A New Agenda for Corporate Philanthropy

October 25, 2011

I had the opportunity to attend last week’s “The Evolution of Corporate Philanthropy Conference: Building Value, Creating Change,” hosted by MCF.

The day’s first speaker, Chris Pinney, project lead for the national Council on Foundations Corporate Philanthropy 2012 initiative, started things off with a few startling facts:

  • Of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51% are corporations and only 49% are countries.
  • 40% of all current U.S. federal workers will retire in the next few years.
  • Governments can no longer fill all of the gaps; government debt is high worldwide, business is often more trusted than government, and social issues are becoming more of a shared responsibility.

And, then he asked a question: “What’s the impact of corporate philanthropy in Minnesota?”

The room was filled with community affairs and foundation leaders from Target, Best Buy, IBM, Medtronic, Ameriprise Financial, General Mills, Wells Fargo and elsewhere, but the room was silent. No one had an answer.

Every foundation and giving program knows what they fund, some can measure the outcomes of their own giving, but no one offered any ideas on the sum total of their efforts – past, present or future – or mentioned a good (or consistently used) way to measure results.

Pinney didn’t have an answer either, but he believes corporate philanthropy must evolve from being about the money to being about “managing the money to achieve results.”

He says corporate grantmakers must lead corporate philanthropy until it is truly and completely integrated with the business strategy.

He gave good examples of businesses that are further along than most in these efforts, including IBM, Cisco and Starbucks. See slides 33, 34 and 35 of Pinney’s presentation for examples of how they are creating and incorporating shared value into their giving and business models.

Stay tuned, I plan to blog about other interesting ideas discussed at the conference. And, if you were there, please add your own views.

- Susan Stehling, communications associate

photo cc suttonhoo

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Colorado-Based International Giving Nonprofit Connects in Minnesota

September 16, 2010

When Global Greengrants Fund’s senior donor relations manager Jennifer Adams Kurr decided to move back to her home state – Minnesota, she proposed the idea of continuing her work on behalf of Global Greengrants Fund in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

“Minnesota is very philanthropically minded and has a great emphasis on protecting the environment, so it only made sense to strengthen our connection to Minnesota,” says Adams Kurr. “And, becoming a member of the Minnesota Council on Foundations (MCF) is a great way to start connecting.”

So, please welcome Global Greengrants Fund as the newest MCF member.

Global Greengrants Fund describes itself as “bridging the gap between those who can offer financial support and grassroots groups in developing countries that can make effective use of that support.”

Because it is so difficult for grantmakers to identify grassroots groups in remote areas, transfer funds and then monitor grantee progress, international grassroots grantmaking is challenging to say the least. To navigate internationally, Global Greengrants Fund has built a network of 120 volunteer advisors around the world that enable the organization to capitalize on the expertise of the people who know firsthand where the most urgent and promising work is happening and to facilitate collaboration across language and cultural barriers.

Global Greengrants Fund makes grants typically ranging from $500 to $5,000 to grassroots groups in some of the world’s most impoverished places where other sources of support often are not available. Since awarding its first grant in 1993, Global Greengrants Fund has made more than 5,000 grants to groups in 120 countries.

Adams Kurr is looking forward to connecting with the others doing like-minded work here in Minnesota. In particular, she plans to be involved in the programs of MCF’s  Global Funders Network and hopes to explore partnerships with Headwaters Foundation for Justice, whose work is similar to Global Greengrants Fund’s’ – just on a local scale.

Global Greengrants already has a well-established partnership with locally based Aveda. Their work together goes back 13 years; most recently, Global Greengrants has served as a global partner for the past three years of Aveda’s Earth Month initiative. “I’m looking forward to strengthening our work with Aveda,” Adams Kurr says. “We’ve had a great partnership for many years.”

Adams Kurr will also work to connect with Minnesota companies that are part of 1% for the Planet, a new partnership for Global Greengrants. 1% for the Planet is an alliance of businesses that donate at least one percent of their annual revenues to environmental organizations worldwide.

No stranger to the work of grantmaker member organizations, Global Greengrants Fund is a leader with the national Council on Foundations (COF). Global Greengrants founder and president emeritus Chet Tchozewski  currently serves on the COF board of directors and chairs COF’s Global Philanthropy Committee.

- 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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“Don’t do something about me, without me” – The Importance of Promoting Diversity

December 3, 2009

Shawn Lewis, board trustee at the Pan African Community Endowment of The Saint Paul Foundation, sent us a message yesterday about a blogcast discussion that he had recently with blogger Rosetta Thurman, Tamar Cloyd from Education Voters of America, and Stephen Bauer from American Humanics and Nonprofit Workforce Coalition.

The program, which you can listen to on Rosetta Thurman’s blog, was a response in part to the Council on Foundations report titled Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership, which found that only 20 percent of successful candidates for leadership positions within the philanthropic sector are from racially diverse backgrounds.

During the show, the panel speakers talked about the importance of having diverse leaders at the top level in the independent sector, not only because a diverse staff affects organizational decision making, but because pitfalls can occur when nonprofits and grantmakers attempt to serve constituents that are not represented within their organization.

As Tamar Cloyd responded during the interview, “Don’t do something about me, without me.” Shawn Lewis also shared insights from his experience working within the sector. He stated that generally much of the progress that he’s seen in creating better recruitment practices has come from board or committee members who advocate strongly for better, more inclusive practices within organizations.

Stephen Bauer suggested that one of the best strategies for increasing the likelihood of hiring someone of color is to be willing to search again for diverse applicants if, after an initial collection of applicants, it’s revealed that the pool of people you’re considering does not have enough diverse candidates.

If you are interested in learning more about how your organization can recruit people of ethnically and culturally diverse backgrounds, check out the recording of this interview at Rosetta Thurman’s blog. Then, after you’ve listened to the interview, visit the MCF Diversity Resource page to access the free, downloadable resources that we’ve created and collected to assist MCF member and non-member grantmakers to create better diversity practices within their organizations and fulfill the MCF Diversity Principle.

If you are currently searching for candidates for a position in your organization, you may also find the Minnesota Ethnic and Community Media Directory (pdf) produced by Twin Cities Media Alliance a helpful resource as you look for publications to advertise your job openings.

Join the conversation: Do you think that your organization is doing enough to recruit diverse candidates for leadership positions? Do you have any strategies or practices that you’ve found have been successful in encouraging people of color and other minority groups to apply?

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COF Report: Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership

December 2, 2009

What defines the leaders of grantmaking institutions? How are leaders being chosen within the philanthropic sector? The national Council on Foundations (COF) recently published a baseline report entitled Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership that attempts to answer these and other questions concerning leadership selectment, inclusivity and advancement within the field.

The report was precipitated by COF’s broader Career Pathways to Philanthropic Leadership Project, which was initiated to increase the amount of talent competing for top positions at philanthropic organizations, and to encourage inclusivity within the field.

The research findings resulted in six key highlights, with the most notable being:

  • The majority of the successful candidates transitioned from fields outside of philanthropy—primarily from the business (24.3%) and nonprofit (24.8%) sectors.

The other key findings include:

  • Most of the successful candidates (63.4%) held executive positions in their immediate prior position as either chief executive (38.9 %) or vice president (24.5%) before successfully landing in their current position.
  • The majority (79.5%) of the 440 foundations appointing CEOs and executive directors during the study period filled them not through internal promotions but from outside the foundations.
  • Twenty percent of the successful candidates were from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds and about half (48.7%) were women.
  • Thirty percent of field leaders who were interviewed said that mentors played a major role in their career advancement.
  • About 85 percent of the interviewees expressed significant skepticism about the willingness of trustees, search consultants, and other hiring decision makers to be influenced by leadership development efforts as they contemplate hiring decisions about the executive candidates.

The full report is available to download for free at the COF website.

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Senator Amy Klobuchar to Deliver Keynote Address at the MCN/MCF Joint Annual Conference

October 22, 2009

MCN and MCF are proud to announce that Senator Amy Klobuchar will deliver the keynote address at this year’s MCN/MCF Joint Annual Conference.  Sen. Klobuchar will share her thoughts regarding President Obama’s desire to strengthen and grow public and philanthropic partnerships. The Senator will discuss opportunities for nonprofits and grantmakers to work together and share her observations on the impact of stimulus funds, the current health care debate, and what the legislative priorities might be in 2010.

Following the Senator’s remarks, Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of  Nonprofits, and Steve Gunderson, president and CEO of the Council on Foundations, will offer their observations and comments regarding the state of our sector in these challenging economic times. Our time together will end with Karen Kelley-Ariwoola, vice president of community philanthropy at The Minneapolis Foundation, moderating a discussion with the audience.

Visit transformingourwork.org to read about Senator Klobuchar’s background and to learn more about the Transforming Our Work: From Challenging Times to Hopeful Futures Conference happening November 5 & 6 at the Saint Paul RiverCentre.

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