July 16, 1998 | Read Time: 4 minutes
Although the desire of foundations and academics to respond more effectively to increasingly urgent social, economic, and political needs is understandable, few of the commissions, strategy groups, and organizations that have recently come together to look at the future of philanthropy have found the proper way to do it.
Those groupings tend to bring together the same people who have gone to such meetings and strategy sessions in the past. They come from a small in-group of foundation officials and academics, plus a few “acceptable” representatives of established national non-profit organizations.
Although the discussions have a direct bearing on the operations and financial future of local and regional non-profit groups, representatives of those organizations are invariably excluded from the gatherings and panels. Representatives of lesser-known national organizations who are not part of the inner circle of strategists have also not been part of the conversations. And the vast number of organizations made up chiefly of members of minority groups have not been involved.
As a result, what many of the organizations, strategy groups, and commissions assessing the role of philanthropy have done is just to nibble around the edges. They have hesitated to explore the fundamental weaknesses of philanthropy and the implications for real change. Their efforts have amounted more to tinkering than to true self-criticism.
A case in point is the American Assembly’s recent conference and report on “The Future of Philanthropy in a Changing America.” Held at Los Angeles’s plush Getty Center at the end of April, the meeting brought together 92 well-known representatives from the grant-making, academic, and non-profit fields.
But the group was heavily weighted toward the usual cast of foundation officials, academics, and researchers, with 36 foundation officials and 26 scholars. Of those representing non-profit organizations, only four came from local groups. There were few non-white participants.
Little wonder, then, that the proceedings failed to grapple with some of the fundamental problems and issues facing foundations: their failure to communicate with grantees, their lack of vision, the inflexibility of their bureaucratic structures and practices, their lack of performance standards and public accountability, their patterns of governance, and their overall relationships with actual and potential grantees.
The tone for the meeting was set by a similarly unrepresentative conference advisory committee and by the commissioning of papers that ignored many of the key philanthropic issues. The perspectives of grant recipients received little attention in the papers. Neither did such topics as on-the-job fund raising, including the future of funds that serve as alternatives to United Ways; innovation and risk taking in philanthropy; the appropriateness of current requirements that foundations distribute only a minimum of 5 per cent of their investment assets each year; the need for young people and new leadership in the non-profit world; potential erosion of boundaries between the non-profit and the for-profit sectors; the reorganization of foundations for greater effectiveness; and the challenge of building the capacity of low-income and disadvantaged people to help themselves and to become more effective in influencing public policy. Only a few of the papers broke new ground or provided the spark for creative thinking.
Similarly, while strong on the analysis of a changing America and its implication for philanthropy, the conference’s final report was weak on its prescriptions for change. Specific recommendations were at a premium. Skirting the payout problem, the report could only suggest that “foundations should consider increasing their grant payouts above typical levels.” In citing the need to develop a new generation of leadership, the report offered no specific programs that could entice young people to enter and stay in the field. While encouraging philanthropic institutions to improve their performance, it failed to discuss what foundations and other donors would have to do to make those changes.
That is not to say that the conference’s final report did not have some very useful things to say. Of particular importance was its recognition of the growing inequality in American society and the urgent need for philanthropy to address the needs of the poor. Equally important was its acknowledgment of the essential role of policy making and advocacy in insuring the vitality of our democracy — and its call for philanthropy to expand its role in that area.
But on most of the other key issues related to philanthropy, the report came up short. Because the participants did not truly represent the non-profit world, that result is hardly surprising.
Groups like the American Assembly would probably have been more successful had they followed the model set by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, which spent two years examining the non-profit world before it issued a series of reports in 1975. The so-called Filer Commission had its shortcomings, but it at least set up a special advisory group to learn more about the views of charity executives, especially those who had been frustrated in the process of seeking foundation grants.
If philanthropy is to take a serious, critical look at itself, it will have to broaden the public discussions and involve many new players, especially those who are actually running local, regional, and national non-profit organizations. Foundations and academics whom foundations support can no longer talk among themselves — with a few outsiders for show — and come up with adequate changes to meet the challenges of the future.
