Stakeholder Engagement: A Guide for Grantmakers

August 27, 2010

Do Nothing About Me Without Me, a guide for grantmakers on increasing stakeholder engagement, begins with a simple but inspirational African proverb about the importance of working together:

“If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) partnered with the Interaction Institute for Social Change (IISC) on this report because there is a disconnect between grantmakers’ sentiments around stakeholder engagement and their perceptions of how inclusive they are in decision-making. 

And this perception is not without merit: while a slim majority of the surveyed grantmakers believe that it’s very important to solicit outside advice and collaborate with external groups, only 36 percent of respondents said they seek advice from grantee advisory committees or solicit feedback from grantees through surveys, interviews, or focus groups.

Why don’t more grantmakers involve external stakeholders in decision-making?  According to the survey, many grantmakers are comfortable with the status quo, prefer to get their information from experts rather than community members, or think it takes too much time and effort to involve outside constituents.  Valid or not, these excuses prevent many grantmakers from letting more diverse voices influence their work.

Yet, the benefits of stakeholder engagement are evident; inviting external constituencies to the table results in:

  • Deeper understanding of problems;
  • Truer sense of grantee needs and challenges;
  • Improved strategy;
  • Greater effectiveness;
  • More accountability and transparency; and
  • Increased buy in.

So how do grantmakers involve stakeholders in decision-making?  Do Nothing About Me Without Me provides several case studies of organizations that do this work successfully.  The report also offers a range of activities for grantmakers, depending on their current level of stakeholder engagement. 

Minnesota also has its own examples of foundations involving communities in their organizations:

  • Getting started: If your foundation is just beginning this work, surveying grantees for feedback and input is a great first step.  Some foundations also commission Grantee Perception Reports from the Center for Effective Philanthropy.  The McKnight Foundation published its report online for greater transparency and accountability.
  • Gathering input: Other grantmakers involve grantees and community members in focus groups, listening sessions, and community convenings around public problems.  For instance, the Central Minnesota Community Foundation has convened community meetings around important local issues, such as ways to promote collaborative planning with St. Cloud, Sartell, and Sauk Rapids.
  • Sharing decision making: For grantmakers that are able and willing to share decision-making authority with a group of constituents, they may consider either adding nonprofit and community representatives to their board, or appointing a panel of nonprofit staff and community members to decide on grants. Family foundations can expand their boards to include non-family members.  The Sundance Family Foundation has benefited from assembling a small, talented board of directors made up of several people from the community. At the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, the Social Change Fund and girlsBEST Fund each has its own committee that is charged with making funding recommendations to the board of trustees. Committee members include staff, board members, and community volunteers that participate in reading proposals, conducting site visits, and evaluating applications. The process incorporates perspectives of many different decision makers.

Join the conversation: How does your foundation involve stakeholders?  If you are with a nonprofit, how have funders engaged your organization in their work?

-Stephanie Jacobs, MCF director of member services

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Workforce Development: Why It Matters

August 20, 2010

How do we get more people working?

“Jobs.  Jobs.  Jobs.”  Politicians and employers have uttered this mantra a lot lately.  This should come as no surprise; the unemployment rate for the 50 largest metropolitan areas reached 9.3% in 2009.  Since the beginning of the recession in 2007, the United States lost over 8 million jobs.  Families continue to struggle, and leaders are anxious to find a solution that will get more people working.

At a meeting for public and private funders this week, Fred Dedrick, executive director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, told the attendees that we should dispel the notion that people don’t want to work.  People are ready and willing to work, but the way that people find jobs has become increasingly complex.  Rarely do people join the family businesses anymore, which was common practice until a few decades ago.  Today’s job seekers send resumes into the black hole of the internet, unsure of whether they will ever even hear back about their applications.

At the National Fund, they believe in a strategy that involves not only understanding the needs of the labor force (the demand side), but also the needs of employers (the supply side).  The National Fund is a $50 million national effort designed to strengthen and expand high-impact workforce development initiatives dedicated to advancing low wage workers into good careers while addressing skill needs of employers.  They do this through forming regional collaboratives of government agencies, foundations, and other philanthropic organizations to focus financial and intellectual capital on creating jobs.  These collaboratives align funds to help create and expand workforce partnerships.  Their model brings employers and workers together to talk about their issues and solutions, or as Dedrick put it, their pain and opportunity.

The National Fund for Workforce Solution’s model is one innovative way of tackling workforce development.  But there are other issues that complicate workforce development even further.  In a report released by the Economic Policy Institute this spring called Uneven Pain, Algernon Austin, director of the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program, found that the Twin Cities metro has the worst racial disparity in its unemployed population than any of the other 50 major metropolitan areas in the United States:

“The Minneapolis metropolitan area has a black-white unemployment ratio of 3.1 to 1. This means that blacks are 3.1 times as likely to be unemployed as whites. Additionally, the black-white difference in unemployment is almost 14 percentage points.”

This disturbing statistic has prompted the Greater Twin Cities United Way, The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and Wells Fargo Foundation Minnesota to sponsor a convening to talk about local solutions to this issue.  Many groups are working on pieces of the issue to diversify and strengthen the metro area’s workforce, but how are they aligned?  How are these groups affecting policy?  What about green jobs?  And how strong is the safety net that supports low-income workers?

On September 1, MCF is pleased to welcome Dr. Austin and a distinguished panel of experts for a morning program open to MCF members to discuss these questions.   In addition, MCF is thrilled to partner with the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability on an afternoon meeting open to both nonprofits and funders.  MCF members, we hope that you are able to attend to discuss this important issue.  For those who are unable to attend, stay tuned for a summary of the program here at the MCF Philanthropy Potluck Blog.

- Stephanie Jacobs, MCF director of member services

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Don’t Proscribe, Collaborate: Strengthening Ties Between Native Americans and Grantmakers

August 6, 2010

Just over five billion dollars is awarded each year in the United States, yet less than 1 percent of these funds is targeted toward Native American communities. A new report released by One Fire Development Corporation examines this disparity.

Created with the support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, an MCF member, and the San Francisco Foundation, “Context Is Everything: Reflections on Strengthening Partnerships Between the Philanthropic Community and Native Americans,” includes interviews from Native American nonprofit leaders, as well as experienced foundation staff who reflect on the gap and what strategies are needed for grantmakers to work effectively with Native communities.

It finds that the causes of underfunding are complex, but much can be attributed to lingering negative stereotypes about Native people, as well as grantmakers’ lack of cultural competency and predilection for narrow, targeted funding emphasizing individual achievement, a focus that is often discordant with Native problem-solving strategies that value a collaborative, democratic approach emphasizing building meaningful relationships.

The report concludes that the journey to successful grantmaking in “Indian Country” starts first with building respectful relationships with members of the community and continues through a process of co-creation and cultural understanding.

The spirit of the report’s recommendations for effective funding are summarized well by the words of June Noronha, strategic planning officer at the Bush Foundation (an MCF member), who has worked for many years with Native people:

  • Listen, don’t talk;
  • Don’t proscribe, collaborate;
  • Have infinite patience;
  • Don’t define success in a linear or quantitative fashion;
  • Acknowledge the rich intellectual and expertise capital in Indian Country;
  • And, always remember that relationships matter.

In addition to this more general advice on grantmaking in Native communities, the report also contains some very concrete recommendations on next steps that need to be taken to further the cause of strengthening Native communities in the United States. The report can be downloaded for free at the OneFire Development website.

- Cary Lenore Walski, MCF web communications associate

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Capacity, Culture, Commitment and Comfort: Finding Public Policy Strategies That Fit Your Foundation

July 20, 2010

How much change can a foundation catalyze by simply – albeit generously – writing checks? Not as much as it could if it also engaged in public policy activities. In fact, public policy work should be viewed as an essential part of a foundation’s efforts, say several members of the Minnesota Council on Foundations.

In our Summer issue of Giving Forum, “Public Policy and Philanthropy: Many Roads Lead to the Same Destination – Change,” John Larsen, trustee and administrator of the John Larsen Foundation, says, “Ultimately, the work of our foundation is about creating real, systemic change, and that can only happen when we start talking to government. Whether you’re a small family foundation like us, or a very large foundation, we all need shifts in public policy in order to achieve really significant lasting social change.”

The challenge is that working to achieve shifts in public policy is often equated with lobbying. And the thought of walking up the steps of the Capitol or testifying before a legislative committee is more than many funders can fathom.

Lobbying, however, is not the sole avenue to influencing public decision making and advocating for causes. Although it is the most recognized public policy engagement tactic, it is only one of 18 distinct policy strategies that Julia Coffman outlines in “A User’s Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning,” published by the Harvard Family Research Project.

A “Framework of Public Policy Activities,” which we include in Giving Forum, also includes using electronic outreach and social media, coalition and network building, grassroots organizing, briefings and presentations, polling, pilot projects, research investigating issues and identifying solutions and policymaker education, among others – all of which can impact public decision making, which ultimately shapes policy development, approval and implementation.

A foundation can engage anywhere along the continuum, pursuing those activities that fit its capacity, culture, commitment and comfort levels. A public policy activity that feels right for one foundation may not fit another.

Many foundations choose a combination of strategies, leveraging their resources to: raise awareness of where the public stands on particular issues; bring together divergent points of view to first converse then collaborate; empower community members to advocate on their own behalf by providing technical assistance; increase the capacity of nonprofits to mobilize others; identify messages that resonate with policymakers and the public; determine what would happen if the status quo was allowed to prevail; aggregate what is known already about an issue and put that to work to further discussion; or identify possible solutions and best practices.

These MCF members have each chosen distinct strategies to impact public decision making that fit their capacity, culture, commitment and comfort level. Read more about their work in our just-published Giving Forum:

Lead article:

Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation: An outgrowth of its grantmaking and programmatic activities, community dialogues and business loan work, SMIF’s public policy activities, including building coalition and networks and partnering with the media to draw attention to the issues and how public policy could impact the success the foundation seeks.

The Minneapolis Foundation: As part of the School Readiness Funders Coalition, a group of funders with diverse strengths and abilities in advocacy work, The Minneapolis Foundation brings to the group its ability to lobby and testify at legislative hearings to advocate for the coalitions “Agenda to Achieve Learning Readiness by 2020.”

John Larsen Foundation: When awarding grants supporting work toward LGBT equality, the foundation  considers if educating policymakers is an end goal of the nonprofit’s work and if the organization has a research plan and a track record of communicating those findings to policymakers.

Indian Land Tenure Foundation: Striving to ensure that lands within the original boundaries of reservations is acquired, owned and managed by Indians, the foundation views education about land issues a priority, as well as identification then pursuit of strategies for achieving legal reform.

Women’s Foundation of Minnesota: The explosion of social media has created a new landscape for the foundation to leverage its expertise to educate, engage and broaden its reach to shift attitudes, behaviors and institutions that limit equality for women and girls.

Voices of Philanthropy articles:

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: Identifying partners best qualified to successfully implement strategies and measuring what’s important to guide future initiatives drive the foundation’s advocacy work.

Initiative Foundation: Based on the belief that local people are the key to strengthening communities, the foundation increases civic engagement by providing training, technical assistance, resource referral and grants to help citizen-based teams develop and carry out strategic plans.

While these efforts are diverse, the common thread amongst them is the recognition by these foundations that strategically developing goals to influence public decision making and intentionally engaging in public policy activities and advocacy work can move systems change forward.

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

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What Difference Does Difference Make?

June 24, 2010

Difference is everywhere I look. I see difference in size, shape, gender, race, perspective, background, locale, income, wealth, achievement, commitment, attitude, and age to name a few. I see difference. This difference and the work I do each day prompt me to ask myself, and now you, when does difference make a difference? When I ask myself this question in relation to my own life I’m forced to dissect the answer into the types of difference that I experience and present each time I show-up in the world.

The truth is, difference makes a difference quite often, but the extent to which it makes a positive or negative difference depends on the situation. There are times in my life when being the youngest in the organization or board made the biggest difference. At other times, it has been being the only person of color in the room. Still others it’s been being the only woman, or the only person from another state, or the only person in a certain socioeconomic class. Most recently, it seems that being a new Minnesota transplant is making the biggest difference in my life. It seems difference is always making a difference…So, what do we do about it?

Years ago, in our efforts to create a color-blind, gender-blind society, we worked to erase difference. Women wore pants, took manufacturing jobs, cut their hair short and used other tactics in order to fit in. People of color in majority environments changed the way they spoke, dressed, and styled their hair to avoid seeming different. And Caucasians in urban environments did the same again, in order to fit in.

Sometimes individuals made these changes because of perceived ism’s, and sometimes the changes were mandated. Looking back on it, we realize these changes did very little to erase difference. In fact, they perpetuated the fallacy that the only real differences were in superficial things such as clothing, hair, and dialect, overshadowing the rich and vibrant differences that actually make us who we are and contribute to stronger communities and organizations.

Today, we’re starting to realize that difference can make a positive difference, if we allow it to. Diversity of thought is a valuable asset for every organization, and when we realize that diversity of thought comes from not only diversity of educational background and experience, but also diversity in gender, race, class, geographic background, sexual orientation, age and other facets of identity, we realize that our organizations can be much more successful when we are inclusive of all of these differences.
But, even at that point of awareness, it takes more than an open door. I’m a member of a membership based organization with over 600 members, and yet less than 2% of members were people of color. Even fewer members come from low or low-to-middle income backgrounds.

The organization has an “Outreach Statement” that essentially stands as a no discrimination policy and for years the organization relied on this policy to invite and welcome in members from diverse racial backgrounds. When this noble outcome wasn’t achieved, leaders decided that women from other races were simply not interested in joining, when in fact; the perception was that that women of other races were not allowed to join.

I assert that until the organization is actively assessing why it has not been perceived as welcoming of certain differences and made concerted efforts to thoroughly reach-out to new segments, this outreach statement should actually be called an “Open to Considering” statement.

I don’t doubt that many of our philanthropic organizations also struggle with acknowledging difference in ways that translate into inclusive practices. Successful organizations must be places where difference is allowed to thrive.

Organizational leaders must become experts at engaging all types of people and differences and at leveraging those differences for greater organizational impact. When we master this, everyone in the organization can bring their lens to the work, and we begin to see we’re all better for it. But, it’s not easy. What differences make a difference in your day-to-day work? What about in your neighborhood? What are you doing to make difference make a positive difference in your organization?

- Tawanna Black, MCF diversity fellow

Tawanna Black

Tawanna Black supports the inclusivity initiatives of MCF and its members. As a part of her fellowship, Tawanna will be sharing her insights with us on the topics of diversity and inclusion in the field of philanthropy in her bi-monthly blog posts. Stay tuned for future posts!

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Women’s Status: Less Money, Poorer Health, Other Inequities

June 17, 2010

The Women’s Foundation of Minnesota released today its 2010 research report on the status of women and girls in Minnesota.  The news is not uplifting.

According to the report, women are shortchanged in four critical areas — economics, safety, health and leadership.  And, while all women and girls in Minnesota suffer inequalities, even greater disparities exist for women of color, rural women and older women in Minnesota.

Here are just a few of the findings:

  • Economics: Because of the gender wage gap, a Minnesota woman (and her family)  earns an average of $11,000 less per year, or $1 million less over a lifetime. White, African American and Latina women earn 76, 61, and 56 cents on the dollar, respectively, compared to white men.
  • Safety: By mid-life, one-third of Minnesota women have experienced a rape crime.  Violence at home is the second leading cause of homelessness among Minnesota women.
  • Health: Native American women in Minnesota are 10% more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than their white counterparts, but 58% more likely to die from it.  While African-American women are 8% less likely than white women to get cancer, they are 15% more likely to die from the disease.
  • Leadership: Only 34% of Minnesota state legislators are women, and the number of women candidates is declining.  No women lead any of the Fortune 500 companies in the state.

What Can You Do?
The full report, “Status of Women & Girls in Minnesota,” contains much more detail, including “What You Can Do In 30 Minutes or Less” recommendations for individuals to take action to address inequities.

In releasing the report today, Lee Roper-Batker, president and CEO of the foundation,  encouraged women, girls and all community members to use the findings to jump-start social change.  She emphasized:  ”Research without action is pointless.”

Next week Women’s Foundation staff members will launch the 2010 “Road to Equality Tour,” sharing the research and obtaining community input in Warroad, Moorhead, Grand Rapids, Duluth, Willmar, St. Cloud and Rochester.

Research and writing for the report was conducted by the University of MN Humphrey Institute’s Center on Women & Public Partnership.  More than 100 experts from academia, government, nonprofit and private sectors, elected bodies and philanthropy participated in working groups to review data, identify key issues and proffer solutions.

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Making Visible the Invisible: Homeless Children and Youth in the Twin Cities

June 10, 2010

In Minnesota, shelter capacity for youth is relatively unchanged since 2003.Earlier this week, I attended the Visible Child Funders’ Briefing titled How are the Children? A Deeper Look at Families that are Homeless in the Twin Cities.  The Visible Child Initiative was launched by the Family Housing Fund in partnership with the Supportive Housing Provider Group and the Family Supportive Housing Center in 2005 in order to raise the visibility of children and families in the community.

This briefing, organized by Amy Crawford from the Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation and Colleen O’Keefe from Sauer Children’s Renew Foundation, gathered funders from across the Twin Cities metro concerned with homeless children and families to learn about the latest research and hear from practitioners working in the field.

Since 1991, Wilder Research has conducted an unprecedented study on homelessness in Minnesota “to better understand the causes, circumstances and effects of homelessness, and to promote efforts toward permanent, affordable housing for all Minnesotans.” Every three years, more than 1,000 volunteers conduct interviews with people living in shelters, transitional housing programs, drop-in service locations, and non-shelter locations such as encampments and abandoned buildings across the state.  In conjunction with the release of the 2006 findings, Wilder Research also produced an Emmy-nominated documentary called Homeless Youth: Finding Home. These videos explore the circumstances that lead youth to become homeless, the challenges they face when they are homeless, and the services available to them.

The statistics from the 2009 report are shocking.   For the Visible Child Funders’ Briefing, Greg Owen and Ellen Shelton from Wilder Research did further analysis of the findings to focus on children and families.   Since the 2006 study, there was a 25% increase in Minnesota’s homeless population, mostly associated with the downturn in the economy.  Of the homeless population interviewed for this study, 47% were under the age of 22.  Of the children with parents or unaccompanied minors, 47% were ages 0 to 5.  Despite the dramatic increase in the number of homeless unaccompanied youth (up 57% since 2006), shelter capacity for youth is relatively unchanged since 2003 and the largest increase in shelter turnaways occurred among youth.  Especially striking is how homelessness spans generations: 34% of the homeless parents in this study report being homeless as children.

Even with the dramatic increase in the incidence of homelessness in Minnesota there are key, persistent characteristics within this population:

  • Racial disparities
  • Multiple health issues
  • Barriers to obtaining and maintaining housing
  • Domestic violence among women and children
  • History of placement or incarceration

African Americans and American Indians make up a disproportionate percentage of Minnesota’s homeless population. While African Americans make up 4% of Minnesota’s general population, they constitute 41% of the homeless adults and 43% of homeless minors (ages 12 to 17) in the state.  While this report did not include the interviews conducted on Minnesota’s reservations, 11% of the homeless adults and 20% of the homeless minors in this study were American Indian (Wilder Research plans to release a report later this year on the interviews conducted on reservations).  Racial disparities have existed in Minnesota’s homeless population for decades, which prompted the Infant Toddler Discovery Project to release a report in 2009 called Culture Matters: The Importance of Cultural Knowledge When Working with Families Who Have Experienced Homelessness (pdf).

Domestic violence is another circumstance that leads many women and children to be homeless.  Of the homeless mothers interviewed, 52% were physically or sexually abused as a child or youth. Of the 30% of mothers that reported fleeing from domestic violence, over half had children with them.  In the case of homeless minors, 38% were physically abused, 20% were sexually abused, and 27% chose to stay in an abusive situation because they had no access to other housing.

Join the conversation:

When presented with statistics like these, it is easy to be daunted by the magnitude of homelessness.  It is a systemic issue deeply tied to the legacy of institutional racism and exacerbated by health concerns, family violence, and barriers to re-housing. However, funders and practitioners continue to gather and collaborate on this topic in order to end homelessness. Amy Crawford and Colleen O’Keefe asked the participants in the room to reflect on the following questions that you can think about at your own organization or foundation:

  1. What is the new data telling you about the needs of homeless children and families?
  2. What needs to be done?
  3. What concrete action could you take today to move forward in addressing these issues within your organization?
  4. What are some possible ways that funders can work together to address these issues?

-Stephanie Jacobs, MCF member services manager

Image CC SamPac

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Speak of the Devil, Name Racism

May 5, 2010

“Racism” — it can be a scary word to use, especially if you’re a white person (or a “person of pale,” as I like to joke) like me. Sometimes I feel that I and other white people are afraid to talk about the word because it’s not a term that we feel we have ownership over.

Racism, after all, is what happens to other people, right? (Often our own white privilege is also not immediately apparent to us.) What right do I have to even discuss it or bring it up? As long as I’m careful about the things that I do and say, as long as I’m sure that I’m not myself a racist — well, my work is done, right? Think again.

A recent study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology shows that individuals who hold racist beliefs tend to think erroneously that most people agree with them, and furthermore, that their beliefs are less racist than those of their peers. In other words, they think their beliefs are comfortably in the norm. So if you believe in racial equity, what’s the solution to showing these individuals that they are not, in fact, in the mainstream? As my colleague Tawanna Black points out in her recent entry, you’ve got to talk about it.

At the recent Facing Race Ambassador Awards Tawanna and I had the tremendous opportunity to meet and interview this year’s award winners Margery Otto and Herbert Perkins of the ASDIC Anti-Racism Study Dialogue Circles, as well as Human Rights Activist Naomi Tutu, keynote speaker at the event, and Rowzat Shipchandler, The Saint Paul Foundation racial equity manager.

The theme of the evening was creating these conversations about race and racism. The four shared their insights on how to make these conversations about race and racism a part of our work in philanthropy, and our own personal lives.

Advice for Grantmakers:

  • Otto: Consult with communities of color…Start new initiatives by creating a dialogue. Remember, if it’s about me, but it’s not by me, it’s not for me.
  • Perkins: Don’t assume you know what the answers are going to be…Ask yourself if you’re really prepared to know what you’re hearing. That requires a certain amount of education to really understand what the conversation is all about.
  • Shipchandler: The Saint Paul Foundation has really improved its work with communities of color, but that improvement has taken careful intentional thought. We took a close look at who was receiving our grants, and made some clear goals and priorities.

On the Importance of Not Shying Away from the Term “Racism”:

  • Tutu: At the end of apartheid people said, “Why would you want to talk about it? Why not just let it go?” We know that those things that you try to ignore – in your country or your own life — will rear their heads and cause problems for you…Racism is so basic to our society that there is no way to move forward without opening up the conversation.
  • Perkins: One thing that we talk about is the need to name “it” — engage in a conversation in which racism can be said. If a philanthropic organization is to seriously engage in this work it must engage in naming the reality. The pain and separation that is a part of this history, the legacy that we’ve inherited — we cannot work with each other without acknowledging this history.

Words of Encouragement for “Persons of Pale”:

  • Otto: Many of us who are white assume that we’re not wanted…that we don’t have a role in the conversation about racism. To discover that this work must be done in a community and that we are essential to that conversation, that’s a life-shifting experience.

There’s a Judeo-Christian phrase that goes, “Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.” Well, there’s also a Judeo-Christian belief, less well known now, that to speak the name of something is to have power over it, to summon it — yes, but more importantly to be able to command it once it reveals itself.

I’d like to encourage all people, and especially white people (my fellow “persons of pale”), who believe in social justice and racial equality to no longer be afraid of talking about racism. Speak of the devil, let it appear — so that we can finally confront the racism that warps all of our destinies, and work towards a more just and inclusive future together.

- Cary Lenore Walski, MCF web communications associate

(Thanks to Susan Perry of MinnPost.com, whose post tipped me off to Watt and Larkin’s study on racist beliefs.)

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