The COVID-19 emergency has faced private funders with an enormous opportunity for change. A week ago, I wrote about how groups of private funders are coming together to create and commit to pledges for a more responsive relationship with their grantees and communities. Four funder associations in Canada have now come up with a strong collective pledge of action that sets out five guiding principles for foundation strategies during and after the emergency period.
Canadian foundations are being urged to act quickly, flexibly and generously to meet the needs of their grantees and the community at large. This is consistent with the voices across the community sector that are appealing for a commitment from their funders to continue their grants, to lift any conditions on them and to put faith in their grantees to use the funds as necessary. Funders are also being asked to increase their overall funding and to direct it to the emergency as it grows.
The demand for funds will certainly exceed what any one funder can supply, even if foundations take more from their endowments as they are being urged to do. How do you know where to target your limited funds most effectively? It seems obvious but the best thing to do is to ask them. The always thoughtful Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy in a series of three recent blogs has suggested that funders must reach out across their entire population of grantees, to quickly identify those in the most precarious positions — and then target their near-term resources to those organizations accordingly. CEP suggests a quick survey of grantees to ask them: how have your operations been disrupted? What do you need most from us? What are you in danger of having to stop or abandon as the crisis continues? A proactive reach out to grantees (unless you have hundreds of them) should be a relatively simple thing to do.
But there is more to think about than maintaining support and communication with grantees, although that comes first. As I read through the commentaries that are coming fast now from observers of philanthropy, I notice how the crisis is sharpening the prevailing debate about the role of private philanthropy in society. Should foundations dedicate all their resources to address social injustice, to advocate for the least advantaged, to change underlying and systemic conditions? Or are they unable to do so because they are part of the very power structure that creates injustice? Does their commitment to the perpetual endowment model prevent them from acting effectively, with enough of their resources, on the here and now? Some even within the foundation community are critical of the response to the crisis so far, suggesting that it reveals, as it does in so many ways, the inability of foundations to react effectively.
I don’t believe this is true. We have not yet seen what Canadian foundations can and will do. It is encouraging that the fourth and fifth principles of the joint funder association statement address head on the question of social justice. The statement suggests taking action for equity now in the emergency and in the long term.
In the now: “Support and amplify community-based organizations so that their needs are heard and met. This is particularly true for equity-seeking groups.”
In the longer-term: “Invest time and energy to notice, make visible and share with others new ways and norms of approaching our work that result in deep change and can be scaled up toward equity and justice in the months and years to come.”
Actions are the ways in which we make credible our words. So what to do?
Does the COVID 19 pandemic offer an opportunity for change in Canadian philanthropy? And if so, what and how? It’s much too soon to tell, probably. But it’s interesting to note the observations made in the last week by U.S foundations that this is the time for radical response. It’s not too soon to say that the shutdown of our society and economy by the pandemic will lead to major shifts in the non-profit sector, certainly in the short to medium term. There will be a need to rethink financing structures, work practices, collaborations etc. This forces a response not only for the next two months but probably for the next year and beyond.
Seizing the opportunity, the Ford Foundation and the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project of which Ford is a sponsor proposed a “pledge of action” for changed practices among foundations. This pledge commits foundations to 8 principles for funding and relationships with community partners and grantees:
Remarkably, this pledge has now been signed by over 200 foundations (and counting). It’s a stunning example of collective response from the foundation sector. Funders can provide desperately needed funds…and do so much more!
(By the way I would add a 9th principle: Commit new funding to the umbrella and intermediary organizations that help to lift up the collective voices of the sector at national and regional and local levels.)
What is fascinating about this is to see the rapid mobilization of American funders around a set of practices that funder organizations such as Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, individual foundations such as Ford, observers such as Vu Le, centres such as the Centre for Effective Philanthropy and collective projects such as the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project have been advocating for a few years. This is the reply both to the growing critique of elitist foundation practices and to the increasing realization of the effectiveness of diversity, inclusion and participation practices. So this may be the spur to fundamental change in philanthropic practice across a wide group of American funders. This is certainly what Ford (which led the way with its BUILD program) and others are hoping now. Note the 8th principle
“Learn from these emergency practices and share what they teach us about effective partnership and philanthropic support, so we may consider adjusting our practices more fundamentally in the future, in more stable times, based on all we learn.”
It takes a crisis to create a turning point. Is this a turning point for Canadian funders as well?
What stops us from creating (or adapting) and signing a similar pledge? What stops us from considering how to act collectively not only to support short term emergency response to community need but also to re-evaluate practices for the long term? Philanthropic Foundations Canada is informing Canadian funders about COVID 19 responses through a new weekly digest. It could work with Community Foundations of Canada and other funder groups to move us towards a reconsideration of giving practices during and perhaps after the pandemic.
Meanwhile we are seeing some creative examples of collective response to the pandemic. The National Center for Family Philanthropy in the US is offering an interactive map and continually growing list of resources for funders re COVID 19. We can do this for Canada! Here are just a few funds and resources already available for Canadian funders:
Locally
National and Issue-Based
International (for Canadian funders)
Charity Village is putting together a list of umbrella and intermediary groups working on COVID 19 response for the charitable sector as a whole.
“The path forward is to realize that we do have power, even in the face of something that makes us feel incredibly small, and that it lies where it always has—in remembering that we are in this thing together and in finding ways to embrace our collective responsibility and accountability to each other.” – Grant Oliphant, Heinz Endowments.
We are in this together. This is the key message of what is happening in this pandemic. Governments and public health experts are asking us to do what is necessary for us all not just for each of us. This is a remarkable time. People are realizing in very specific ways how important their actions are to the welfare of others. Most who work in the charitable or community sector think about this in their daily work. But it isn’t front and centre in the public awareness. So it’s a shock when we are all confronted at the same time with the need to behave for the public, not the private, good. We are in this together…..and we are called on to give up something for others. Freedom of movement, social gathering, collective enjoyment. It’s mind-bending but necessary.
More than this, philanthropy is called on to do what is necessary, what must be done for the public good. As my colleague Krystian Seibert in Australia has noted, this is the time for philanthropy to be at its best. This is scary. And for foundations especially as the stock markets wipe out enormous value in endowments, it is very scary. This is as challenging as in 2008. Perhaps more. But just as we were summoned in 2009 to step up and commit to community partners, not to reduce funding commitments but to maintain and even increase them, we are called on again to step up. And we have so many tools and supports today that we did not have even in 2009.
“Maintaining community lifelines and safety nets are one of the most important contributions of the philanthropic community”. This is from an excellent webinar on the pandemic and how philanthropy can respond , from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. The CDP offers great resources to help foundations think through their strategies in this unprecedented situation.
Foundation leaders are also giving us some moral direction as they step up their leadership. Comments from the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the McConnell Foundation, the Hallman Foundation, the Lawson Foundation tell us: What must philanthropy do in this crisis?
This last point is so crucial. Infrastructure strengthens the organizations that weaken in the face of this terrible barrage by providing information, creating connections, advocating and lobbying. Imagine Canada, the Ontario Nonprofit Network and others are doing everything they can to keep the sector informed and to remind governments that sector organizations need extraordinary support to get through this crisis, just as small businesses and individuals do. They need help to do this work.
The financial and economic consequences of this crisis will fall heavily on the charitable sector. Foundations must be there to help for months and maybe years to come. We got through 2008-2009 together. We can get through this together too. But with courage and commitment. We must not flinch or fail. We are accountable to each other.
I was intrigued by a recent Twitter thread from Rhodri Davies, Head of Policy at Charities Aid Foundation(CAF) in the United Kingdom and leader of CAF’s think tank, Giving Thought. Rhodri is a thoughtful and experienced observer of philanthropy and the big questions that foundations face as social actors. In his thread, @Rhodri_H_Davies notes that he is trying to tie together various strands of current critiques of plutocratic philanthropy in the 21st Century and possible responses to those critiques. He came up with an acronym RECODE, to set out six criteria for “good” philanthropy: a philanthropy that counters the critique suggesting that it is only the sphere of an elitist group of plutocrats trying to whitewash their wealth through an arrogant deployment of philanthropic resources for their own benefit. The acronym stands for: R, risk-taking, E, enough (scale), C, contextualised, O, open, D, democratic, and E, environmental (urgency of climate change).
Rhodri invited comment on RECODE from observers and practitioners of philanthropy. He acknowledges that no one example of philanthropy needs to meet all six criteria. But these do provide some guidance to what one should be considering if one was a philanthropist of any scale, interested in being effective rather than merely self-interested. So, I gave this some thought in a Canadian context. I agree that these responses to philanthropy’s critique would apply in a Canadian philanthropic context, even without the prominence of plutocrats that we see in the US. But I wonder if we need to reflect more on the question of power in philanthropy: who has it? Can it be shared? Does it need to be deliberately addressed for philanthropy to have as much impact as it should? Using this lens, and staying with RECODE as an acronym, I propose that E could stand for empowering (partners and grantees) to address power imbalances, and C could stand for collaborative, or taking a power-sharing approach to working together.
Taking this speculative thinking further, the more compelling acronym instead of RECODE but something much simpler and more direct: REAL. REAL takes into account the power imbalance between funder and grantee and tries to mitigate it. R for Resource, or ensuring that any initiative is resourced enough, in as open-ended a way as possible, without unnecessary conditions; E for Empower, or enabling community partners to have greater agency and voice; A for Adapt, or focusing all philanthropic efforts on the critical need for adaptation to the transition that our world faces away from unsustainable growth based on carbon; and L for Listen, or for keeping an ear open constantly to the views and voices of communities.
Does this line of speculation resonate? Would you have a different acronym to suggest?
A note about E for Environmental:
Philanthropy needs to get REAL these days about the urgency of the disruption and need for adaptation posed by climate change. Rhodri Davies is right in suggesting this as his final “E” in RECODE. As an eminent Canadian such as Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, now UN Special Envoy on Climate Change and Climate Finance, has noted: “A question for every company, every financial institution, every asset manager, pension fund or insurer: what’s your plan?” I would add that this is a question for every foundation or philanthropic organization in the face of climate crisis: what’s your plan for contributing to net-zero (carbon) by 2050?
As an environmental funder (and maybe all foundations should be today, at least in part) you can: fund work to promote policies or to contribute directly to preservation of natural carbon sinks such as forests, oceans, and sustainable agricultural lands; commit to building resilience in communities facing the consequences of climate change; work on strategies to manage the stresses on food, water and housing that will inevitably occur. Even if your work doesn’t have an environmental focus, as foundation you will be faced in this decade by the disruptions caused by climate change to communities, jobs, and most aspects of life. What can you do as a funder to face and ease the transition? As Carney and others repeat: transition, transition, transition. This is the word that will resonate most in the years of this decade. And it is the word that philanthropy must grapple with, in a REAL way.
Philanthropy is always about generosity. But should it and must it also be about justice? This is the question asked by Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, in his book From Generosity To Justice (2019). Walker was inspired to write this thoughtful book (and create an online forum) by his reflections on Andrew Carnegie’s The Gospel of Wealth. But he also notes the provocation of Anand Ghiridaradas’s comment that “generosity is not a substitute for justice”. Ghiridaradas challenges the philanthropy of the wealthy as the use of generosity to obscure one’s complicity in injustice. Walker counters that it’s a continuum rather than a binary contrast between generosity and justice. The challenge he poses to himself and to all philanthropists is framed in this way: “if there’s a continuum between generosity and justice, how do we all push our work closer to the latter?”
I had two main reflections on this question, as I finished Walker’s book. First, how does one define justice? It’s not simply the opposite of injustice. Walker defines pushing towards justice broadly as the goal of changing inequality, or addressing and changing “systemic issues, not just their symptoms”. He talks about working towards “transforming our economy, our society and our government into structures that work for more people and create equal opportunity for all….in other words…. sustainable, structural change to benefit entire communities”. This is aspirational and challenging. It’s an important goal that should galvanize foundations to reconsider their approaches and practices.
But before moving to Walker’s suggested actions, should we pause and consider more deeply? What kind of inequality are we talking about? What are the causes of inequality? And how does one achieve consensus on changing inequality? In a fascinating recent discussion of this topic in the New Yorker, Joshua Rothman writes that the concept of equality is a blurry one. While many agree that we live in an unequal society, we don’t agree on how to resolve it. “We’ve diagnosed the disease. Why can’t we agree on a cure?” Rothman discusses the views of philosophers and economists who have attempted it but as he notes, there are many different ways of achieving equality (or greater justice): equality of resources, equality of access, procedural equality, representational equality. People can be equal and unequal at the same time. We are all members of the human race, and therefore we are all fundamentally or “deeply” equal, even if we have unequal allotments of talent, beauty or luck. Yet how should society address these unequal allotments? Through the provision of safety nets? Through leveling the playing field? Rothman quotes the philosopher Elizabeth Anderson who calls this “luck egalitarianism”. But who decides whether one suffers from bad luck or from poor choices? And what if this approach is condescending to those who suffer from either? How do we know what justice we seek?
Rothman captures the multifaceted definition of justice demonstrated in a 2006 book, Elements of Justice, by philosopher David Schmidtz. “It’s easy to imagine justice as a unitary thing—a single, imposing building, a Supreme Court. But it’s more like a collection of buildings, each with its own function. In the neighbourhood of justice, Schmidtz identifies four structures: equality, desert, reciprocity, and need. We consult these in different contexts, to solve different kinds of problems….in real life, we amble around the neighbourhood of justice.” For example, on a team, players are treated equally as part of a common enterprise, deployed according to talent (their desert), coached according to their differing needs, and helped by each other reciprocally. Justice is served, in many ways.
This brings an important further nuance to Walker’s discussion of how philanthropy can move on the continuum from generosity to justice, it’s not just about justice in the abstract but justice in the specific and in context.
My second reflection is about how Walker suggests that we move away from the comfortable (generosity) to the uncomfortable (justice). Walker is responding, as the Ford Foundation under his leadership has responded, to the inequalities that shape relationships between donors and grantees. Walker is clear about what must be done to change the internal systems and practices of foundations: Question your privilege. Question your ignorance and your bias. Question your ego. In each case, he is asking us to push harder to challenge our ways of seeing. He points out that we all have privilege to some degree, be it birth, gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, family, physical ability, family, education or income. Privileges can intersect, compound or in fact take away from each other. It is important to be aware and to work on feeling gratitude rather than entitlement. For those with no lived experience of an issue, and who may be ignorant or biased because of their ignorance, the solution is to go and see….be with others and listen to them. Questioning one’s ego also means decentering a personal or institutional agenda. No one has the best solution, the only silver bullet to solve a problem. So, bring more diverse points of view to your decision-making, listen and learn, engage your senses by practicing proximity, turn your senses into insights by extending empathy.
All important and valuable suggestions, which Walker expands on at length in his book. Walker is a leader in the legacy foundation world of larger American foundations, and he has acted on his prescriptions. And others are also providing reflections and resources on how to reimagine the funder-grantee relationship along these lines. See the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project. Recent guides from PFC on gender and diversity, equity and inclusion are providing great Canadian models.
My second reflection is more sobering. Looking at the current landscape, and the growing popular cynicism and lack of trust in institutions, it could well be that foundations are accused of doing too little too late in “checking their privilege”. And foundations in both the United States and Canada can be criticized for their risk aversion and their reluctance to act more directly either as advocates or as funders of social movements focused on changing systems. Neutral or evidence-based solutions to problems of inequality won’t be enough. As David Callahan said two years ago, “many foundations seemed trapped in a dated mindset about how change happens and how to have impact. They haven’t wrapped their heads around key realities of our age, like the fall of public trust in institutions and elites, and rising polarization and populism. In this environment, expertise just doesn’t seem to matter all that much. What’s moving change right now are social movements, ideology and tribal loyalties.” What can foundations do to invest more in these movements, build platforms to counter “fake news” and support the institutions and networks that promote the democracy of ideas and policies for greater justice? Walker exhorts us to have courage. And to speak up. The forum he has created features many philanthropic voices. Let’s hear from more Canadian voices too.
This month the BBC hosted a thoughtful panel conversation on the topic Does Philanthropy Work? The question posed to the panel was “Should the rich give more of their money to the state instead of to charitable foundations?” This is a perennial question. Is it more effective, more democratic, more equitable, to tax the wealthy and redistribute to the public through government? Or should the wealthy be given tax incentives to create public benefit through private philanthropy? Can philanthropy really work as well as the state to create public benefit?
On the face of it, the answer is that the state is the most democratic mechanism for assuring public benefit. But we have all seen instances where state action alone does not lead to less inequality, or fairer access to services or more efficient distribution of resources. For most governments, the tolerance for innovation and its risks is low. Government is rarely able to innovate or change a system without external catalysts or models. This suggests, as did one of the BBC panelists, Melissa Berman of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, that the answer to the question “either the state OR philanthropy”, is: ”yes AND…”
What does “yes AND” mean?
Yes, the state (government) is inarguably more democratic, at least in theory, in its distribution of public benefits. And….philanthropy can play a role in holding the state accountable, in supporting and convening the unrepresented or those whose voices are not heard.
Yes, government has inarguably more scope to deliver services on a broad scale and with resources that far outweigh private resources. And….philanthropy can act to close gaps and to assure access to services for those who are marginalized.
Yes, government can work across a whole social system. And…philanthropy can fund innovation and adaptation that can lead to greater impact at scale.
All of this assumes that private philanthropy accepts responsibility for its own effectiveness, accountability and engagement with those who are typically not represented in elite decision-making. The answer “yes and…” works only if private donors are mindful of the fundamental questions of social justice that the state must also confront. As one of the BBC panelists said, philanthropy is at its best when it is not simply about generosity but about justice.
Yet doesn’t private philanthropy arise from the rewards of an unequal system? How can philanthropy challenge an unjust system that has created it? While there is some truth to this, private philanthropy has demonstrated its capacity and will to address inequality or challenge systemic biases. It takes risk, rigour, and resources committed for the long-term. It’s challenging…but not impossible. To quote Rip Rapson, CEO of the Kresge Foundation in Detroit, some of the most valuable work that private philanthropy can do is to deconstruct social problems and put them back together in a different way that shows communities and governments the way to move forward. .
A view from India
I have observed examples in Canada and the United States of private philanthropy at work, taking on risk, committing resources and applying rigour to address injustice. But it’s not only in North America that we see this in action. Some of the most ambitious private philanthropies in the world are working at scale in India to deconstruct problems and build new models. On a recent trip to Delhi and Mumbai, I met with four private foundations, established by business leaders, entrepreneurs or corporate leaders who have created great wealth through their business activities. These foundations are tackling the issue of the quality of education with imagination and problem-solving energy, identifying it as one of the most important levers of societal change.
Many of India’s children attend public schools that are under resourced and struggling with teacher quality. Foundational learning for children under the age of ten (e.g. reading with meaning at an early age) is lagging. Girls students are more often left behind. Rural children are particularly disadvantaged. In a population and economy such as India, these challenges are staggering. Would the quality and accessibility of education for the population of the world’s largest democracy be improving, if not for private philanthropy?
Azim Premji Foundation, created by IT billionaire Azim Premji in 2001, is one of India’s largest philanthropic organizations. Azim Premji is one of the most generous givers in the world, numbering among the top five global philanthropists. His Foundation believes that a strong public education system is central to democracy and equity cannot be served by a stratified system. The Foundation works directly with public schools in rural areas of states across India to improve teacher training and school leadership.
Central Square Foundation, created in 2012 by Ashish Dhawan, a private equity investor and philanthropist, wants to ensure quality school education for all children in India. It focuses on evidence- driven and innovation- led system reform in school education, and in particular aims to ensure that all children attain foundational learning in the early years.
Similarly, the K.C. Mahindra Education Trust, created in 1953 by one of India’s leading industrialists, focuses on transforming society through education, especially for those left out and left behind. Among its many initiatives is Project Nanhi Kali, supporting economically and socially disadvantaged girls to complete ten years of education. The project takes a systems approach, working with girls, families and communities to create “girl-friendly ecosystems in tribal, rural and urban poor areas across India”.
The Edelgive Foundation, created in 2008 by the Edelweiss Group, has focused on education as a fundamental right that contributes immeasurably to the realisation of all others. Edelgive has two other portfolio areas: livelihoods and women’s empowerment. Edelgive uses a partnership approach, working closely with collaborators, influencers, NGOs and governments. They are also committed to building more effective platforms and nurturing the capacity of NGO partners.
These leading Indian foundations are committed to constructing new models and approaches, using evidence, measurement, experimentation and demonstration. They are not replacing government but working alongside it, taking well-planned risks and working with community and public sector partners for the long term on the leverage points that will transform public education. No doubt there are opportunities to do better, certainly to listen more closely and to display more humility and empathy. Yet one has to conclude that this philanthropy works.
January is a useful month for setting challenges, both for people and for organizations. Your new challenge may be one; it may be several. It may be an extension of a previous strategy or it may be a new stretch. Regardless, the exercise of reflecting on a challenge for the year ahead is useful because it inevitably raises questions of what matters, and where to have impact.
I suggest that there are three challenges where Canadian foundations could have significant impact in 2020. A foundation can choose to be active in one or more. All three, in my opinion, raise issues that matter, and all are ripe for more foundation funding. All matter greatly to our future.
The first challenge is digital media and democracy. What role can philanthropy play in promoting a more informed citizenry or providing a platform for unheard voices through digital media? Back in 2013, US-based observers suggested that “if a requirement of democracy is that all citizens have an equal opportunity to make their voices heard, then we must find ways to help that happen. A longstanding argument on the role of civil society is that it should do two related but somewhat opposite things: 1) serve as a means for bringing forward new ideas that with the support of the majority are put forward into government, and 2) serve as a place to support the ideas and interests of multiple minorities. Philanthropic organizations thus serve as a pipeline into democratic engagement, and as an incubator and home for ideas and communities that are still emerging or may not have found awareness or favor with the voting majority.”
How can Canadian foundations engage in this challenge? Some already are, through support for so-called “philanthro-journalism” initiatives. The Atkinson Foundation has led the way, supporting beat reporters in traditional media and supporting the Public Policy Forum’s “Shattered Mirror” series on the long-term implications of shifts in digital technology, news and politics. The challenge for 2020 is how to confront the deluge of misinformation in the digital public square. Digital news platforms are upending media business models. How to regulate and manage these new digital media platforms in ways that support informed citizens and better policy? Some US foundations such as Knight are launching major granting programs to better understand technology, media and democracy. The McConnell and Rossy Foundations are supporting a digital democracy project at McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. Might we see more of this being done in Canada in 2020?
The second challenge is building nonprofit leadership capacity, particularly leadership from the millennial generation. How can Canadian philanthropy support the development of leaders from this rising generation of people in their 30s today? The first millennials will be turning 40 in 2021. Are they ready to take on leadership positions in the Canadian nonprofit sector? This generation of leaders will be the one to confront head on the impact of huge and complex challenges such as climate change. And this generation is also more focused on equity, inclusion and different ways of working. What do they need to build their skills? In 2020, we will see many leaders of the Baby Boom generation retiring from nonprofit positions. Who will replace them?
Some corporate foundations in Canada are paying close attention to helping youth prepare for the workplace. RBC Future Launch and PwC Canada Young People Project are providing philanthropic support to mentoring, coaching, skills acquisition and work experience opportunities for young people. Among private foundations, the Counselling Foundation of Canada provides extensive support to youth planning their careers through its grants and through CERIC, its connected charity that advances career development and education. There are other examples of foundations focusing on youth and their skills development needs. But what about developing nonprofit leaders themselves in mid-career? Taking a sectoral approach, the Rozsa Foundation through its Arts Leadership Programs invests to strengthen business acumen and organizational resilience within arts organizations. The Foundation’s targeted assistance to leaders at all stages of their careers in arts organizations means that the Alberta arts sector has a deep pool of leaders to draw from. No reason why this approach could not be considered for other parts of the nonprofit sector. And a small philanthropic investment such as this has very long-lasting impact.
A third challenge is building nonprofit sector infrastructure. I would argue that this challenge is connected to the other two. This is about supporting the development of evidence for better public information and policy and supporting leadership for the sector as a whole. Specifically, it means investing in data systems, policy analysis and leadership of nonprofit intermediary organizations. Elsewhere, I have argued for more foundation support for those organizations such as the regional nonprofit networks or Imagine Canada that provide collective action on rules and standards, gather intelligence, mobilize knowledge, and advocate with policy-makers. Relatively few private foundations in Canada have chosen to do this as a primary goal. The Muttart Foundation and the Lawson Foundation are both examples of philanthropy that recognizes the value of strengthening the philanthropic and charitable sectors. Other foundations work to support infrastructure within their areas of interest such as environment. But there is still a major gap. These organizations and platforms are fragile. Small investments bring big dividends, especially if the investment is made in capable leadership.
So these are three suggestions for challenging your philanthropy in 2020. Even if your strategies as a foundation are more issue or community specific, it may be valuable to view your strategies through these three lenses. Does your foundation’s work also contribute in some way to change for the better in informed citizens, capable young leaders, or a stronger nonprofit sector in Canada overall?
In the first two pieces in this series on funders and public policy, I made the case for why funders should engage in public policy development, and I offered some examples of how Canadian funders are active. In this third blog, I argue for more foundation investment in developing public policy capacity for the Canadian charitable sector as a whole.
The sector, it has been said many times, is very diverse in size and type of organization, areas of focus and resources. Does this mean the sector has no universal public policy framework? No. There is one important framework, the one that comes with charitable status. From a public policy perspective, the charitable sector has one important framework: its relationship to the federal regulator, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). Every charity has to understand the framework created by the rules and regulations of the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This is clearly defined and widely shared across the sector. But there are other policy areas defined by needs that are shared: data, capital (financial and human) and technology. Governments at federal and provincial levels understand that it is important to set policy frameworks for the business sector around data collection and dissemination, access to financial capital, policies for employment and conditions of work, and digital technology infrastructure. What about the nonprofit sector?
What do we do to ensure that our sector’s needs for capital, data and technology are recognized in public policy frameworks? The sector must have intermediary or umbrella organizations that can act on its behalf: to provide collective action on rules and standards, to conduct research and act as thought leaders in policy development, to provide training and education in policy work, to gather intelligence and mobilize knowledge, and to advocate with policy-makers for policy changes and improvements.
In the absence of these kinds of organizations, the sector handicaps itself. Public policy doesn’t exist or does not develop in timely and relevant ways. Needs aren’t identified and sector organizations are not collectively mobilized.
The good news is that we do have some of these organizations in Canada. At national level, we have Imagine Canada. And across the country we have more provincial intermediaries focused on the policy needs of the charitable and non-profit sector, such as the Ontario Nonprofit Network, Pillar Nonprofit Network, Community Sector Councils in Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador, and the nascent Alberta Nonprofit Network.
These network organizations are funded by some leading charitable foundations that have decided to invest in this sector capacity: Lawson Foundation, Muttart Foundation, the Atkinson Foundation, the Max Bell Foundation, RBC and Suncor Energy Foundations. The McConnell Foundation has been a long-time supporter of sector intermediaries such as Imagine. Other foundations choose to develop policy capacity and collective learning by providing funding for individual leaders or organizations. The Metcalf Foundation’s Leading and Learning Program is an example. Two foundations have made a long-term investment in training individuals for public policy work: Max Bell and Maytree both run Public Policy Training Institutes for nonprofit leaders. And some of these foundations also invested in the research on sector policy issues conducted by the Mowat Centre NFP.
There is no doubt that this funding of intermediaries and networks has a leveraging effect. Funding the web of support strengthens the sector as a whole. Given this, it is surprising that there aren’t more charitable funders making a choice to build this infrastructure. The return on investment is clear. As this series of blogs has suggested, there is a compelling case for more charitable funder engagement in public policy. Perhaps we will begin to see this rise in the coming decade as we turn the corner into the 2020s.
Reminder: You can find a description of strategies, information about the rules, and stories about the practice of Canadian funders engaging in public policy in the 2019 guide Funders Making Change: Engaging in Public Policy.
How do you work, as a philanthropic funder, with the “other”? The “other” can be someone you don’t know, or who you don’t agree with, or who responds to different expectations, drivers or accountabilities. Is it possible? Is it necessary? And is it worthwhile? At the recent PFC symposium in Calgary, Alberta, foundations explored these questions around the theme of Working Across Boundaries.
Funders have a motive for exploring cross boundary work right now. Canada and the world are facing issues that are both urgent to solve and complex in nature. And there isn’t wide agreement on solutions, far from it. Faced with this complexity and polarization, funders can see that taking an individual perspective or approach isn’t going to get them far. When no one has the answer, many must put their heads together. As Allyson Hewitt of MaRS moderator of the very articulate opening panel at the conference, said succinctly:” we all bring something to the table.”
What did we learn in Calgary about working across boundaries? I heard many thoughtful conversations about what it takes. Allyson Hewitt and James Stauch of Mount Royal University powerfully set the frame and summed up the insights in their opening and closing comments. Reflecting on their comments, I found myself returning to four connected and key ideas about cross-boundary collaboration for funders: time, flexibility, trust and courage.
Time is important, and more is always needed, if only for all to get to agreement on the problem that is being worked on (as Allyson remarked, sometimes at the beginning you can only get to agreement on the basics: “yes the carpet is a carpet”. When you meet the “other”, it takes time to understand their realities. Many things are not what you expect. Taking time to understand is a necessary preliminary to action, and is action in itself.
Flexibility is often what you don’t have as a funder in a collaboration. The accountabilities and expectations of other players can be rigid (think of a private foundation working with a large corporation or a government department). And the regulatory environment for Canadian charities is a less than flexible constraint, not an enabler, when it comes to working across sectors. CRA regulations can dampen or prevent collaborative work between charities and non-charities. CRA guidelines and opinions don’t demonstrate a flexibility based on risk assessment or previous record. And this can impede good and necessary work. But conversely, private funders can be more flexible than other players and can use that flexibility for innovation and creativity in the work. They can also accept more ambiguity, which may be important when the outcomes are uncertain.
Trust is certainly basic to good collaboration. It is fundamental to establishing the relationships that allow collaborations to flourish and collaborators to “work a problem” together. Trust of course takes time. It also takes a willingness to go beyond what is known or safe in order to establish and prove it. Funders can learn to build trust, if they already have the courage to try working across boundaries.
And courage is absolutely necessary to doing cross-boundary work. You need courage as a funder to enter into collaborations. You need the courage to take risk in doing something that may have no previous track record or no safety net. And in being vulnerable to failures. As well, courage is needed to engage with the “unusual suspects”. These could be critics, or challengers to the status quo (think of young leaders challenging “how it’s done” or community leaders challenging “who decides” or corporate leaders challenging “green economy versus jobs”). Funders need courage to engage with disruption.
So...time, flexibility, trust and courage. To do what? The conference speakers suggested that the most important things that funders can do through cross-boundary work is to “hold the space” for conversations, for reflections, for building trust and relationships. James Stauch put it this way in his closing summary: “Philanthropy’s role is critical in bridging the divide, in promoting counter-narratives to simplistic binary thinking and in demonstrating alternative community and economic models….Relationships are critical not just to moving across boundaries but to co-creating new futures.” These are the big challenges for funders, Stauch concluded: “To create prosperity for communities in a carbon-constrained world. To help rescue and strengthen democracy in a truth-constrained world. And to change our institutions, our networks and ourselves to get there.” With time, flexibility, trust and courage.