posted on: Friday, March 05, 2010

By Kevin Laskowski

A gathering of more than 100 leaders in philanthropy marked the release of NCRP’s new Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in Los Angeles County. The report documented how 15 Los Angeles-area nonprofit organizations and their allies leveraged foundation grants to secure $6.88 billion in public benefits—nearly $91 of impact for every dollar invested.

In addition to the dramatic findings of the report, participants heard from several Los Angeles grantmakers and nonprofit leaders about their experience with these strategies.

A self-described “convert” to advocacy, organizing and civic engagement strategies, Dr. Robert Ross, president of The California Endowment, discussed how the Endowment’s approach hopes to connect “grassroots and treetops,” combining capital for service provision with the resources for systemic change.

“Let’s be real,” Ross told participants. “With the possible exception of public safety, our opportunity systems are broken. Every time Sacramento or Washington don’t do their jobs, our jobs get harder.”

He acknowledged the limited resources of foundations and the difficult choices that they face in these economic times.

“Every choice we face is a Sophie’s choice,” he said. “It’s tough.”

He urged participants to “lead with results” in making the case for funding advocacy and organizing and applauded NCRP for giving grantmakers another tool to get the biggest bang for their philanthropic buck. He pointed to the importance of the popular mantra “change not charity,” also the tagline for the Liberty Hill Foundation, a noted Los Angeles-area social justice funder.

“I wish I could give you a grant big enough to steal that line,” he said, nodding to Liberty Hill staff in the audience. “Charity is good but change is better.”

Antonia Hernandez, president of the California Community Foundation, noted that her own journey in these strategies was a bit different. The former executive director of MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Hernandez is no recent convert to the importance of funding strategies that effect change.

She explained how important it was to discuss the difficult choices grantmakers face with trustees and educate others about all the options available.

As Los Angeles faced the loss of millions in Section 8 housing vouchers, the board of the community foundation could attempt to devote philanthropic resources to make up the difference.

“Or, for a $50,000 grant, we can fund an advocate to Washington,” she said.

In the same way that nonprofits use litigation, advocacy, organizing, and other strategies, Hernandez said foundations bring the limited resources they’re given to bear on the serious challenges facing Los Angeles and the country as a whole.

Is your foundation interested in learning more about how to effectively support nonprofit advocacy and community organizing? Is your community organization interested in learning more about making the case for advocacy, organizing, or civic engagement? Contact us today!

Kevin Laskowski is field associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).

posted on: Thursday, August 20, 2009

by Lisa Ranghelli

Lisbeth Schorr’s recent commentary, “To Judge What Will Best Help Society's Neediest, Let's Use a Broad Array of Evaluation Techniques,” in the Chronicle of Philanthropy made an important argument about the need to recognize and validate the knowledge and expertise of individuals and communities as they seek to solve complex social problems. Schorr cautioned against a reliance solely on “evidence-based” programs, since this gold standard of evaluation is almost impossible to attain – precisely because multi-faceted problems and solutions are hard to reduce to simple, linear cause-and-effect relationships.

Advocacy and community organizing tap the myriad skills and knowledge of a variety of stakeholders, who come together and pool what they know to craft solutions to community problems and create the political will to implement them. Sometimes these can be messy, nonlinear processes, yet their tangible and intangible impacts can be measured in a variety of ways. And the learning from those efforts—both successes and failures—informs future change strategies.

As foundation leaders, academics and practitioners seek ever more ways to measure and assess impact, it will be important to not separate the people on the ground and their knowledge from the seemingly neutral tools of evaluation. FSG Social Impact Advisors’ comprehensive study, “Breakthroughs and Shared Measurement of Social Impact,” noted that new shared systems “offer an important complement to more rigorous evaluation studies by promoting ongoing learning in timely and cost-effective ways.”

Key elements of these measurement systems include: voluntary participation by the organizations providing data; independence from funders in developing and managing the system; and, in more advanced systems, an opportunity for participants to get together and talk about the results, share learning, and improve coordination. These participatory tracking processes allow everyone involved in a complex set of activities to benefit from the information collected. These approaches can help shift focus from unrealistic attempts to learn whether a grant to one organization to achieve a specific outcome was effective, toward less fragmented, more holistic examinations of collective impact. Perhaps convening participants is as important as data collection, so that their “on the ground” knowledge can inform data analysis and future planning based on what the data reveals.

A quick review of the publicly-available approaches highlighted in the report indicates that only a few are attempting to capture data related to advocacy, organizing and civic engagement. The Center for What Works/Urban Institute Indicators Project stands out for having a set of outcomes and indicators for both advocacy and organizing.

Would more attention to advocacy and organizing in shared measurement systems–and the associated collective learning that participants undertake—be helpful to advocates and organizers? Would these tools give more funders confidence to provide grants for these strategies?

Lisa Ranghelli is senior research associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and co-author of Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina.

posted on: Monday, June 08, 2009

By Lisa Ranghelli

Where I live in Western Massachusetts, tapping maple trees is a livelihood for some and a hobby for others. During the fleeting weeks of sap season, I look forward to putting a tap into a tree and seeing the clear sweet liquid immediately begin to flow into the bucket. The work to collect that sap and turn it into syrup is a labor of love, but there is nothing more satisfying than pouring your own maple syrup over pancakes hot off the griddle.

Tapping individual donors also requires hard work and persistence, but the payoff is equally gratifying, and no doubt more lasting than the time it takes to swallow those delicious bites of syrup-laden pancake.

After all, that’s where the money is: three-quarters of all charitable giving is done by individuals, dwarfing foundation grantmaking. As nonprofit recipients have pointed out, there tends to be a lot less paperwork and more flexibility involved with private donations compared with institutional grants. Yet, a survey of progressive individual donors found that while the vast majority does support organizing, 42 percent of them focus less than 25 percent of their giving on community organizing.

Here enters the Linchpin Campaign. Linchpin, a project of the Center for Community Change, is the brainchild of NCRP board member Marjorie Fine, who is determined to help organizing groups raise more funds from major donors. Fine has extensively surveyed progressive donors about what they fund and why. Now the Linchpin Campaign has released a guide that draws on these survey findings and the collective wisdom of donors and fundraisers to help social justice organizations access individual wealth. Untapped: How Community Organizers Can Develop and Deepen Relationships with Major Donors and Raise Big Money was written by Joan Minieri, an award-winning community organizer and author. The guide has hands-on tools to help organizers apply their organizing skills and knowledge to the task of donor cultivation and engagement.

Untapped reinforces some of NCRP’s own findings about institutional philanthropy – that many donors believe it is difficult to measure the impacts of organizing. And even though donors want to make a difference, they may not see organizing as a cost-effective strategy to achieve tangible results. The guide offers practical advice on how to alter these perceptions. Fine believes that now is an excellent time to fundraise, despite the economy:

There is so much heightened awareness about community organizing and civic participation right now, and whether economic conditions are up or down, people with wealth have money and they continue to give. Untapped resources for community organizing lie with individuals—individuals who want to give and who are looking for opportunities where their dollars can make a real difference.

Like so many maples trees lining a country road, individual donors are waiting to be tapped …

Lisa Ranghelli is senior research associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and co-author of Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement.

posted on: Thursday, May 14, 2009

by Lisa Ranghelli

North Carolina stands out for its especially favorable organizing climate. As the 2008 elections signaled, the state is undergoing a major political shift, with growing cities and a rising new immigrant population creating a new organizing landscape.

- Institute for Southern Studies

When nonprofit organizations and foundations partner to tackle urgent issues in North Carolina, they can achieve tremendous success—especially when they use public policy advocacy and engage affected constituencies in the problem-solving process.

- National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

Two reports released within weeks of each other point to promising signs in North Carolina. The Institute for Southern Studies recently published Social Justice Organizing in the South. The Institute produced the report with support from the Hill-Snowdon Foundation and New World Foundation, as part of the Southern Scan Research Project. The report looked at demographic, economic, political and social justice organizing trends in six southern states: Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina. The Institute’s research concluded that North Carolina stood out as holding potential for foundations to have an impact in the South through support for social justice organizing. The authors found that North Carolina is strategically important because of its political, economic and social role in the South; its favorable climate and infrastructure of support for organizing; and its density of strong existing and emerging social justice organizations that have a track record of impact.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy just released Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina. This report, authored by me and Julia Craig, documented the advocacy and organizing impacts of 13 organizations over a five year period, with impressive results. The research demonstrated that, collectively, the groups achieved at least $1.8 billion in monetary benefits for North Carolinians. These benefits included new wages for workers, affordable housing for the elderly and disabled, health services for the uninsured and individuals with HIV/AIDS, and jobs and job training for youth, just to give a few examples. (Another example can be found in my recent blog post.)

The report found that the groups collectively devoted $20.4 million to their advocacy and organizing efforts, providing a monetary return on investment of $89 for each dollar invested in these strategies. Many nonmonetary impacts were equally significant, including cleaner air and water, reduced exposure to toxic chemicals for agricultural workers and school children, and hospital visitation rights for same-sex caregivers. The civic engagement return on investment was also important, as the groups engaged tens of thousands of ordinary residents in the democratic process, building bridges across race, class, ethnicity, age, gender and other divides.

Both reports highlighted the important role philanthropy plays in North Carolina. In discussing the favorable climate for organizing, the Institute’s Southern Scan noted that “North Carolina also has a strong social justice infrastructure, including funders like The Babcock Foundation and Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation…” The report also mentioned the A.J. Fletcher Foundation and some community foundations as supporters of social justice organizing in the state. The NCRP report found that 86 percent of the funding that the 13 groups collectively allocated to advocacy and organizing—$17.5 million over five years—came from foundations. Philanthropic support was critical to their success.

Yet, both reports also found that much more foundation investment is needed to take advantage of the opportunities for change in North Carolina. The Southern Scan noted that among six southern states, there are only four foundations with annual giving of $1 million or more that devote “significant resources” to social justice organizing. Thus, organizations remain somewhat dependent on national and non-Southern funding sources that may be less familiar with historical dynamics unique to the region and with the capacity needs of local communities. The NCRP report found that many organizations doing important work and engaging marginalized constituencies are severely under-resourced, often operating with little or no paid staff. This was particularly true in the rural eastern part of the state.

Together, these two reports paint a picture of great accomplishment and greater potential, hinging on enough philanthropic support to solidify capacity. Ripe fruit for the picking.

Lisa Ranghelli is senior research associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and lead author of Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina.

posted on: Monday, April 27, 2009

by Lisa Ranghelli

The Foundation Center’s new publication, Foundations and Public Policy: Leveraging Philanthropic Dollars, Knowledge, and Networks for Greater Impact (edited by James M. Ferris, Director of the Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy), is a welcome addition to the growing list of resources available to help grantmakers decide whether and how to add the tool of policy engagement to enhance their effectiveness and advance their missions.

Ferris makes two important points in his foreword to the book:

1) “Public policy engagement is a natural extension of foundation efforts to address public problems.”

And indeed, what problems in our society are not public in some sense? Especially in the current economic crisis, in which everything from the arts to zoos is at risk of being dismantled, not to mention the dire situation facing nonprofits that are working to meet the rising demand for basic services (food, shelter) with less capacity and resources. Public policy is playing an important role in addressing these immediate challenges, such as economic stimulus funds. And public policy will play a critical role in the longer term (one hopes) to help our country avoid another economic catastrophe by shoring up the financial regulatory structures. This recession reminds us all that even markets and the private sector are indeed matters of public policy, or at least they should be.

2) “Foundation involvement in public policy is not new.”

As Chapter 3 of the book points out, philanthropists have been influencing policy practically since the nation was founded. While the Tax Reform Act of 1969 tightened the regulatory framework governing foundations, “The federal tax law provides considerable latitude for private foundations to participate in the formation of public policy” (page 79). Chapter 4 concisely describes this latitude within the current legal framework. Despite philanthropy’s history of policy engagement and today’s easy access to good legal information, somehow many foundation leaders continue to believe mistakenly that they must avoid engaging directly in policy or funding nonprofits that do.

At last year’s Council on Foundations summit, I attended a session on rural philanthropy. As I applauded one rural funder’s comment about the importance of advocacy, the foundation leader sitting next to me said, “Why are you applauding illegal behavior?” Lawyers who advise grantmakers to err on the side of caution are doing them a disservice by discouraging perfectly legal strategies that can help funders make a big difference on the issues they care about.

In addition to offering a historical perspective on philanthropic policy engagement, the book also provides present-day case studies of funder engagement in four policy areas: health, the environment, child care and education. Health is a major concern for institutional philanthropy: according to Chapter 6, based on a sample of 1,200 of the largest foundations, nine in ten funders award grants in this field (page 121). Yet, the health care system suffers from many challenges that seemingly demand a policy response. Can all these scattered grants address the high rates of uninsured and high costs of care that are bankrupting thousands of Americans? The chapter’s authors suggest that bold coordinated action at all levels of policymaking is needed by philanthropy to make a difference.

While there has been much discussion lately about the supremacy of “donor intent,” which supposedly puts constraints on what a foundation can do, this chapter asserts quite the opposite: “Perhaps the most critical asset of foundations is their nearly complete freedom to select the issues they wish to address and the means of addressing them. … Unlike government officials who must confront a wide range of issues and typically take a conservative posture, foundations can focus quite narrowly on a problem and inquire into radical solutions without direct constraints” (page 121). Even the Helmsley estate has exercised discretion to support medical research and human services, rather than giving all of its $137 million of grant funds to just benefit animal welfare.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is one of a dozen foundations featured in Chapter 6. Although RWJF is a national foundation, the book praises RWJF for its willingness to invest in policy networks at the local and state levels, where the potential to achieve policy change is greater than at the federal level. NCRP’s research on the impacts of advocacy, organizing and civic engagement has turned up a great example of what this approach looks like on the ground—and the impact it can achieve.

On May 11, NCRP will release its second report in a series, Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: The Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina. The first report focused on New Mexico. The North Carolina report features the advocacy and organizing impacts of 13 local and state organizations. One of these is Senior PharmAssist, which helps senior citizens obtain affordable medications and manage those medications. Advocacy has become a central part of the organization’s mission, especially since Medicare Part D was implemented. According to Senior PharmAssist’s executive director, Gina Upchurch, a leadership grant from RWJF provided the springboard to coordinated action. Upchurch used the grant to convene a broad range of stakeholders in 2006 to discuss Medicare reform and how it was affecting seniors’ access to medications in North Carolina. The stakeholders decided to create Advocates for a North Carolina Prescription Drug Assistance Program. To date the coalition has successfully advocated for:

- Creation of NCRx, which provides state funding of $6 million for Medicare D monthly premium assistance to more than 5,000 lower-income seniors.
- Creation of ChecKmeds, a pharmaceutical reimbursement program for medication therapy management services that has benefited more than 17,000 seniors, with state funding of $2 million.
- State appropriation of $250,000 for the Seniors’ Health Insurance Information Program (SHIIP) community-based outreach grants to connect 15,000 eligible seniors to services such as NCRx and Medicare D subsidies.

The advocates continue to push for expansion of NCRx to cover low-wealth disabled residents and to raise the eligibility level above 175 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. Upchurch neatly summarized the value of stakeholders coming together: “As a coalition we have power. Elected officials can’t easily dismiss or try to heavily influence the coalition’s focus – because we’re all in this together and have a process for making decisions.”

RWJF has certainly seen some bang for its buck with its modest investment in Senior PharmAssist. To learn about other impressive foundation-funded nonprofit advocacy and organizing impacts in North Carolina, look for the report on May 11th – when a copy can be downloaded for free at http://www.ncrp.org/. The policy impacts in the report were achieved by nonprofits of all sizes and collectively funded by local, state and national grantmakers. Even small, local foundations can affect policy in their community by leveraging their “dollars, knowledge, and networks.”

Lisa Ranghelli is senior research associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). She is the author of the report Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in New Mexico.