Using Communications Strategies to Increase Foundations’ Public Policy Impact

August 23, 2010

The desire to achieve impact is taking yet another step. First, there was great talk about foundations moving beyond writing checks to figuring out how to change the systems that may have created the need for the check-writing in the first place.

This has led to more and more foundations putting their resources – money, knowledge and connections – toward public policy engagement and impacting public policy. We highlighted the work of several Minnesota foundations in this arena in our Summer issue of Giving Forum.

Now, a first-of-its-kind report from the Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy at the University of Southern California focuses on the question of how foundations that wish to engage in public policy are using communications to expand the reach and impact of their work even more.

The study, released in May and aptly titled “How Foundations Use Communications to Advance Their Public Policy Work,” compiles interviews with senior communications officers at 18 of the country’s largest foundations, including MCF member W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Three structural models for communications staff at these foundations emerged:

  • The advisory model, in which the communications team advises program staff both formally and informally.
  • The embedded model, where communications staff are embedded in the foundation’s major program teams.
  • The communications department model, an approach where a separate communications department produces independent products and programs, in addition to serving as advisers.

While the communications staff sizes are small, communications work extends beyond core staff and encompasses what consultants, partners and grantees do as well.

Study authors James M. Ferris, Marcia Sharp and Hilary J. Harmssen identified 10 distinct strategies foundations use to boost their public policy engagement through communications. Five are within a foundation’s grantmaking work, and five go beyond it:

Five Strategies Within the Grants Program

  1. Build communications support into the budget for a larger program – includes funding communications components of larger project grants related to public policy engagement.
  2. Give grants or contracts specifically for communications – includes stand-alone communications grants for strategy development, implementation, or messaging, as well as companion grants to projects or research studies with significant policy implications.
  3. Provide expert consulting support to grantees – includes expertise provided by consultants or networks or directly by foundation staff to further an organization’s skills and expertise in strategy development, messaging, social media, polling, and other general communications tools.
  4. Offer communications capacity building to grantees  – includes programs to build grantee skills and knowledge in organizational development, advocacy, strategy, and social media.
  5. Train program officers – includes programs on funding advocacy and communications, the role of communications in policy engagement, basic communications strategies and tactics, and legal issues related to advocacy and policy engagement.

Five Strategies Beyond the Grants Program

  1. Sponsor convenings – includes community forums and other forms of gatherings that bring together key actors and influences on an issue.
  2. Do direct media outreach – includes activities conducted in the name of the foundation, as well as on specific policy issues such as op eds, press releases, blogs, etc.
  3. Use the CEO’s bully pulpit – includes speaking, writing, or blogging on particular policy issues or topics, and calling meetings and conducting relationship building with important stakeholders.
  4. Establish communications departments within the foundation – includes publishing, creating news services, producing public education campaigns, creating media partnerships, and running awards programs.
  5. Build a cause brand – includes creating favorable/trusted name recognition for the foundation, as well as consciously developing a cause brand around a particular public problem or issue.

While communications can play a vital part in a foundation’s public policy work, interviewees stressed that the greatest challenges are: to manage the complexity of relationships involved for a core communications staff what works on daily basis with individual grantees, coalitions and collaborations, program officers, contractors and consultants; and content experts, and to integrate communications into the program work, especially at an early and strategic level.

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

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S’Mores and iPhone Apps: Family Philanthropy Conversations

August 17, 2010

Some of our best family discussions happen around the camp fire. In between licking s’mores off our fingers, we share school experiences, summer wishes, and funny stories.

The next time you're around the campfire, why not talk about family giving?

Last weekend, we brought out our TableTopics cube of conversation starters and enjoyed the summer air while listening to each other answer questions such as  “Would you rather meet your great grandparents or your great grandchildren?” “What is your family known for?” and “Is it more fun to be a parent or a child?”

When I came back to work on Monday and dove into creating content for our fall issue of Giving Forum, which will focus on family philanthropy, I thought of a few of my own family philanthropy conversation starters I could pull out next time we’re sitting around the campfire:

  • If you had $1,000 dollars (which sounds like all the money in the world to a young child), and you could use it to change someone’s life, what would you do with it?
  • Do you think it’s better to give the entire $1,000 to one person and make a really big difference or give $100 to 10 people and make less of a difference but affect more people?
  • What is one problem now that you hope doesn’t exist in 10 years? 50 years?
  • If you could make a movie about how to make the world a better place, what would your movie be like?
  • When you do something really great, how important is it that others know what you did?
  • If you could invent something that would make the world a better place, what would you invent?

West Central Initiative, an MCF member, brings the thought-provoking discussion from the camp fire to the kitchen table in its recent issue of FOCUS on the Region, a quarterly publication. Here’s an excerpt of Sheri Holm’s article:

Kitchen table philanthropy involving the whole family

The next time your family comes together for a day at the lake or a barbeque in the backyard, why not take an hour to discuss  how your family can make an impact on the things that are most meaningful to all of you.

Some questions to pose to your ‘kitchen table philanthropists”:

1. First, let your family know that including charitable giving in your estate does not mean leaving out the children, grandchildren and other family members. Including charities in your planning can actually enhance what your loved ones will inherit. Because your family is important to you, their input into how those charitable dollars are spent and what organizations they will support is also important to you.

2.Encourage your family to talk about the charitable organizations they currently support. Ask each about the most satisfying charitable gift that they have made. Other questions could include:

  • Do you see your family as a family who “gives back”? How do you feel about that?
  • Are local issues and organizations more important to your family than national or international organizations?
  • Are there projects or organizations you would like the family’s name linked with?
  • What would the family like to see accomplished through charitable giving?

Including your loved ones in these discussions can provide multiple benefits. It gives them a role in your decision making. They will understand what you want to do and how you want to do it. It should also ensure that there will be no surprises for the family at the time your estate is settled.

If you’d like your conversation spurred on by techie gadgets, guess what? There’s an iPhone app that might just be up your alley. My colleague here at MCF, Cary Walski, found Picture Your Legacy, which guides you toward articulating what you’d like your legacy to be – in business, philanthropy or life – by selecting and sorting images that reflect what you want to accomplish in the world. “What does a dancer leaping across the stage, a redwood tree or a lighthouse beacon say about the funder you aspire to be?” reads the promotional text on the app’s website.

Once you go through the app’s exercises, you can email them to yourself and other family members for further reflection and discussion. So, if sitting around a campfire or the kitchen table together isn’t in the cards, now you can still share your philanthropy philosophy by way of the virtual kitchen table.

Join the conversation: What questions could you ask your kids to find out how they see themselves changing the world? What questions might help guide them to think philanthropically? Have you tried any kind of conversation starters to spark discussion about your family’s philanthropy? How will iPhone apps and other tech devices influence how families discuss their philanthropy and make decisions in lieu of sitting around the camp fire or the kitchen table?

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

Image CC quinn.anya

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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’s It Gonna Take for Me to Get Through to You?!

May 11, 2010

Many of us heard our parents exclaiming this to us in exasperation as we were growing up. I never thought that I, as a parent, would utter these words (after all, wouldn’t I be the hippest, coolest parent around? What kid wouldn’t want to hang on my every nugget of wisdom?).

These days, though, I find myself asking not only how can I get through, but how can I connect? Great divides in the area of technology seem to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Connecting and engaging with the next generation is an important topic in the foundation world too.

My colleague Chuck Peterson, MCF’s vice president of member relations, upon his return from the Council on Foundations conference in Denver last week, has been sharing with MCF staff some take-aways. Among them was this from the session titled “The Next Generation Trustee: Insights into Engaging the Next Generation,” presented by Sharna Goldseker, vice president, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies; and Joseph Thalheimer, next generation family member, Alvin and Fanny Thalheimer Foundation:

“Top 10 Tips on Engaging the Next Generation”

  1. The “next generation” is two different generations with distinct personalities.  Different approaches are needed for different generations.
  2. The “kids” are now adults. Transition from a parent-child dynamic to a peer-to-peer relationship.
  3. Generational personalities are enduring. Accept that the unique generational experiences of Gen X and Gen Y (a.k.a. “The Millennials”) might cause them to become different people. Don’t assume you can wait them out.
  4. Look for the values that underlie the next generation’s choices. Take time to discover what motivates someone’s choice; you may find you have a lot in common.
  5. Learning is a two-way street.  If you have things you want to teach, be ready to learn.
  6. Show rather than tell. Experiential learning is preferable to didactic learning with these generations. Think site visits rather than binders.
  7. You don’t have to step away to let the next generation step up. Think about ways to share and trade power rather than transfer it.
  8. Transparency matters. Access to information is a given these days.  Being open about challenges is a strength, not a weakness.
  9. Engaging new leaders requires more than a Facebook page. Technology is a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.
  10. Engaging people is easy, sustaining their involvement requires change. They can only stay at the kid’s table (or the junior board or the associate position) for so long, and then they are looking for more material involvement.

In our Spring issue of Giving Forum, Sarah Andersen, board president of the Hugh J. Andersen Foundation, talks about her foundation’s efforts to engage the next generation in their family philanthropy and the challenges they’re encountering. The issue also includes insight from Tim Showalter-Loch, senior manager of community relations at Best Buy, on his company’s @15 platform encompassing grants, employee giving programs, a website, cause marketing, data collection and research targeting the strength of teens.

And finally, if you’re like me and think you really are more “with it” than your age belies, try taking the Pew Research “How Millennial Are You?” quiz. Here, in 14 questions, you’ll discover how “Millennial” you are and how you stack up against others your age.

What’s your reaction to your score? Mine? It was like one of those moments when you happen to glance at your reflection as you pass by a mirror at the store, and you think, “Wow, when did THAT happen?”

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

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Energizing the 95 Percent of Foundation Assets That Aren’t in the Spotlight

May 3, 2010

It’s hard to imagine that something that’s been around for 40-plus years is actually energizing philanthropy. But, that’s exactly what program-related investments (PRIs) are doing.

“While foundations traditionally have given great attention to the 5 percent of their assets they typically pay out each year, PRIs provide us with an opportunity to think about what we do with the other 95 percent and what our role could be in working with our community partners,” suggests Kathleen Fluegel, executive director of HRK Foundation, a member of the Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF).

The Spring 2010 issue of MCF’s Giving Forum focuses on how Minnesota grantmakers are magnifying impact and creating change through innovative philanthropic initiatives. PRIs – loans, loan guarantees, lines of credit and equity investments that earn a foundation a return on its investment of 1 to 2 percent in most cases – are playing a prevalent role in energizing the field.

Fluegel recalls that when the younger generation of HRK trustees introduced PRIs to the board as a new foundation tool, the idea was “embraced by the older generation, and it energized all of us because of new, creative possibilities,” she says.

For example, HRK offered a PRI to one of its long-time nonprofit partners who was having difficulty timing cash flow to acquire pieces for its museum. “We realized that a line of credit could give the organization more flexibility,” Fluegel explains. “Raising money for the acquisitions wasn’t an issue; it was quick turn-around that presented challenges.” With the line of credit, the museum could purchase an object and then take the time needed to raise the money and repay the loan.

In this issue of Giving Forum, we also spotlight PRI maker Sunrise Community Banks.

With its community development mission, Sunrise provides financing that other institutions might view as risky. “We’re willing to take the extra steps to make some of these projects work, because we know they will positively impact the community,” acknowledges Nikki Foster, Sunrise Community Banks’ vice president of community development.

Through its Sunrise Homeownership Alliance, an innovative, nationally recognized initiative, Sunrise Banks secured deposits from organizations such as The Minneapolis Foundation and the John Larsen Foundation. These deposits fuel lending through the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation and Dayton’s Bluff Neighborhood Housing Services. These nonprofits provide financing to individuals to buy homes  on a three-year contract for deed, during which time the individuals participate in credit counseling to learn how to repair their credit and set aside savings, so they’re able to refinance into a conventional mortgage. Also part of the financing mix are federal dollars from the Family Housing Fund.

In this issue’s “Giving Trends” article, MCF research manager Juliana Tillema outlines how PRIs got their start, some recent trends and the opportunities and benefits that PRIs can present for both foundations and nonprofits. She notes that, because PRIs require funders to integrate deep program knowledge with financial and legal expertise, PRIs are most often made to organizations with which a grantmaker has a well-established relationship, when a strategic investing opportunity arises with those partners, and when capital is needed to realize a shared goal.

Who are Minnesota’s PRI Makers? Tillema cites MCF research that lists 11 MCF members, about half of whom made their first PRI recently – in either 2008 or 2009. The list includes: Blandin Foundation, Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, HRK Foundation, John Larsen Foundation, Lutheran Community Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation, Carl and Eloise Pohlad Family Foundation, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Foundation, and the West Central Initiative.

- Chris Murakami Noonan, MCF communications associate

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