posted on: Friday, April 24, 2009

When NCRP released Criteria for Philanthropy at its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact, we knew we were embarking on something unprecedented. While many in our field have welcomed the call for a serious examination of philanthropy’s values and purpose, the reaction from opponents so far has been strong and at times vitriolic. Several staunch critics have perpetuated myths about Criteria and what NCRP wants to accomplish with it. Through a series on this blog, we hope to address these myths over the coming weeks.

Myth #1: Criteria is a call for mandated legislation of philanthropy

Truth: NCRP developed Criteria as a set of aspirational goals to guide grantmakers, facilitate discussions in the field, and increase philanthropic impact for the public good.

Following each of the four chapters, Criteria presents discussion questions to help foundation leaders start a dialogue about the role of a particular criterion within the foundation. For example, in Criterion I: Values, Criteria asks foundation leaders to consider their current giving to marginalized communities, broadly defined, and whether that level of giving is consistent with the foundation’s mission and goals. By reading Criteria and then engaging in self-reflection and serious discussion, a foundation can assess how well it is meeting its mission and learn about how to increase its impact on the issues important to our community.

For those who believe the goals are unrealistic or unattainable, the Data Appendix provides a list of field leaders for every measurable benchmark we propose. These foundations were practicing one or more aspects of Philanthropy at its Best before NCRP released the criteria because they found it to be the most effective, impactful way to accomplish their respective missions.

NCRP used Foundation Center data to develop the field leader lists. There are, undoubtedly, many other smaller foundations meeting or exceeding one or more benchmarks. The Foundation Center only gathers information from the largest grantmakers in the country – a total sample of about 1,340. This leaves out nearly 70,000 smaller foundations, some of whom are exemplary in their grantmaking practices. For example, The Needmor Fund, an Ohio family foundation that gives exclusively to community organizing groups, was not captured in Foundation Center data.

For the qualitative benchmarks, Criteria is full of stories from grantmakers who have solicited grantee feedback, engaged their grantees as partners, and taken other steps to mitigate the power differential between funder and grantee. For example, in the chapter on Ethics, which states that a grantmaker practicing Philanthropy at its Best discloses information freely, we noted how the San Francisco Foundation, makes demographic data on its staff and board publicly available as part of its core value of contextualized diversity. It also helps ensure that its grants go to diverse groups that reflect the communities being served. The foundation seeks grantees that share its values of inclusiveness and diversity, pursuing community-based solutions to intractable social and economic problems.

We hope that our community will continue to be challenged and inspired by our recommendations and examples in Criteria to think innovatively and boldly about how our sector can improve and be an effective part of the solution to the difficult issues our world faces everyday. Criteria provides a grounded point from which foundations can explore their own work and develop strategies to enhance their grantmaking practices.