By Carol Lewis
CEO
Philanthropy Northwest

I have wonderful memories of Neal from my first Philanthropy Northwest conference. I was a new CEO and seated next to him at dinner. (Some smart person in our organization knew that it was important for me to meet him and made sure it happened.) He was so quiet that initially I wasn’t quite sure what to think. But then he leaned over and with a twinkle in his eye, told me that he appreciated what we were doing at Philanthropy Northwest. It was a vote of confidence at the very moment I needed it. And it was my first glimpse of the warmth and humor that characterized his personality.

Over the years, I came to appreciate what a difference Neal made to the regional philanthropic community, whether working in the early days with the Rasmuson Foundation or more recently with leading funders in Montana, or continually with the many grantees that he knew and cared about. He was a mentor and a beacon of good practice for so many people.

At his retirement party, listening to all his admirers, I realized I was only beginning to learn how much he had done. The irony for me was that he was stepping down at the moment I began to understand who he was, and how much he had contributed to the work I was doing.

I tell myself that his legacy is alive and well, certainly in the team at the Trust, among his peers and here at Philanthropy Northwest. All the same, it feels like a horrible loss and I send my condolences to his wife, Kay and to all in our community who knew him much better than I did.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust has posted a tribute page to Neal on its website. Services for Neal Thorpe will be held at Columbia Presbyterian Church in Vancouver, Washington, on Saturday, March 13 (time TBA). Memorials are designated for United Indian Mission International, Aviation Dept., PO Box 6429, Glendale, AZ 85312 (www.uim.org) or Columbia Presbyterian Church Foundation (805 Columbia Ridge Dr., Vancouver, WA, 98664).

By Clay Holtzman
Puget Sound Business Journal
Originally published February 26, 2010

Seven of Washington’s leading charitable foundations want to strengthen the nonprofit sector by asking other grant makers to fund gaps in how individual nonprofit groups— and the sector as whole — operate.

By funding administrative services and even shared resources rather than specific programs, grant makers can help nonprofit organizations better weather hard economic times and ultimately improve the quality of their work, according to recommendations stemming from a statewide study of the nonprofit sector commissioned last year by the seven foundations.

It is unclear whether other grant makers will follow the recommendations.

“The goal of this endeavor is about learning what the sector needs and how private philanthropy can support it,” said Marie Sauter, associate program officer in the Pacific Northwest division of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the seven groups that funded the study.

Because many grant makers typically fund programs instead of the operations required to deliver them, the report’s recommendations could change where foundations allocate their grants and create a new source of revenue that is sometimes challenging for organizations to secure.

Also, the nonprofit groups in Washington’s rural areas could gain access to resources that are more readily available in the Puget Sound region.

The seven foundations say they will make grants, individually and collectively, in support of their position. Already, the Walla Walla-based Sherwood Trust says it has pledged to support creation of a “learning center” at the city’s community college that will provide a six-part series of workshops this year examining topics such as recruiting and training board members.

“There is a huge need from the perspective of nonprofits,” said Jock Edwards, president and board member with the Sherwood Trust.

In response to the financial crisis in late 2008, the seven foundations commissioned the study of the nonprofit sector’s operations, or capacity.

The “Nonprofit Ecosystem” study, which is available on the Philanthropy Northwest website, examined the sector at an individual, community and statewide basis and compared it to an ecosystem that requires essential components to maintain overall health. Investigators traveled to 14 locations in Washington to evaluate which resources are present and which are needed to help organizations operate more effectively.

“We realized that there are common problems, but not common solutions,” said Barbara Dingfield, partner with The Giving Practice, a consulting arm of Philanthropy Northwest, the Seattle-based association for grant makers in the region.

“In a way the economic crisis pointed out to funders that we can’t meet our objectives unless these nonprofits continue to function well in our community,” Dingfield said.

The study examined eight essential elements, such as the presence of professional consultants, and found that no geographic area — including King County — possessed all eight attributes.

For example, Bremerton lacks an association for nonprofit organizations, while Yakima needs a better network to coordinate volunteers.

“My hope is that by looking at this (report), it will not only have governance and management impact, but also community impact as well,” said Michael Bisesi, director of the Center for Nonprofit and Social Management at Seattle University.

Paul Connolly of the TCC Group gave a workshop on how strategic planning can help a foundation devise a program strategy, build organizational capacity, and create a framework for performance assessment.

Amy Solomon also shared how strategic planning helped The Bullitt Foundation make important changes to its work.

*Click here to view Paul’s Power Point presentation for reference.

*You can also view the video from the first part of our series on Foundation Strategy, a presentation from Melinda Tuan, consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Paul Connolly Presentation

By Carol Lewis
CEO
Philanthropy Northwest

The upcoming edition of Trends in Northwest Giving (Philanthropy Northwest’s comprehensive analysis of giving patterns in our region) confirms our claim that businesses provide philanthropic leadership in both local and global communities. The report, which will be released in mid-March, includes analysis of grantmaking from 42 Northwest corporations and company foundations. Collectively, their grants to the Northwest totaled $107 million in 2008. Additionally, the report, for the first time, offers insight into the philanthropic support many of these businesses provide for international charitable activities.

The $107 million in grants from corporations and company foundations to Northwest nonprofits represents almost 10% of organized giving to the Northwest in 2008. There is more detail about that giving in the soon-to-be-released report, but dollars are only part of the story. Boeing, Starbucks and Microsoft offer robust examples of employee volunteer and gift matching programs that extend philanthropic values into the workplace. In the midst of the recession, Microsoft employees reported record giving. The company’s match of $12,000 per employee extended employee gifts impressively, ensuring that employee-directed giving outpaced dollars given through Microsoft’s own corporate giving programs.

Philanthropy Northwest’s corporate members also use inventive strategies to deploy their unique assets through in-kind contributions and investments. Last year, Puget Sound Energy offered its customers an opportunity to exchange incandescent light bulbs for compact fluorescent bulbs, helping customers conserve energy and reduce costs. JP Morgan Chase added a philanthropic dimension to its acquisition of WaMu by donating surplus office supplies to hundreds of Seattle-area nonprofits.

International Corporate Philanthropy Day is today, February 22, 2010, and it serves as a reminder that Northwest companies make meaningful investments in global issues. Thanks to a grant from the Seattle International Foundation, the upcoming Trends in Northwest Giving report investigates international giving originating in the Northwest. The report underscores the global perspective of our leading corporations. Consider that Microsoft, Nike, and Starbucks together donated almost $70 million dollars for international charitable programs in 2008. The recent tragedy in Haiti reminds us that international funding plays a critical role in rebuilding communities after a disaster. Our corporate members were among the first to support relief and long-term rebuilding in that island nation following last month’s earthquake.

The stories of charitable giving and corporate social responsibility are frequently untold and too quickly dismissed as unimportant. Here at Philanthropy Northwest, we want to change that. From PPL Montana’s Community Fund to support Montana’s growing nonprofit infrastructure, to Holland America Line’s focus on curing breast cancer to Starbucks’ global commitment to clean water, Northwest businesses are making a difference that goes far beyond their own bottom line.

Bottom photo: 95734936/Frederic Dupoux/Courtesy of Getty Images.

Foundations on the Hill — Join us!

Philanthropy Northwest heads east to D.C. for Foundations on the Hill, March 16 & 17th — and we want you to come with us!

FOTH is a great place to connect with regional and national peers, to learn about federal level policy issues and ideas, and to help members of Congress and their staff understand the work you do here in the Northwest. This year, you’ll get to deliver the new Trends in Northwest Giving hot off the press!

Registration is free: http://www.foundationsonthehill.org/

If you’re planning to attend, please join us for a Philanthropy Northwest FOTH delegation call on Tuesday, March 9th, at 11am PST. RSVP to mmcnally@PhilanthropyNW.org to receive teleconference instructions.

If you’ve never been before and want to know more, contact Megan McNally directly at (206) 234-9342.

The Corporation for National & Community Service has published the Social Innovation Fund NOFA — and the turn-around is shockingly short.

The Letter of Intent to Apply deadline is March 1, 2010, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Applications are due by April 8, 2010, 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Certification of matching funds to determine eligibility is due at the time of application. Successful applicants will be notified by July 2010.

The NOFA is now available online.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts, reactions, and possible projects – learn more about our idea-exchange Google group here!

By Richard Woo
CEO
The Russell Family Foundation

Last week at the COF family philanthropy conference in San Diego, I reported briefly on a discussion held as a “book club” conversation among foundation trustees and staff about the Jeff Jarvis book, “What Would Google Do?” In a small breakout group, I learned from Jessamyn Lau, program leader at the Peery Foundation in Palo Alto, CA that they used Twitter in their strategic planning. I was intrigued by this notion of “strategy haiku in 140 characters or less” so Jessamyn and I arranged to speak by phone. Here’s what I learned.

Jessamyn and her colleague at the Peery Foundation randomly experimented with Twitter as a tool for building and maintaining momentum in their organization’s strategic planning process. There are just two people in their office and they faced the internal questions we often ask ourselves in the midst of strategic planning:

Ø      Is this a crazy idea?
Ø      Who am I to make these decisions?
Ø      What is the appropriate role of philanthropy in social change?

As a way of opening up their thinking and the strategic planning process, they started sending out tweets describing the subjects they were dealing with on any given day, the dilemmas they were wrestling with, the readings that were provoking their thoughts, etc. Doing so started to frame the strategic planning for others within their Twitter networks so those other folks could observe, comment, challenge or contribute to the process of the foundation.

Jessamyn found that this online exchange began to build momentum for the planning process which sometimes helped them move through sticky bottlenecks. Distilling their thoughts into brief questions that could be captured in a tweet of 140 characters or less helped to sharpen their focus.

The Peery Foundation simply played with Twitter as a tool to see where it would take them. It helped them to convene impromptu “open source focus groups” that weren’t as easily available to them otherwise. For example, when they shared what reading was informing their thinking, oftentimes others replied with recommendations of additional research or writing that was relevant or provocative.

As Jessamyn asks rhetorically: “How does your own foundation’s character emerge through the social media? You don’t realize that people are getting value from the tweets because they are ‘listening’ to the conversation. I had several people write back saying how much they appreciated the stream of thinking even though they didn’t contribute comments on the actual content.”

You may recall that I closed my blog entry last week on this subject of social media with the question:  “If I’m on Twitter, am I a twit?” I now know from Jessamyn and other adventurous colleagues that the answer is “No.”

By Megan McNally
Public Policy Consultant
Philanthropy Northwest

In the near future, the Corporation for National & Community Service is expected to release the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the first ever round of Social Innovation Funds. While we wait, the Northwest funding community has been actively talking with one another and with the state Service Commissions about the radical notion of regional collaboration around social innovation, volunteer generation and nonprofit capacity building (three components of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act).

At a recent meeting, we found some compelling common ground around the idea of a cooperative strategy for targeting Social Innovation funds toward promising housing/ homelessness initiatives. To keep the conversation going, we’ve set up a simple Google group where prospective Social Innovation Fund intermediaries or funding partners can share ideas and plan a potential response to the forthcoming NOFA.

The Google group is a good forum to tip your own hand and learn what others are thinking about Social Innovation and its potential impact for our region.

Join the conversation here: http://groups.google.com/group/SIFNW. If you don’t have a Google account or you need help joining the group, contact me at mmcnally@PhilanthropyNW.org or 206-234-9342.

By Suzanne Perry
Reporter
Chronicle of Philanthropy*

Alliance for Justice, a coalition of advocacy groups, has published a chart outlining how the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on corporate campaign spending affects nonprofit groups.

The ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission allows corporations — including nonprofit advocacy groups covered by section 501(c)4 of the federal tax code — to use money from their general treasuries to promote the election or defeat of political candidates, without having to set up separate political-action committees.

Previously, only 501(c)4 groups meeting certain criteria, such as accepting no business or labor contributions, had the right to make such “independent expenditures” — that is, spending that is not coordinated with political candidates or campaigns.

The chart notes that tax-exempt groups must still comply with Internal Revenue Service rules, for example those that prohibit 501(c)4 groups from undertaking partisan political work as their “primary activity.”

The ruling does not remove the ban on partisan political activity that applies to charities covered by section 501(c)3 of the tax code, although some legal experts have speculated that the court’s rationale could prompt a legal challenge to that restriction.

The chart also discusses the ruling’s impact on labor unions, trade associations, and political-action committees.

*Originally published January 29, 2010 in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Re-posted with permission.

Melinda Tuan, a consultant working in the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Impact Planning and Improvement Division, spoke about emerging approaches to strategy development for foundations, for the series Reflections on Philanthropy from Today’s Leaders. The series is co-sponsored by Philanthropy Northwest, Social Venture Partners, and the UW Evans School’s Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.

*Click here to view Melinda’s Power Point presentation for reference.

Introduction of Melinda Tuan

Melinda Tuan’s Presentation

Q&A with Melinda Tuan

Arabella Philanthropic Advisors has posted thoughtful advice for grantmakers interested in making grants to support mid- and long-term recovery efforts:

“Most donors will see the stirring images from Haiti and react today, donating dollars that are allocated for emergency humanitarian relief. Relief activities are obviously critical, but they do not address the need for longer-term recovery, which will require even more dollars and receive far less attention. Donors should consider making longer-term investments. They should also consider making their investments more strategic by following the Hurricane Katrina response mantra, “Build it Better.” In Haiti, donors can provide financial support to improve the water and sanitation infrastructure, education system, housing stock, access to healthcare, and more.”

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an update on what’s happening with relief and aid organizations who were already in Haiti when the earthquake struck.

Please keep leaving your thoughts and recommendations in the comments!