DEI capacity. Some funders described current levels of investment in grantees’ DEI capacity as “a drop in the bucket” and called for more case-making from white allies as well as a stronger voice from foundation leadership. They cautioned against preaching to the choir about the importance of this support and recommended reaching out to those who are not yet bought in to the importance of investing in DEI capacity.
  • Consider who is receiving support and who is not. Funders encouraged reflecting on who foundations fund and what they hope to accomplish. Is the foundation working to advance equity among current grantees, regardless of who they are? Does the foundation want to correct for historical inequities by giving resources to those who have previously not had a seat at the table? Or are both approaches required to achieve the foundation’s goals?

Opportunities like this convening help funders learn from one another. We hope this report will spread that learning across the field and spark conversations in your organization. We would love to hear how the themes from this convening resonate with other funders and nonprofits. What do you see as good practice when it comes to supporting DEI capacity for nonprofits? What do you wish funders did more? What should funders stop doing? We’d love to hear from you. Comment below or reach out to Wes Gifford at WGifford@communitywealth.com.

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Guest Blog: Redefining How Our Community Foundation Creates Impact

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By standard measures, the Arizona Community Foundation (ACF) had been quite successful. Over nearly 10 years, our assets under management grew from $400 million to over $1 billion. We all knew there was more to understand and communicate about our contribution to community impact. In my interactions with donors, I heard story after story about the transformation they, personally, had experienced by giving. In conversations with nonprofit leaders, I heard stories of the impact that grants from our donors had made, especially larger grants.

Yet assets under management – the standard measure of a community foundation’s performance – completely failed to capture the nuance of our impact on donors, partner nonprofits, and our community. Making matters worse, conventional evaluation research and impact assessment did not lend itself to the kind of grantmaking we did. We needed a way to measure and share social metrics, among other performance indicators, so we could tell a more nuanced story of impact, and we needed to find methods aligned to what we actually did and who we actually served. This was especially important given the wide variation of our grantmaking, much of it advised. For instance, conventional measurement did not address the impact of a donor who granted $1,000 annually to a single nonprofit year after year for 25 years, much less 25 other donors who did the same with their favorite nonprofit. But clearly something had to be happening in that sustained interplay. Was that being measured in any way? Could it be measured? Was it even worthy of formal impact assessment?

At the same time, ACF, like other community foundations, was feeling increasing pressure from critics of donor-advised funds (DAFs) on one side, and commercial financial institutions building a massive DAF business on the other. It was evident that we needed to tell our story of why our DAFs and the resources that flow from them are essential for supporting our communities. But we also needed to make a clearer case about our direct impact on donors themselves. We believed that with us, our donors had qualitatively better experiences and created greater impact, and we wanted to determine if we could measure it.

A New Impact Model

We engaged Community Wealth Partners, a social impact consulting firm, to help us create a new model for articulating our impact. That new model shows our vision for building a culture of philanthropy, which is how we describe the ways donors, grantees, and community foundations interact, causing each party to grow and transform. Through interactions with grantees, donors deepen their understanding of social issues. Through interactions with donors, grantees gain financial resources and social capital to further their missions. ACF facilitates these relationships by connecting donors and grantees, advising donors on how to leverage their giving for greater impact, and managing the grants that are essential to a nonprofit’s operations. Over time, we believe these relationships lead donors to contribute more funds and deepen their engagement with nonprofits, allowing grantees to offer more and better services and contribute to a stronger Arizona over longer periods of time.

Community Wealth Partners set out to test whether there was evidence of this culture of philanthropy among our donors and grantees. They interviewed a small sample of donors (50) and probed for changes in their knowledge, mindsets, or giving behaviors since starting their philanthropy with ACF. With grantees, Community Wealth Partners sought to understand how ACF donors’ support, both financial and non-financial, helped further their missions. The goal of this work was to identify any initial evidence of a culture of philanthropy and provide guidance on how our foundation could advance it. We knew that measuring transformation in donors and grantees is an imperfect science. Donors are complex individuals influenced by a myriad of factors; grantees are supported by many funders and donors, not just those who give through ACF. Community Wealth Partners approached this research determined to avoid oversimplified models suggesting donor and grantee behavior could be fully explained or predicted.

Early Indications of a Culture of Philanthropy

The early results from this research have far exceeded our initial expectations. The study of donors revealed important insights about the ways in which their knowledge, mindsets, and behaviors were changing. We learned that through giving, most donors increased their knowledge of social issues (70%), while a smaller group changed their understanding of a problem (36%) or shifted their giving behavior (45%). One donor described how his experience with an organization serving first-generation college students shifted his perspective as he grew to better understand the challenges and motivations of those students. Because of the experience, he said, there are “lots of issues I [now] see from a wholly different perspective.” Other donors described changes to their giving behavior, having learned how they can deepen their impact by giving differently. For example, one donor consciously decided to give only unrestricted gifts after seeing the flexibility that these gifts afford nonprofits.

Through donor interviews, Community Wealth Partners identified important ways ACF could better support donors in their giving. These insights led us to renovate our office space so that we can break down silos and collaborate better, create a team of senior leaders to streamline our processes, and segment our donors to ensure we provide tailored support to meet their needs. By studying grantees, we learned how donors can better leverage their dollars to support nonprofits’ missions. This includes giving responsively to a nonprofit’s needs, rather than restricting funds according to an idiosyncratic or narrow priority; giving reliably year after year to provide an income stream that nonprofits can count on; and offering social capital in the form of connections, board service, or specialized skills. These are behaviors ACF can encourage any donor – regardless of resources – to adopt.

The Value of Community Foundations

Community foundations’ greatest value, and unique value proposition, is that they are deeply rooted in the community. They support donors in deepening their connection and impact in the community, and they are far more in-touch with community needs and assets than commercial providers. Using this framework can deepen a community foundation’s understanding of why its donors give and uncover ways to better support donors in their philanthropy and in their evolution as philanthropists

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Four Questions to Sit With as You Learn to Let Communities Lead

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This post originally appeared on the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy blog. Read the original post here.

Good things happen when funders shift power to communities. It’s “regenerative.” We “actually get outcomes that work” and “build a groundswell for change.” But it’s hard to “give up power and build trust,” to “learn about the things you got wrong,” to “never have enough time to do it right.”

During our recent session “Learning to Let Communities Lead” at Independent Sector’s Upswell conference, we heard these and other things that make community leadership both exciting and challenging.

There’s no single model for working with all communities, but in this session three speakers shared their models in hopes some elements could be adapted to fit other communities and contexts. Jehan Benton-Clark shared how The Colorado Health Foundation uses the Community Engagement IMPACT Practice Model, a framework for how program officers engage with communities in Colorado. Lysa Ratliff talked about KaBOOM!’s process for partnering with communities to plan, organize, and build play spaces. And Lauren Mikus explained the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation’s model for funding multi-year, community-driven revitalization initiatives.

What was most striking was their and other session participants’ commitment to pushing through challenges. For them, it wasn’t a choice. To sustain impact for the long term, communities have to own it, decide it, shape it, and lead it. Philanthropy’s current top-down approaches aren’t working. If we want to see better results, communities must lead the change.

Coming out of that session, several questions are making us rethink the ways we work and how we support the foundations we work with.

Four questions for funders to sit with as you learn to let communities lead:

1. What is the risk of not shifting power to communities? Many funders think it’s risky to give communities power to make decisions and lead change efforts. After all, they could – and likely would – make decisions you wouldn’t make. But, to borrow the language of Groundswell Fund Executive Director Vanessa Daniel in her recent New York Times article: How are you managing the risk of not doing this? If the solutions created outside of communities haven’t led to the change you sought, then it’s risky to keep funding those solutions. It’s risky to seek solutions from people who don’t face the challenges or live with the consequences of their decisions.

2. What power are you willing to give up? As an organization, be brutally honest with yourselves about what level of power you’re willing to share with the community. As a team – and this is most important for the leaders and decision-makers in your organization – ask yourselves: If communities have this power, what decisions or actions might they take that I wouldn’t agree with? If you indicate that community members can decide how to spend a grant, and then you change your mind after you discover they want to spend the money on something you wouldn’t prioritize, it would break trust and hurt your relationship with the community. If you gather community members’ input but don’t seriously plan to do something with what you hear, community members may feel like their time was wasted and their voices weren’t valued. Once you’ve figured out what power you’re willing to share, communicate clearly with the community about what they can expect of you and the process you plan to take.

It’s also critical that you ask yourself: If we keep this power, what decisions or actions might we take that the community wouldn’t agree with? Keep revisiting these questions and pushing the boundaries of the power you’re willing to give up.

3. How might you better understand the strengths of communities? The more you understand where a community shines brightest, the better partner you can be to that community. This requires listening deeply and asking questions like: What makes you proud to live in this community? What have you accomplished by working together? What strengths do you personally bring to the community?

For our workshop, we put together this Google Drive folder full of tools and resources on ways to center communities and shift power to them. (Session participants – and you, too – are invited to add tools and recommendations to the documents.) The toolkit includes a section on understanding community assets. In addition to understanding those strengths, talk about them! For example, if you can rattle off a list of challenges facing a community with a large population of undocumented immigrants, you should also be able to talk about the networks and social capital they’ve built to protect each other and connect each other with job opportunities. See more resources on asset framing in the section on communicating changes.

4. How can we work together across our sector to reduce burdens on communities? As Lysa Ratliff of KaBOOM! pointed out to us, a community-centered approach also requires us to align better as a sector. Our efforts can often unintentionally place burdens on the community. We ask them for their time, to report back to us on results and to manage us as a resource.

When our work intersects with the work of others in the sector, we have an opportunity and responsibility to better organize our efforts. This can happen through informal sharing and networking or more formal mechanisms like roundtable discussions and data sharing. When we move toward unifying our work as partners, rather than parallel entities, we will be able to improve our collective ability to support community interests.

In another panel conversation at Upswell, a funder said, “too often we are seen as experts because we have the money, but it needs to be the opposite: we are not the experts, because we have the money.” Changing the way we do philanthropy starts with this humility. It leads to more open power-, wealth-, and resource-sharing with the real experts: communities themselves.

Walter and Lauri would like to acknowledge contributions to this blog post from Lysa Ratliff, Jehan Benton-Clark, Lauren Mikus and the session participants of “Learning to Let Communities Lead” at the 2019 Upswell conference. Follow @WeDreamForward on Twitter.

 

Visit the NCRP blog to read the original post.

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Taking Down the Ivory Tower a Brick at a Time

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As Grant Oliphant of the Heinz Endowments kicked off the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s 2019 conference, he reminded us of the seriousness of the time we’re in—increasing income inequality, a climate crisis that is quickly approaching, and a rise in xenophobia and hate. I felt fear and hopelessness take grip in me—feelings that have become increasingly familiar the past few years. I looked around the ballroom at my philanthropic colleagues, thought about the vast amounts of money, knowledge, and talent this group represents, and wondered, “What difference are we making?”

As I sat there, I reflected on the dozens of philanthropic conferences I’ve been to over nearly two decades (many of which I was responsible for in my former job) and how much seems to have stayed the same. There were a lot of familiar faces in the room and a lot of familiar questions up for discussion—Should philanthropy be more regulated? Should foundations live in perpetuity? Is philanthropy a force for social good or a vanity project for the wealthy?

I believe in the power of learning together to drive changes in practice. Yet despite all this earnest discussion in hotel ballrooms over plated chicken lunches, data show that much of what we tout as good practice is not taking hold. There continues to be a lack of diversity in foundation leadership. And no matter how many conference sessions end with rallying cries for increased general operating support, the proportion of unrestricted grant dollars has held steady at a paltry 20 percent.

With all this in mind, I went back to my hotel room after the first day of the conference feeling discouraged about philanthropy’s willingness and ability to change. But the next two days reenergized me. From conversations with colleagues and stories shared in sessions, I saw many bright spots that suggest to me that the philanthropic sector has indeed evolved since I first stepped into this space. Early in my career I often heard references to philanthropy as an “ivory tower.” But there are places where the ivory tower seems to be coming down, even if it’s one brick at a time.

What most inspired me were the stories of grantmakers sharing power and deepening relationships with communities and grantees and the many ways this can take form.

  • For the Marguerite Casey Foundation, sharing power means ensuring the foundation’s staff is representative of the people and communities the foundation serves, inviting grantees to serve on the board, and being intentional about leading from behind (for example, using the foundation’s communications platform to lift up the work of grantees).
  • The Headwaters Foundation of Montana shows they trust that nonprofits know best what they need by offering general operating support grants with no proposals or reports required and granting approval within 24 hours.
  • When St. David’s Foundation of Austin, TX, deepened relationships with rural communities, the staff learned of needs in the community that weren’t showing up in data, and the foundation prioritized what it heard from communities over what the data showed.
  • The performing arts program of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation recently ran its first participatory grantmaking cycle—ceding grantmaking decision-making power to a committee of eight Bay Area arts nonprofit leaders and two Hewlett staff. The nonprofit leaders on the committee were chosen for their histories as equity, inclusion, and diversity thought leaders who have designed and implemented equity-based policies and procedures at their organizations.
  • As a way of staying accountable to the community it serves, the first question the Saint Paul and Minnesota Foundations asks grant applicants is, “Who informed the work?”

To me, these stories show what philanthropy can be at its best. It’s inspiring to see the ways in which some foundations are rethinking their power and privilege to better serve their communities. As grantmakers deepen relationships with grantees and communities and gain greater understanding of their needs, I expect we will see broader changes in practices such as hiring staff that reflect the communities served and giving more unrestricted support.

And yet, there is always more work to do. We must continue to find ways to bridge gaps in perspective and power between foundations and the communities we serve so that giving can be more effective. At the conference, we received a reminder of this from board members of Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia (Renters United for Justice). I hope more of us follow the wise advice of activist Tecara Ayler:

“Door knock and engage. Come see us in our houses. You can’t help us if you don’t know us.”

 

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March Must-Reads

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This month, we came across a report that sparked conversations about funders’ unintended impact on movements. We also were drawn to articles about equitably engaging communities, a practical guide to building strong leadership development programs, and a report drawing a clear correlation between housing costs and health.

What caught your attention this month?

1. How “movement capture” shaped the fight for civil rights

SYSTEMS CHANGE | Vox | 7-minute read

When social movements get investments from foundations, that’s a good thing – right? A new paper by Megan Ming Francis at the University of Washington suggests there might be unintended consequences to funders’ good intentions. Francis uses the NAACP as an example: The organization initially focused on anti-black violence, but when the Garland Fund expressed interest in funding education, the organization shifted its priorities, ultimately leading to the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case but delaying anti-lynching laws. To avoid “movement capture,” Francis argues, funders must “consciously prioritize the voices of people on the ground” and “be more willing to make grants that may not immediately produce an obvious, palatable win they can present to their board.” If you’re a more auditory learner, listen to this Tiny Spark podcast interview with Francis about the topic.

2. Empower, Change, Transform: A guide to building a successful leadership development program

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS | Schusterman Family Foundation and Rockwood Leadership Institute | 33-minute read

There are many leadership development programs out there, but there’s little evaluation data about them. After the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation and Rockwood Leadership Institute independently worked with the research firm Learning For Action to evaluate their leadership development programs, they realized they could learn from each other’s data and experiences. In this guide, the organizations share stories and five evaluation findings that might help others managing similar programs:

  • Set the stage for vulnerability
  • Focus on emotional intelligence
  • Be intentional about relationship building
  • Design the right coaching experience
  • Encourage sector and cross-sector collaboration

3. Equitable Big Bets for Marginalized Communities

EQUITY | Stanford Social Innovation Review | 8-minute read

The idea of making “big bets,” or large investments, has been around for years, yet that funding tends to go to white-led organizations. To truly change systems, philanthropy must make big bets in organizations led by the communities most affected by injustice, argue the authors, David Bley of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Vu Le of Rainier Valley Corps and NonprofitAF.com. In this article, they share one example of how this can be done: the Gates Foundation’s investment in Rainier Valley Corps. They walk through how they partnered to understand risk, build trust, experiment, and practice transparency with each other. The case study ends with six recommendations to foundations ready to invest in equity:

  • Provide significant multiyear investment
  • Focus on relationships
  • Constantly communicate
  • Be flexible on timelines and milestones
  • Take risks, accept failure
  • Capture lessons learned

4. The healthiest communities in the U.S. are the ones where people can afford homes

HEALTH | Fast Company | 5-minute read

There is a clear correlation between the prevalence of housing cost burdens and negative health outcomes, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s 2019 County Health Rankings. The counties where the highest percentage of households struggle with housing costs also show higher rates of child poverty, food insecurity, and poor overall health among adults. In addition to emphasizing the importance of good and affordable housing, this article highlights some housing-focused initiatives that have resulted in better health outcomes for communities, including the Missouri-based alliance 24:1 and Kaiser Permanente’s investment in affordable housing.

5. Community Mapping — Building Power and Agency with Data

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT | Urban Institute | 5-minute read

Communities hold tremendous knowledge and expertise. How can you directly involve them in generating and processing data? One model is community mapping, in which community members collect spatial data on their neighborhood or city – data like vacant or blighted housing, sidewalk or roadway conditions, or flood damage. The DC Preservation Network, a project co-sponsored by the Coalition of Non-Profit Housing and Economic Development and the Urban Institute, shares how they pair on-the-ground expertise with other types of data to learn things they wouldn’t otherwise and position communities to tell their own stories.

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Now you can more easily find the content you need

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Our website looks a little different these days. We just redesigned it with our partners at Ghost Note with one key goal: making it easier for you to get what you need to create the impact you seek.

Here’s what you can find.

Content

We’re regularly creating new content, so we wanted to make our website easy for you to explore and find what’s relevant.

  • Our resources page is full of field guides, articles, tools, and other content that we’ve spent substantial time developing
  • Our blog is where we share in real time what we’re learning, thinking, and reading
  • Our transformation insights page goes deep on what it takes for social change initiatives to achieve lasting, transformational, systems-level change
  • Our capacity building insights page highlights five foundations’ approaches to capacity building and common themes in what works

Case studies

What does it look like to develop a capacity assessment tool? Or rethink your strategy to have greater impact? Our new case studies walk through some work we’ve been lucky to partner on with clients.

Clear descriptions of what we do

We’ve heard it before: “What exactly do you do?” and “I had no idea you did that!” We took it to heart. And now we hope we’re more clearly describing how we can partner with you. Take a look at the services we provide to nonprofits and grantmakers, and read about how we approach our work.

We were lucky to have fantastic partners in this redesign. Several clients and friends generously shared their time to give feedback on our site and language. The digital creative agency Ghost Note worked relentlessly to understand what our clients most want from us and translated that into a beautiful, crisp, vibrant, accessible website. To everyone who touched this project, thank you.

Take a look around and let us know what you think! If you come across errors or tech issues, or even something you love, please send a quick note to lvalerio@communitywealth.com. It will make the website better for everyone.

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Building Advocacy Capacity, Catalyzing Collaboration

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What does it take for foundations to be strong capacity-building partners to nonprofits? Over the past few months, we worked with GrantCraft to publish a series of case studies that provide an in-depth look at five foundations’ different approaches to supporting nonprofit capacity. The final two case studies in the series explore how foundations are building capacity to advocate effectively and innovate together. Take a look.

Building Capacity to Influence Public Policy: How the Annie E. Casey Foundation is Equipping Nonprofits to Advocate More Effectively

Public policy influences every issue that nonprofits seek to address, from education to food access. To more effectively achieve impact and transform communities, nonprofits can work to make sure that policies are helping, rather than hurting, their mission.

To help nonprofits do just that, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been working with a network of grantees to build their advocacy capacity. That network, KIDS COUNT, was created by the foundation and is made up of 53 state-based child advocacy organizations dedicated to ensuring that all children—regardless of race, class, and country of origin—have economic security, supportive communities, and stable families.

The foundation’s capacity building approach for the KIDS COUNT network includes three key components: an assessment that organizations can use to gauge their capacity in various areas, an online resource hub, and targeted technical assistance. Grantees seek to improve not only their advocacy capacity but also other capacities that affect their ability to make policy change, such as leadership. This approach is making a measurable difference in network members’ ability to influence public policy and reach kids and families.

Continue reading this case study.

Catalyzing Collaboration and Innovation: How the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation is Taking a Networked Approach to Building Nonprofit Capacity

How does a foundation spend down a $1.3 billion endowment in 20 years in a way that leaves communities stronger after the funding stops?

While there can be many approaches to spending down, for the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, investing in the capacity of nonprofits to better equip them to innovate and collaborate around complex social issues is a key strategy for lasting impact.

The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation was founded in 2014 through the bequest of its namesake, the late long-time owner of the Buffalo Bills football team. Before his death, Wilson handpicked four lifetime trustees and set a 20-year lifespan for the foundation.

The trustees decided to focus the foundation’s philanthropy on two regions that mattered most to Wilson—Western New York, the home of the Bills, and Southeast Michigan, where Wilson lived. With support from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors—a firm providing philanthropic advising, strategy and consulting services—the trustees chose four core areas for grantmaking—children and youth, young adults and working families, caregivers, and livable communities. The trustees prioritized capacity building as a key strategy for supporting livable communities.

“Initially the trustees were thinking about capacity building in terms of increasing efficiencies, drawing from their experiences in private equity and venture capital,” said David Egner, president of the foundation. “Over time they came to understand that efficiency is the wrong metric in the nonprofit sector, and it’s really about impact and giving organizations what they need to be able to innovate.”

Continue reading this case study.

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February Must-Reads

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This month brought insight for nonprofits and grantmakers looking to better engage community members, think more concretely about power, and embed equity in their organizations and their evaluation practices. It also brought advice for grantmakers on tuning in to what nonprofits need most.

What caught your attention this month?

1. The Time is Now to Embed Equity in Evaluation Practices

LEARNING & EVALUATION | Center for Effective Philanthropy | 6-minute read

Evaluation can, and should, be used in service of equity, says Jara Dean-Coffey of the Equitable Evaluation Initiative. As the primary purchasers and users of evaluation in the social sector, funders play a critical role in this. Rather than tweak their approach to evaluation, funders should reconsider their approach altogether. Dean-Coffey shares three principles in which new evaluation practices should be rooted and invites funders to consider four questions when engaging in evaluative work.

2. Making Civic Engagement Efforts Work

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT | Stanford Social Innovation Review | 6-minute read

The better that city government officials understand residents’ lives, the more effective policy they can create. Yet doing so often takes time, money, and a willingness to experiment. After a year of researching how nonprofits, philanthropy, and local government in Philadelphia engaged with community members, the authors identified three ways social sector leaders can bring together the expertise of residents and city government.

3. When “Upstream” Public Health Efforts Fall Short

EQUITY | Human Impact Partners | 6-minute read

Public health is increasingly focused on “upstream” causes, looking beyond individual behavior to health disparities. While this shift is leading to important interventions, “slightly upstream” work is not equity work, writes Nashira Baril, project director at Human Impact Partners. Baril argues that the field needs to recognize racism as a root cause of health inequity, but beyond that, it must recognize when “upstream” approaches are accommodating people within an inequitable system rather than shifting the system itself.

4. Race to Lead: Women of Color in the Nonprofit Sector

EQUITY | Building Movement Project | Executive summary: 5-minute read; Full report: 60-minute read

Women of color in the nonprofit sector face big obstacles to their advancement, reveals the newest report in Building Movement Project’s Race to Lead series. The report highlights key findings from a survey of more than 4,000 nonprofit staff and includes several calls to action for how the sector can change inequitable systems, how organizations can change, and how individuals can support each other to ensure a fair and supportive workplace for women of color.

5. How to Think About Power (Especially If You Have Some)

STRATEGY | National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy | 9-minute read

Many of us in the social sector use the word “power” a lot, but what exactly do we mean when we say it? In this blog post, the president of the Chorus Foundation, Farhad Ebrahimi, outlines three types of power, encouraging readers to distinguish among these types of power and consider each type within the broader ecosystem of power:

  • Political Power: The ability to influence or control collective decision-making
  • Economic Power: The ability to produce, distribute, trade, or consume goods and services
  • Cultural Power: The ability to influence or control how we perceive and what we believe about the world around us

For more on shifting organizational culture, explore our field guide for creating a change-making culture.

Bonus article: How Grant Makers Can Tune In to What Nonprofits Need Most

(Requires a subscription to the Chronicle of Philanthropy)

GRANTMAKING STRATEGY | Chronicle of Philanthropy | 6-minute read

To better meet grantees’ needs, the Ford Foundation requested an independent analysis of its grantmaking practices. The analysis showed that more than half of the foundation’s grantees suffered from frequent or chronic budget deficits, and 40 percent had fewer than three months of reserves. In this blog post, Hillary Pennington and Kathy Reich of the Ford Foundation write that, as they listened to grantees in one-on-one conversations, they heard “we were exacerbating these problems by our approach to grantmaking,” an approach that included elements like funding one year and one project at a time. They heard from grantees a deeply felt need for funding for indirect costs. This blog post demonstrates how funders can ask themselves hard questions, invest time and money in understanding the answers, deeply listen to grantees and communities, share transparently about what they learn, and make changes in response.

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How Community Foundations Define and Communicate Their Value

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Sometimes an old idea can bring new insights. Take, for example, the Arizona Community Foundation (ACF).

As with many community foundations, measuring impact beyond assets under management is particularly challenging because ACF distributes the bulk of its funds according to the wishes of its 1,700 fundholders. While some community foundations have significant discretionary funds that they can invest in issues they select, ACF’s discretionary funds are limited. As a result, ACF must act through its donors to increase its impact. ACF hypothesizes that when donors, grantees, and the foundation itself interact in dynamic ways, they promote a culture of philanthropy that increases giving, leads to more effective nonprofits, and contributes to a better Arizona. With this hypothesis in mind, we partnered with ACF to help measure and increase its impact.

As learnings from this impact measurement surfaced, we used a time-tested framework to help ACF think about how they work with donors and grantees to further advance a culture of philanthropy.

A New Use for an Existing Framework

A framework familiar to the business world, the value disciplines framework, proposes that companies become industry leaders by excelling in one of three areas while meeting industry standards in the other two. The idea is that by narrowing its focus to be truly exceptional in one area, a company can stand out from competitors. The three disciplines that companies focus on are:

  • Operational Excellence – A reliable product at a modest price (Frontier Airlines, Walmart)
  • Product Leadership – Cutting-edge products or services (Apple, Tesla)
  • Customer Intimacy – A deep understanding of different customers’ needs and the flexibility to meet them (Amazon, Salesforce)

While a business framework may not seem like an obvious choice for a community foundation, there are several reasons it helped ACF think about its value. First, unlike private foundations, whose assets often come from a dedicated source, community foundations have customers: the donors who choose to place their money in donor-advised funds (DAFs). For many community foundations, growing this donor base is essential to the organization’s community impact and financial health. Second, a growing number of banks are offering DAFs, creating competition for community foundations. Delivering exceptional value is essential if community foundations are to compete with low-fee DAFs from companies like Vanguard and Fidelity.

How Community Foundations Can Identify Their Value Proposition

Together, we adapted the value disciplines framework to apply specifically to the community foundation context:

  • Operational Excellence – A reliable, smooth donor experience; giving is easy and cost-effective
  • Product Leadership – High-quality donor services; a variety of giving options that meet donor needs
  • Customer Intimacy – Personalized services delivered in a thoughtful way, based on a deep understanding of the donor’s needs

When we interviewed donors to understand the value ACF offered in supporting and shaping their philanthropy, we found that they typically saw ACF as excelling in customer intimacy. They felt ACF staff deeply understood their interests and tailored services to exactly what they needed. For a donor interested in seeding new organizations, ACF recommended a steady pipeline of well-vetted startup nonprofits. For another donor interested in international solar energy, ACF offered advice on how to manage legal risk when giving overseas. These donors and others felt heard and understood by ACF staff. They were satisfied with the products ACF offered (product leadership) and found giving to be a smooth experience (operational excellence), but they saw ACF as leading with customer intimacy.

Why Understanding Value Proposition is Important for a Community Foundation

Other community foundations can apply a value disciplines lens to:

  • Increase impact. The impact of a community foundation is tied to the giving of its donors. Engaged donors are more likely to become long-term givers and go beyond financial contributions, for example, by volunteering, recruiting other donors, and advocating for nonprofits. By supporting donors in their areas of interest and in ways known to be effective, a community foundation can increase its impact on the community.
  • Differentiate from other players. As smaller organizations, community foundations will struggle to offer DAFs that are lower priced than those marketed by large investment banks. However, their size and place-based nature is an advantage when it comes to customer intimacy. By building relationships, bringing deep knowledge of the community, and responding to donor needs in a tailored way, community foundations can attract and retain donors looking for more than a transactional experience.
  • Make the right internal investments. Like any organization, community foundations are faced with numerous opportunities to invest in internal capacity. Knowing where the organization needs to deliver exceptional value and where “good enough” is sufficient is critical to making the best use of scarce resources. If donors see customer intimacy as the key value proposition, then investments in donor support staff and systems will add greater value than incrementally improving price or products (assuming these are already at industry standard levels). Investments in donor-facing systems are particularly important to a younger generation of donors, who are digital natives and expect a technology-enabled experience.

As you apply the value disciplines lens, you might ask yourself the following questions:

Operational Excellence

  • How smooth is our giving experience? Do we spend a lot of time troubleshooting donor issues?
  • How does our pricing compare to other alternatives for donors? Are we a high-, medium-, or low-cost provider?

Product Leadership

  • Do we offer a wide range of giving options? How do these compare to what other competitors offer?
  • Besides DAFs, what other services do we offer donors (e.g., advice, learning opportunities, connections to community nonprofits, networking opportunities)?

Customer Intimacy

  • How well do we understand our donors? How detailed is our data on their interests and giving history?
  • Do we segment donors to better tailor our products and services to their needs?
  • How often do our staff connect with donors?

Applying this framework has led ACF to better understand the needs of its donors, ensure the best service provision, and seek new ways to support them in transforming their philanthropy Through this support, ACF believes it will advance a vibrant and enduring culture of philanthropy in which donors increase their support for nonprofits, grantees become ever more effective in delivering on their missions, and greater collaboration among all parties leads to a better future for Arizona.