D5 defines diversity as those who bring a unique perspective or life experience to the decision-making table, but focusing particularly on:

• Racial and ethnic groups: Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders, Hispanics/Latinos/Latinas, African-Americans and other blacks, and American Indians and Alaska Natives
• LGBT populations
• People with disabilities
• Women

Foundation Data Before Grantee Data
According to the D5 report, while a growing number of foundations are asking grantees for data on diversity, equity and inclusion, very few foundations are tracking that same data in their own organizations. As a result, sector-wide data aren’t available to answer the question of how much diversity exists in philanthropy today.

D5 is calling for greater transparency – from foundations that already have diversity data and from a greater number of foundations overall  to collect and report on their diversity.

I support the goal of sector-wide data collection and transparency on diversity. I believe that data will better inform our planning and implementation of work toward greater inclusion.

Do You See Diversity When You Look Around?
I also believe that, if we use our eyes, we can surmise how much diversity exists in philanthropy, data or no data.  For example, if we were to attend board meetings or CEO convenings of foundations in our region, we could see how much diversity exists at the decision-making levels in philanthropy.  From there, we can work to understand how that diversity — or lack thereof — influences foundation priorities and grantmaking.

James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  I believe this to be true in philanthropy, too.  We would do well to assess first our own organizations for diversity, equity and inclusion.

If we take this initial step of raising our organizational self-awareness, we will not only begin to gather the data we need to measure the sector’s movement toward greater inclusion.  We will also have a starting place from which to endeavor to meet the goal of a more inclusive philanthropic sector.

– Lissa Jones, MCF director of diversity, equity and inclusion

A new report by Grants Managers Network and the Project Streamline collaborative reveals that after five years of promoting effective ways to improve grant requirements, many nonprofits continue to feel burdened.

More than 700 grantmakers and grantseekers participated in a survey that revealed a continuing gap between grantmakers — who say they have streamlined — and grantseekers — who continue to find processes too unwieldy. Here’s a quick summary of the findings from the new report, Practices That Matter.

Project Streamline Principles Widely Recognized
Project Streamline’s principles are widely recognized in the grantmaking community. Almost all grantmakers say they have made or are planning streamlining changes. Here’s what else they said:

• 93% are familiar with the impact of grantmaking practice on nonprofits,
• 90% are familiar with the principles of clear and straightforward grantmaking communications,
• 87% are aware that taking a fresh look at application and reporting requirements is recommended,
• 86% realize that reducing the burden on grantseekers is important,
• 81% are familiar with “right-sizing” — where application and reporting requirements are in proportion to the grant size and type.

Unfortunately, it takes a long time for changes in individual practice to become true culture change. So, nonprofits still spend too much time meeting requirements that are poorly designed, redundant, inappropriately scaled or simply mystifying.

Continuing Issues for Grantmakers
The research showed some grantmaker progress and brought to light issues that remain.

1: Take a fresh look at information requirements.

• More than 80% of grantmakers say they have revised application or reporting requirements to ask for only what they use in decision-making. But grantmakers still don’t like to accept information that’s not specifically developed for them.
• In fact, 84% of grantseekers say grantmakers rarely or never accept common applications, and 62% rarely or never encounter a funder who accepts standard or no reports.

2: Right-size expectations.

• Grantmakers say they are paying attention to the relationship between requirements and grant size and type; 55% say they have revised applications and 59% have revised reporting requirements to be appropriate to grant size.
• But 72% of grantseekers say applications for small grants are rarely or never proportionate to the level of funding. The same number say they have rarely or never encountered a simplified application for repeat grants.

3: Reduce the burden.

• 91% of grantmakers now use an online system or accept applications via email. With the shift toward electronic submission, 84% no longer require multiple copies of materials.
• But going online doesn’t equal streamlining. Poorly designed and untested systems remain a big source of grantseeker aggravation. Grantseekers cite  system issues including:
  • forms in which data cannot be cut and pasted but must be input one item at a time,
  • forms with stringent character limits,
  • forms that don’t allow users to review all questions in advance, save work, or go back to previous responses,
  • and myriad other bugs.
• Furthermore, 50% of grantseekers say paper systems are still prevalent among funders.

4: Provide clear and straightforward communications.

• 91% of grantmakers say they have revised communication to make it clearer and more straightforward; 84% have made messages consistent across all platforms.
• But getting clear guidance and reaching a person continue to be barriers for grantseekers, who report confusing, inconsistent and insufficient communication. Grantseekers say online systems too often stand in for direct communication, which builds an unintended barrier to relationship.

Read the entire Practices That Matter report. You can also take an interactive quiz to find out how “streamlining savvy” you are, download ​Making More Time for Mission, an overview of the report, and more.

How do you think grantmakers in Minnesota stack up against these national statistics? Let us know your experience.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

Michael Quinn Patton

Don’t miss MCF’s spring issue of Giving Forum, online and in your mailbox now, for “Making Evaluation Meaningful and Useful” by Michael Quinn Patton.

He says, “High-performing organizations make evaluative thinking a way of doing business.”

He distills 40 years of experience conducting evaluation, training evaluators and writing about evaluation into three important lessons. Here’s a taste. There’s much more in the complete Commentary.

1. Embedded Evaluative Thinking Creates Lasting Impact: Patton stresses that the first step is distinguishing evaluative thinking from doing an evaluation and says, “Evaluation is an activity that produces reports; evaluative thinking produces effective organizations.”
2. Evaluation is a Leadership Responsibility and Function: Evaluation must not be seen as a technical or administrative function. Instead it is an ongoing inquiry into what works — for whom, in what ways and under what conditions– that must become a strategic priority.
3. Evaluating Your Organization’s Evaluation Culture Deepens It: This step involves asking tough questions of your staff: How is evaluation viewed here? How are failures handled? What would you tell a new co-worker about how to approach evaluation?

He also shares a bit about his work over the last year with the Otto Bremer Foundation, an MCF member, as it works to embed evaluative thinking into its culture.

He mentions a set of 25 Evaluation Flash Cards that the foundation put together to summarize key evaluation concepts and their implications for grantmaking. The flash cards will soon be available on the Otto Bremer Foundation website as a resource for the philanthropic and nonprofit community. We’re anxious to see them too, so we’ll let you know when we hear that they’ve been posted.

The spring issue of Giving Forum is all evaluation, measurement and results, so don’t miss it!

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

The committee of Minnesota lawmakers who iron out the details of the tax plan to raise state revenue has dropped consideration of a House proposal that would have changed the tax deduction to a credit. The Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF), along with other nonprofit organizations, opposed the proposed change.

As explained by MINNPOST, changing the state’s charitable giving tax deduction would have produced significant revenue for the state, but it posed a worrisome risk to an important revenue stream for charitable organizations.

MCF worked with other nonprofit advocates to ensure the Governor and Senate held fast in opposition to the House proposal. In addition to lobbying at the Capitol, the effort included a guest editorial in the Star Tribune.

But What of U.S. Tax Reform?
While the push for potentially harmful changes to charitable giving law seems to have waned in Minnesota, tax reform proposals are just gaining steam in the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means continues to contemplate various tax reform proposals that impact the charitable sector.  Last week the committee issued a report proposing a variety of options, including changes to the federal charitable giving deduction.

MCF, in partnership with the  Charitable Giving Coalition, issued an immediate response to the report. We are particularly concerned about options that would unravel the charitable deduction and hurt our communities. We explained our concerns in a joint letter to all members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Contact Your U.S. House Member
MCF is now contacting Minnesota’s Congressional representatives in Washington to explain concerns about the ideas in the working group report and to ask them to oppose changes in the federal charitable giving tax deduction. We encourage MCF members to also contact Minnesota’s members in the House of Representatives to express support for the current charitable giving tax deduction and reject proposed changes.

Do you have questions about state or federal tax reforms affecting the charitable giving deduction? Contact me at MCF.

– Bob Tracy, MCF director of government relations and public policy

In the article by Brian Paulson, director of innovation strategies at United Way, you’ll learn how the organization has gone from:

• measuring activities
• to focusing on outcome measures and building evidence
• to creating emerging models of systems integration through collective impact.

And, you’ll be privy to lessons learned along the way.

For the complete piece, don’t miss the spring issue of Giving Forum.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

Semi-finalists were selected by a panel of nearly 40 community volunteers representing a wide range of expertise and experiences. The semifinalists are now expanding and refining their ideas ahead of the finalist selection process in June.  Here is a small sample of their ideas:

• Adam Gabriel Napoli-Rangel’s idea for the Oral Histories of St. Paul Neighborhood Art Movement, a project to create art pieces in  historic locations in St. Paul Neighborhoods that incorporate local oral histories
• Amy Hyatt-Blat’s Wabasha Capitol River Strip, an idea to create a walk-able  mile-long business and cultural district along Wabasha Street in downtown Saint Paul
• Lucas Havens’ idea for a program called Passport to Professionalism, a high-quality online credentialing system to recognize youth for skills and accomplishments that don’t necessarily show up in their GPAs
• Michele Hanson’s idea for the Minnesota DNR Central Region Community Connections, which will develop recreational and educational programming where our urban neighbors and non-traditional communities can come to learn about the unique resources found in the bluffs and floodplains of the Mississippi River valley
• Amy Schroeder Ireland’s idea for Bike-Connect St. Paul which would would update Saint Paul’s bike infrastructure and create a more uniform system of paths and bike lanes

You can view all the proposals as they are updated at MNIdeaOpen.org/ForeverSaintPaul.

Public to Vote on Finalists

Later this summer, a panel of experts will judge the top 30 ideas and select three finalists. The public will then be able to vote of which of the finalists will receive $1 million cash prize. Public voting will begin August 13, 2013 and end September 2.

In addition to online and text message voting, the Idea Open will visit neighborhoods in Saint Paul, and have a voting booth at the Minnesota State Fair.

Check out all the proposals and choose your favorites now, then stay tuned to www.mnideaopen.org for final voting details!

MCF President Bill King on Comcast Newsmakers

If you work in philanthropy, you know it can be difficult to succinctly summarize the various foundation types, the range of corporate giving initiatives, how grantmakers determine which nonprofits to support, how individual contributions fit into the giving picture and what role MCF plays in any or all of it.

Recently, MCF’s president Bill King did this in a 4-minute Comcast Newsmakers segment.

If you know a foundation staff person who could use some information on how MCF can help them connect with other Minnesota grantmakers or someone who just wants an introduction to philanthropy in Minnesota, have them watch.

Watch the video on the Comcast Newsmakers website.

Newsmakers also airs at :24 and :54 minutes after the hour on CNN Headline News, middays Monday to Friday, and weekends during morning and early afternoon hours.

If you’re a Comcast digital cable customer, Newsmakers is also a regular feature of Comcast’s Twin Cities-based Local On Demand content. (From Comcast’s On Demand homepage, choose the Get Local tab, then the Newsmakers tab.)

Did you learn anything when you watched? Let us know what surprised you about giving in Minnesota!

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate

As the landscape grows and evolves, it becomes more difficult to stay on top of all of the digital tools available, while also keeping up with the day-to-day work.

In April, The Communications Network hosted a webinar called “Smart Tech for Smart Communicators,” to help nonprofit communicators do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.

Liz Bartolomeo, media director at the Sunlight Foundation, led off the discussion with this question:

“We are using all these great apps and tools on our mobile devices getting into work…why can’t we take some of this same technology and apply it for our daily jobs as communicators?”

Here are some of the many resources she shared.

Outreach Tools

• Rapportive.com: an email plugin that searches the internet and shows you everything about your email contacts inside your inbox; especially helpful for media contacts.
• SproutSocial.com: combines all of your social networks into one big tool to help you track who is talking about your organization, and other keywords of interest. It can also provide some analytics.
• Tumblr: micro-blogging platform that Sunlight uses to share cool things that they found on the internet, rather than news about the foundation. Sunlight’s Tumblr is now its most popular social network.
• Storify: creates a narrative with a collection of tweets, photos and videos that you can repurpose on a website or in a blog post, and is a good way to keep an archive of the work you’re doing.

Engagement Tools

• Chartbeat: A paid service that gives you real-time metrics of who’s on your site and how they’re engaging with your content. You can see how many concurrent visitors you have, where they are, how they came to your site and much more.
• Topsy: A site for searching within social networks to see who is talking about you within Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Productivity Tools

• Pinboard: A simple bookmarking site that allows you to save and tag your bookmarks and things you want to find online. You can share your pinboard with others or keep it private; Sunlight uses it to manage press clippings.
• IFTTT: An acronym for “if this than that” allows you to create cheat sheets for the internet. Takes all of the channels of information online and allows you to create “recipes” made of triggers, actions and ingredients to help you track information you’re interested in.

Logistic Tools

• Eventbrite: Allows you to do low-cost or free ticketing for events.
• Square.com: A simple way to process payments, email receipts, and track purchases.
• Etherpad: Open-source program to share and edit collaborative notes in real-time (would be especially helpful for conference sessions).

Research Tools

• Wayback Machine: Find old content online.
• TV News Search: Search old TV broadcasts for stories about your organization.

You can watch a video of the whole thing on The Communication Network’s website.

- Megan Sullivan, MCF operations and publications coordinator

In 1944, Jay and Rose Phillips started the foundation to help those living in poverty and to fight discrimination. The foundation honors that legacy and continues to gives back to the community, even as it looks to new models of addressing the issues to accomplish its ultimate goal. We sat down recently with Patrick Troska, executive director, to learn more.

Watch the video to hear about the foundation’s new focus on impacting community issues and how it leverages its resources to do so. And look for more videos with Minnesota’s philanthropic leaders to come!

-Chris Oien, MCF web communications associate

Here is a brief summary:

1. Discuss indicators of success , ensuring they remain relevant, measurable and within the foundation’s control.
2. Check each letter of inquiry for fit against the foundation’s mission, priorities and indicators of success.
3. If it looks like a fit, request a proposal with specifics on the program and the organization’s financial health and capacity.
4.  If that checks out, visit the potential grantee.
5. When a grant ends, receive a final report from each grantee.
6. Track outcomes and lessons learned.

For much more detail, see Giving Forum and ”Continual Learning Through Intention and Evaluation,” by Colleen O’Keefe, executive director, Sauer Children’s Renew Foundation.

- Susan Stehling, MCF communications associate