Finding Their Voice
Grant makers seek new ways to share stories
By Marty Michaels
Chronicle of Philanthropy
May 1, 2008 Issue
Jonathan Fanton has solved a conundrum that plagues many nonprofit leaders: He's found
a way to be in many places at the same time. While he leads the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation, in Chicago, he also runs meetings in Second Life, the online
world. As Jonathan MacFound, his "avatar," or digital character, he has led discussions
on topics such as civil liberties and the role that grant makers can play in using virtual
interaction to promote social change.
While many consider virtual worlds "play," the foundation is serious about exploring
their potential for engaging young adults and educating people about philanthropy and
the work of the foundation and its grantees. For example, last June MacArthur made a
$550,000 grant to the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy to
help it promote virtual conversations about education, human rights, migration, and other
topics — and about how foundations can remedy social problems.
While the MacArthur foundation's presence in Second Life is a cutting-edge
communications tool, it is just one of many increasingly sophisticated techniques that
grant makers are using to reach people who do not know much about them. At the same
time, many foundations are rethinking their communications departments, hiring
professionals from large public-relations firms and people with experience in interactive
technologies — often referred to as Web 2.0 — that the grant makers hope will lend
themselves to discussions that far outstrip anything a traditional annual report can
provoke. Many of the larger foundations say that they want to encourage honest, two-way
communication about both successes and failures, and that doing so can only lend more
credibility to their efforts.
Among the approaches:
• Last June, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation hired Heidi Sinclair, chief
executive of Burson-Marsteller Europe, to be its chief communications officer, a
new position. And when the foundation's new headquarters opens in late 2010 or
early 2011 on prime real estate across from the Space Needle in downtown
Seattle, the facility will include a 15,000-square-foot visitors' center with displays
that will describe the foundation's global work.
• In March the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, in Miami, named Marc
Fest, founder of QuickBrowse.com, as its new vice president of communications.
(QuickBrowse is a Web service that enables Internet users to combine frequently
viewed Web pages into a single page.) The foundation has also hired its first
"online-community manager."
In addition, the fund created a short video advertising its 2008 Knight News
Challenge — which in mid-May will award up to $5-million to 17 projects that
seek to use blogs and other digital efforts to unite residents of cities and towns in
ways that local newspapers traditionally have done. The video about the
competition was translated into 11 languages and broadcast by MTV and
YouTube around the world, doubling to 3,000 the number of applications it had
received in the 2007 competition.
• The John Templeton Foundation, in West Conshohocken, Pa., has given $10-
million to start the Philanthropy Project, which will produce a $5-million film and
use other visual media to tell positive stories about the work that foundations do.
Templeton has hired Michael Guillen, who served as chief science correspondent
at ABC News for 14 years, to head the project, which will be based in Los
Angeles.
Scrutiny and Mystery
Foundations' efforts to be more strategic and expansive in their communications efforts
are in part a response to the relative ease of using online approaches, but also a sign that
grant makers face increased scrutiny and demands for accountability from lawmakers, the
news media, and the public.
Moreover, many experts say, most people don't have the foggiest notion what
foundations are or what social purpose they serve; consequently, many grant makers feel
the need to get the word out about their missions. Only 11 percent of Americans could
correctly name one foundation, according to a 2003 study commissioned by the Council
on Foundations and conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide. And while that figure has
probably risen because of news reports on the Gates foundation, many say that public
awareness remains low.
"There's an increasing recognition that for too long too many foundations have operated
in the dark," says Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of the Communications
Network, in New York, a group that represents public-relations officials at foundations.
"There's just a general lack of understanding about what foundations do, so it puts the
pressure on everybody to be much more transparent."
The network has grown accordingly, says Mr. Trachtenberg, from approximately 75
members in mid-2006 to nearly 250 at present, and has a Facebook page, with 150
"friends," that it uses to inform its constituents.
Joel L. Fleishman, professor of public-policy studies and law at Duke University, says
new technologies "are the driver of the process."
"As a few foundations start taking the initiative, other foundations will suddenly see that
it doesn't cause fire and brimstone to rain on their heads if they admit what everybody
already knows, which is that they're not perfect," says Mr. Fleishman. "And the fact that
there are technologies evolving in such rapid ways, ways in which you can create better
Web sites and more ways of interacting, is adding fuel to the fire."
While many grant seekers have long pressed foundations to do a better job of
communicating, some charity leaders say the efforts are not all focused on the right
things. For example, some grant seekers say they want to see more-timely information
about grants that have been awarded. And many worry that the spending on
communications will reduce the overall amount of money available to nonprofit groups.
Says Aaron Dorfman, executive director of the National Committee for Responsive
Philanthropy, in Washington: "One could question whether dollars are best spent on
communications or on giving out more money in grants, and I'd argue that most grantees
would rather see more funding."
'Dream List'
Many foundations nationwide are using an array of multimedia technologies to tell their
stories and those of their grantees, as well as to illuminate public-policy issues. Some are
using low-key approaches, such as e-mail or relatively simple Web sites, but many hope
to expand their efforts soon.
For instance, Josie Burke, director of communications at the El Pomar Foundation, in
Colorado Springs, joined the foundation last May as its first full-time communications
staff member. She's working to overhaul the foundation's Web site, concocting a "dream
list" of features by perusing other foundations' sites. And in another relatively low-tech
move, Ms. Burke hopes to follow the lead of the Daniels Fund, in Denver, which
persuaded local television and radio stations to broadcast segments about the work of
grant recipients on a regular basis.
Gara LaMarche, president of the Atlantic Philanthropies, also relies mainly on modest
means to communicate with the public, writing a biweekly column that is sent by e-mail
to more than 2,000 people. Recent topics have included integrated education for Catholic
and Protestant students in Northern Ireland, efforts to abolish the death penalty in Texas,
and public-health programs to curb bicycle-related injuries and deaths in Vietnam. The
issues are disparate, but all relate to Atlantic grantees and its mission.
Mr. LaMarche says he receives approximately 50 responses to each column. "Right now,
I respond to people who e-mail me, but it's just between the two of us. It's not a public
exchange, but we're working to make it more interactive."
At the Council of Michigan Foundations, Vicki Rosenberg strives to keep her 400
member foundations thinking about how best to harness different technologies to achieve
their goals. The council's membership comprises such large grant makers as the W.K.
Kellogg Foundation, which is conducting a search for a new-media manager who will
help the foundation use Web 2.0 approaches, including video streaming, RSS feeds, and
social-networking systems.
But Ms. Rosenberg, who serves as vice president for education, communications, and
external relations, says that isn't the norm: "Most of our members don't have a
professional communications person on their staff. They're doing it on their own or
they're doing the minimum — putting out an annual report."
The council first introduced extensive programs on strategic communications four years
ago at its annual conference, which attracts about 700 people, and last summer created
the only state affiliate of the Communications Network. In June, it will hold a course
presented by Andy Goodman, author of Why Bad Ads Happen to Good Causes, that will
explore how foundations can take a Web 2.0 approach.
"With the Web universe being so incredibly full," says Ms. Rosenberg, "you have to
understand your audience, what message you're trying to communicate, and how best to
do that — and as more and more people look to the Web and to connect, there's an
explosive growth in the competition for people's minds and energy."
'A Conversation'
The Knight foundation has also embraced Web 2.0 technologies. Says Alberto Ibarg
