European Foundations Debate Priorities and How to Measure Success

Are European foundations guilty of not living up to their potential in fighting poverty, helping the environment, and alleviating other global problems?

During the annual meeting of the European Foundation Centre here, the continent’s largest grant makers held an unusual mock trial — perhaps best described as Law & Order: Charitable Intent — to decide if they have failed to use their financial resources and other tools in creative ways to aid the world.

The trial began with the 650 or so meeting participants rising from their seats as the judge, Raymond Georis, chairman of the Universal Education Foundation, in Paris, entered the hotel ballroom, which had been arranged to look like a court.

He called the proceedings to order, read the charges, and asked Gerry Salole, chief executive of the foundation center, based in Brussels, to sit on the side of the stage as a representative of the accused.

“You can now sit down,” the judge told the defendant, “because I see the charges are too heavy for you to stay standing.”

While entertaining, the trial also served as a forum to raise hard-hitting questions about philanthropy.

The two prosecutors — Diana Leat, a British foundation consultant, and Nicolas Borsinger, executive director of the Pro Victimis Foundation, in Geneva — have accused the foundation world of “narcissistic-personality disorder” and pointed out that despite overwhelming poverty in the developing world, only 15 percent of philanthropies in Europe make grants to Africa and other needy regions.

“I am tired of hearing that foundations are going to grow up tomorrow,” said Ms. Leat. “How long are you going to take to grow up?”

The defense team countered that grant makers that work in their own countries help the world by supporting universities that educate foreign students and advocating on behalf of the poor, the disabled, and minorities.

“They give a voice to these people who are so often not heard,” said Michael Göring, president of the Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius Zeit Foundation, in Germany.

The verdict? After 25 minutes of deliberation, the jury of eight grant makers found the accused guilty of not achieving all they are capable of but not guilty of failing to have vision and creativity.

Mr. Georis, the judge, sentenced foundations to devote themselves to pushing the European Union to adopt a common foundation policy for its 27-member nations that would help funds work together across borders.

“I think this is Solomon,” he said to laughter.

During a speech before the trial, Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland, struck a serious note, in which she encouraged foundations to do more to promote global human rights.

Ms. Robinson, a former United Nations official and now chairwoman of the Fund for Global Human Rights, in Washington, said that since the September 11, 2001, attacks, antiterrorism efforts by America and its allies have damaged human rights by weakening the international ban on torture.

In recent years, “human-rights standards took quite a beating,” she said.

Since 2008 marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she said, nonprofit groups have an opportunity to promote the document’s values. As part of her work with the Elders, a group of political and business leaders brought together by Nelson Mandela, she asked foundations to support an effort to get one billion people to read the declaration. Such an effort will make the declaration a “living document,” she said.

As philanthropies are called to take on more challenges, they will need to do more to measure the success of their efforts, participants said.

But for many foundations, their evaluations of themselves are rubbish, said Barry Knight, an associate at the Centre for Research & Innovation in Social Policy and Practice, in Newcastle, England.

“A lot of evaluation is absolute junk,” he said. “It’s tacked on as an optional plan.”

Mr. Knight, who has been hired to evaluate such well-known organizations as the Ford Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, said that grant makers should include evaluation as an integral part of their program planning and ask themselves what they are trying to accomplish.

“What does female equality look like?” he asked. “What does children’s rights look like?”

Marc Pfitzer, a managing director at FSG-Social Impact Advisors, a nonprofit consulting group in Boston, told participants that planning doesn’t need to kill flexibility.

He recommended that foundations set aside a “basket of money for innovation” that supports projects outside their usual projects.

Mr. Knight agreed, saying that good grant making combines the deliberation of the left brain with the creativity of the right. “We don’t want to deaden philanthropy with bureaucracy,” he said.

Or as Mr. Pfitzer put it: “The marriage of the rational and irrational has to be found.”

As philanthropy increases worldwide, its growth is perhaps most dynamic in Brazil, China, India, and Russia, said some attendees.

According to grant makers from these areas, the countries have experienced massive economic gains in the last 20 years, generating greater riches for the business elite but also creating greater income inequality.

Ten percent of Brazilians, for example, own 50 percent of their nation’s wealth, said Fernando Rossetti, secretary general of the Group of Institutes, Foundations, and Enterprises, an association of grant makers in São Paulo.

While each nation differs in how its charities and donors are developing, there are some common themes. Corporate foundations tend to be driving the philanthropy, government red tape is an obstacle to growth, and only a few donors support social activism, advocacy, or other politically controversial work.

Mr. Rossetti said that most companies in Brazil support education and youth programs. But as the country’s number of nonprofit groups rises — that number grew by more than 200 percent from 1995 to 2005 — businesses are taking a larger interest in their giving and taking on more controversial issues, like protecting the Amazon rain forest and other environmental work.

“The more they learn, the more profound they get,” he said. “There is enormous opportunity.”

Anthony Tomei, director of the Nuffield Foundation, in London, suggested that the European Foundation Centre’s 2009 annual meeting in Rome should offer a provocative theme, perhaps titled “Worst Practices: How Foundations Have Failed.”

“Next year perhaps we could have a session on what goes wrong,” said Mr. Tomei during a discussion on how philanthropies can work abroad.

Several other participants echoed Mr. Tomei’s call for a frank discussion on mistakes.

While proposing the session partly in jest, Mr. Tomei said it could look at why partnerships between funds sometimes go awry due to bruised egos or other factors.

He also noted that studies of foundation programs tend to look only at those that are successful.

Andreas Schröer, director of research at the Center for Social Investment at the University of Heidelberg, in Germany, said that he has tried to gather data on foundation failures, but because grant makers refuse to talk to him about them, he can only collect anecdotal evidence.

“It’s not systematic because we usually don’t get access,” he said.

Indeed, he said at one point he wanted to study an American foundation that had made some missteps, but it threatened to sue him. Mr. Schröer declined to name the grant maker.