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For some people in philanthropy, summer is a sleepier time of year when little of significance happens. Not so for NCRP. There are several exciting developments I want to share with you.

As some of you know, for the past year, the board and staff of NCRP have been working on crafting a new strategic framework to guide the organization for the next 10 years. We’re almost done with the planning, and I look forward to sharing the framework document with you all later this year, after we put the finishing touches on it.

As the plan has come into focus, however, I’ve made some important staffing changes to better support our work moving forward.

The most significant personnel move is that I have promoted Jeanné Isler, NCRP’s field director since early 2014, into an important new role as vice president for learning and engagement. She will spearhead NCRP’s work to make sure that our members and allies are deeply engaged with us as we all strive together to make philanthropy more responsive to those with the least wealth, power and opportunity.

Immediately before joining NCRP, Jeanné served as director of U.S. Programs at Search for Common Ground, where she led national initiatives including Congressional Conversations on Race. Earlier in her career, Jeanné worked to organize nonprofit organizations throughout North Carolina to assist military families involved in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She also led a restorative justice program for New Hanover County Public Schools in North Carolina, and worked as a faith-based community organizer in Ohio and Florida. She was recently selected for the prestigious Connecting Leaders Fellowship run by the Association of Black Foundation Executives. She’ll be part of the 2016-2017 cohort.

There were several other promotions, too. Long-time employees like Yna Moore, Lisa Ranghelli and Kevin Faria all moved from director-level positions into senior director positions, which reflects their past accomplishments and continued leadership in our new strategic framework. Dan Petegorsky will take on a new role overseeing the growth of NCRP’s public policy work, in addition to his continued work on civic engagement. Janay Richmond will lead the expansion of our nonprofit membership program. Additionally, several associates were promoted to the senior associate level, reflecting their critical work and continued growth. You can check out the full NCRP staff listing, with updated job titles. You will also notice that the board changed my title from executive director to president and CEO to be more in line with titles used by other philanthropy infrastructure organizations.

Another big change at NCRP is that we moved into new offices in early August. There’s so much more natural light in our new digs, it’s wonderful! Beverley Samuda-Wylder, our director of HR and administration, was in charge of the relocation, and it went off without a hitch. This is the fourth office relocation she’s overseen in her career – two with Philanthropy New York (when they were still NYRAG) and two with NCRP. Please update your records with our new address: 1900 L Street NW, Suite 825, Washington, D.C. 20036. And make plans to stop by for a visit!

Aaron Dorfman is president and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @ncrp on Twitter.

This commentary was originally published on The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

In the last week, we learned unsettling information about money the Baltimore Community Foundation channeled to the police for mass surveillance of Baltimore residents.

Community foundations serve a valuable role nurturing local philanthropy and leading efforts to improve the neighborhoods, cities, and people they serve. But the funding in question, uncovered by Bloomberg Businessweek and the Baltimore Sun — from two private donors with vast wealth and influence who financed a clandestine police program — violated not just the tenets of philanthropy at its best but the vision, mission and values of the Baltimore Community Foundation.

Policing is a public good, governed by community priorities and overseen by a community’s elected representatives. When private donors conspire with a private company to subvert the public oversight process and engage philanthropic dollars in a secret policing program, they pervert this foundational democratic value.

What’s more, most of the citizens being surveilled by this program are black, and as the Movement for Black Lives policy platform points out, such government surveillance has and “continues to be concentrated within targeted communities of color, namely black, Arab, and immigrant.”

Such unwarranted and racially unbalanced surveillance could, the Black Lives platform continues, violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

Problem With Neutrality

The Baltimore Community Foundation is a tax-exempt organization created “by and for the people of Greater Baltimore” whose vision is for a Baltimore where “all have the opportunity to thrive” and where “enlightened civic leadership” based on values of trust and inclusivity can be leveraged to make Baltimore a better place for all of the city’s residents. It also calls itself a foundation “committed to transparency and accountability.”

Yet these values are undermined by their facilitation of a secret funding stream for a project that, in other communities similarly stricken by conflict and distrust between police and community, such as Los Angeles and Dayton, were rejected wholesale by democratic debate.

The Baltimore Community Foundation ought to serve the Greater Baltimore community and not just house transactional philanthropic activities that serve donors’ interests. What does the foundation stand for? How is it leading the community in the wake of a year of political and social strife over the violence visited on Baltimore residents of color by their police department?

Vocal Leaders

Many community foundations across the country are struggling with these questions. Some really do see themselves as facilitators of philanthropy by donors, without taking positions on the causes being supported. Others, like the San Francisco Foundation, have taken strong positions and are using the foundation’s reputational and financial capital to advance equity.

I urge all community foundations to undertake serious discussions about what they stand for. Many are already doing this, but far too many others aren’t. Neutrality isn’t nearly as valuable as some in philanthropy have claimed over the years, and it isn’t really even possible — as the Baltimore ordeal illustrates. For foundations, attempting to be neutral often means that the foundation — even if unintentionally — is actually supporting greater oppression rather than standing on the side of those in their communities who have the least wealth and power.

Community foundations ought to be vocal leaders on issues that impact their communities, and the only responsible way to do that is to listen — especially to those most harmed by injustice. We can learn from several leading community foundations that are acting on their values.

For example, in 2014, the Cleveland Foundation became a presenting sponsor for the Gay Games, using the foundation’s money and influence to advance LGBTQ equality. It also used the opportunity of the games to start a community-driven LGBTQ fund to accept donations and channel them to local charities.

Similarly, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation has been taking a bold stand combating predatory lending, recognizing that one in four of the people in the community it serves is cash poor and is disproportionately impacted by the abusive payday-lending industry. The foundation has also spearheaded a national coalition of community foundations to work on the issue.

These and other community foundations have a vision for their communities and are willing talk out and act on important issues. The Baltimore Community Foundation has an opportunity — and an obligation — in the coming days to begin answering questions about its vision for the community and the role of philanthropy, and of the community fund specifically, in helping to bring about that vision.

The statement the community foundation released on Friday saying it will “require government agencies to promptly and publicly disclose receipt of funds and adhere to all applicable public reporting requirements” is a start, but it is not sufficient. The leaders of the foundation owe it to their neighbors to be as transparent, accountable, inclusive, and civically minded as they claim to be.

Aaron Dorfman is president and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @ncrp on Twitter.

Updated 9/2/2016 2:25 PM EDT with additional attribution for image used.

A few years back I was speaking with the manager of corporate giving for a firm high on the Fortune 500 list. While we didn’t agree much on a range of issues, we were in surprising agreement on what constituted good grantmaking practice. Much to his chagrin, his giving program was situated solidly within the firm’s public relations department and this constrained him from carrying out those practices in his own funding.

For example, we agreed that multi-year grants are superior to annual grants. But from the public relations perspective, multi-year grants don’t cut the mustard: Awarding a three-year grant to a community group gives the company just one press opportunity to promote itself in the community, while annual grants give three. So it goes.

Many nonprofits accommodate such imperatives when seeking funding, whether from corporate giving programs or, indeed, from foundations. But the tradeoffs are often less benign and can present serious ethical and organizational dilemmas.

Recently, for example, Philip Rojc and David Callahan wondered whether certain groups’ dependence on grants from bank giving programs compromised their work. I encountered these concerns firsthand when staffing a Wall Street accountability campaign: groups working on community development and housing were key allies and yet were constrained in taking certain public actions because, in addition to receiving support from the banks, bank representatives sat on their boards of directors.

“When nonprofits working on economic equity issues get in bed with corporate donors, they may be inclined to moderate their views on these issues and be less critical of private-sector actors,” Rojc and Callahan wrote. “In this case, we’re talking about a financial services industry that has famously engaged in a range of predatory or abusive practices, some of which are ongoing. It stands to reason that asset building groups may be less inclined to call out the present or future bad behavior of banks if they depend on the largesse of these institutions. Yet such groups would seem to be obvious and critical watchdogs in this space.”

A recent case in Oregon illustrates the most serious kind of conflict: Threats of discontinued funding from companies whose bottom line becomes threatened by public policies their grantees support.

Standard Insurance Company, known as The Standard, has been (up until its recent purchase by a Japanese insurance group) a locally based Oregon corporation with an active community relations and giving program. Along with other corporate givers, however, The Standard has recently drawn sharp rebukes for trying to intimidate grantees and community groups into backing off their support for a November ballot measure that will increase corporate taxes to support Oregon’s perennially underfunded education system and social services. Oregon’s business taxes are tied for the lowest in the nation. Along with other major corporations, The Standard will see its taxes raised if the initiative passes, and it has been among the top contributors to the campaign to defeat the measure.

Several of those who’ve seen this intimidation by corporate givers firsthand have gone public, as reported by Willamette Week. Among them:

  • The Standard threatened to withhold future support from Children First for Oregon. As Willamette Week reported, “The Standard’s top government affairs official, Justin Delaney, acknowledges the company threatened in June to withhold support from Children First for Oregon, a Portland nonprofit.” While the company ultimately relented, the paper reports that Delaney wants grantees to think twice before they champion the initiative: “Nonprofits ought to give their corporate partners a hearing before reflexively supporting Measure 97.”
  • Intel, one of the top employers in Oregon and the beneficiary of enormous tax breaks, curtailed support for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters’ annual gala due to its potential backing of the measure. “Intel has been a longtime sponsor of OLCV’s annual fundraising dinner … providing amounts ranging from $2,500 to $25,000 in previous years.” This year, however, they provided zero dollars. As OLCV Director Doug Moore reported, they made it clear that if “the league was even thinking about supporting what would become Measure 97, Intel would not support this year’s event.”

When it comes to supporting ballot measure advocacy, NCRP is most frequently asked by both funders and nonprofits about the legal aspects of the work: How can they become involved and stay right with the IRS? We hear less frequently about this kind of direct financial impact from funders seeking to use their charitable giving as a cudgel. We hope that public exposure can counter this kind of intimidation. As Our Oregon’s Ben Unger puts it, “With state funding shrinking, many of these nonprofits have no choice but to fill the service gap by seeking funding from the very corporations that are not paying their share in taxes,” Unger says. “That any company would use that leverage to attempt to silence nonprofits is unacceptable.”

Dan Petegorsky is senior fellow at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), leading a civic engagement initiative. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

CC image by wp paarz and http://www.weisspaarz.com/, modified under Creative Commons license.

This piece first appeared on The Huffington Post’s Impact Blog on December 3, 2015.

Congratulations to Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan on their new baby girl, Max, and on their enormous charitable gift to launch the new Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). By now everyone has heard that the Chan Zuckerbergs announced they will give away 99 percent of their stock in Facebook during their lifetime to the new philanthropic initiative, a sum currently valued at $45 billion, and which will likely grow much larger in the decades to come. Their generosity and commitment to putting their billions to use while they’re living sets an impressive example for other people of great wealth.

In an open letter to his daughter, Mark expressed that that he and his wife will be following an approach to philanthropy consistent with best practices that the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP), which I lead, and others have been promoting for decades. These include making long-term investments in social change, engaging with the people and communities served to understand their needs, participating in public policy debates and advocacy, and taking big risks on visionary social change leaders.

But this is not enough to ensure that the billions in charitable giving from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will actually solve the tough issues they outlined in their letter: to advance human potential and promote equality. To succeed and have maximum impact, I offer five pieces of advice:

1. Be a serious funder of advocacy and community organizing – The Chan Zuckerbergs have already stated their intention to support policy and advocacy work. They should make it a cornerstone of their charitable giving and learn from other funders who have successfully invested in these high-leverage strategies. To be successful, the CZI must elevate and amplify the voices of those affected by injustice in debates about policy solutions. It must listen to marginalized communities and fund advocacy that speaks to their experiences and empower the oppressed to determine and implement the policies that will improve their lives. Zuckerberg is right that too many philanthropists hesitate to engage in advocacy, and his letter’s mention of building movements for change is heartening. The CZI must follow through.

2. Share power – The CZI isn’t yet fully formed, but initial reports indicate it will be controlled entirely by Zuckerberg himself, and his letter makes clear the priorities will be set by him and his wife. However, for the family’s philanthropy to truly achieve its goals of advancing human potential and promoting equality, power must be shared. Concentrating authority in one person can lead to social change work that is nearsighted, narrowly focused and ultimately ineffective. Zuckerberg is no longer just the CEO of a multi-national corporation whose bottom line is his top priority. His work at the CZI will deal with important issues that affect everyone in society in profound ways. He must be willing to share his power with issue experts, philanthropic veterans and community leaders if he wants to effect long-term change.

3. Be transparent – American philanthropy has long been the target of mistrust from the public it serves, largely because philanthropic institutions concentrate power and money in private hands for public work. Philanthropists betray the public’s trust and undercut their important work when they fail to be forthcoming about their goals, strategies and means. The CZI chose a very public birth – in more ways than one. We hope transparency is a core value throughout the Initiative’s life. Because the CZI is incorporated as an LLC, Zuckerberg is allowed to be totally un-transparent if he wants. He should avoid that impulse and share openly with the public. He should share at least as much as would have been required by law if he had chosen instead to form a private foundation.

4. Learn from your mistakes – This isn’t the first time the Chan Zuckerbergs’ philanthropy has made headlines. In 2010, the family donated $100 million to Newark, New Jersey’s struggling school system, a generous effort that has been largely marked a failure. The gift didn’t create the transformational new teacher employment structure they had hoped for because the effort ignored the public policy reality in New Jersey that made it almost impossible to radically change teacher contracts. It didn’t seed a vibrant, equitable charter school ecosystem in the city because Zuckerberg and his partners ran roughshod over community desires and needs. And it alienated grassroots activists, parents and teachers by channeling $20 million of the gift to expensive consultants while failing to follow through on promised teacher merit pay. Zuckerberg ought to remember these mistakes, and work to ensure the CZI doesn’t repeat them.

5. Use a racial equity lens – Racial injustice is entrenched in the United States (and in many other countries where the CZI might work), and a movement is building to reckon with the structural racism that endangers and impoverishes communities of color. The CZI must incorporate a racial equity lens in their work to advance human potential and promote equality or its efforts on both will ultimately fall short. A failure to recruit and retain people of color has been an issue at Facebook for years; this blind spot must not be carried over to CZI’s work. It’s notable that the open letter announcing the gift never once mentions race.

The Chan Zuckerbergs welcomed new life into their family recently, with all the excitement and anxiety that comes with it. Like their daughter, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has terrific potential to do great things during its lifespan. I hope the Chan Zuckerberg family approaches their ambitious philanthropic endeavors with as much care and compassion as they undoubtedly will their new role as parents.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Ryan Schlegel, research and policy associate at NCRP, contributed to this article. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

CC image by Neeraj Kumar.

Freda, Sharnette and Gary. I interacted more with these three Post Office workers than our entire team did with the Hess Foundation over the last ten months.

I remember their names from last September, when I tried to track down a lost letter that we had sent to the elusive Hess Foundation, an $800 million institution based in Roseland, New Jersey. It was one of our multiple attempts to engage with the grantmaker for Philamplify, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) initiative to bring honest feedback to improve philanthropy. Our foundation assessments, which rely on grantee feedback, are conducted with or without foundation participation. However, transparency is a growing trend in today’s philanthropic sector, and each of the foundations we’ve assessed has participated in some capacity. All except the Hess Foundation.

The Hess Foundation does not have a website or any other direct contact information. After phone calls and emails to the trustees through their other organizational affiliations failed, we resorted to snail mail. Weeks passed and we heard nothing from the foundation after sending our first letter. We sent a second letter through certified mail, with a return receipt to track whether it had been received. Strangely, the Post Office could not confirm whether the envelope had been delivered, despite the safeguards we purchased and the two claims we filed for the lost mail. No response. Was the Hess Foundation’s address a black hole?

While numerous Hess Foundation grantees were happy to talk to us, our many requests for interviews with the foundation’s board members and other stakeholders with direct knowledge of the family’s grantmaking have been blatantly ignored. This includes our attempts to get in touch with the foundation’s accounting firm, CohnReznick, which shares its mailing address with the foundation. We also sent certified, return receipt requested copies of NCRP’s draft report to publicly available addresses for four of the foundation’s five long-time trustees. While we did receive confirmations of delivery from the Post Office, the foundation’s silence continued.

In a last ditch attempt, NCRP Executive Director Aaron Dorfman headed north to try and speak with the foundation’s representatives in person. Our videographer documented his journey in the Garden State and the Big Apple. Aaron was turned away at CohnReznick and Hess Corporate, and no one would answer the door at one trustee’s consulting firm.

It’s because of cases like this that David Callahan at Inside Philanthropy calls the sector a “black box.”

Our experience with the foundation is not unique. In our report on the Hess Foundation, author Elizabeth Myrick writes that this “unresponsiveness correlates with feedback from long-time grantees and well-connected peers who described the foundation as mysterious and invisible.”

The Hess Foundation exemplifies a transactional grantmaking approach known as “checkbook philanthropy.” Compared to the other foundations NCRP has examined for Philamplify, this style “represents the bare minimum in terms of philanthropic strategy, transparency, payout and impact.” The grantmaker has no online presence, employs no staff, nor engages in philanthropic associations in the tristate area. Its relationships with grantees are comparable to those of an individual donor, despite being an institution with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets.

After all of this, you may ask: Why is it important that the foundation respond? I previously dedicated a blog post to the significance of transparency in philanthropy, but here are three more reasons that the Hess Foundation should be less insular:

  1. The Hess Foundation, and the charitable lead trust that sustains it, receive enormous tax breaks. The foundation has a responsibility to let the public know what it is doing as stewards of tax-exempt resources – what NCRP refers to as partially-public dollars. It gave out nearly $30 million dollars in 2013, but we know nothing of its goals or strategy.
  2. Our assessment found that Hess Foundation grantees are eager to grow a relationship with the foundation, with particular interest in increased communication, dialogue and partnership with its leaders.
  3. In order to maximize its potential and that of its grantees, the Hess Foundation should pursue strategic impact. NCRP’s Philamplify report presents a unique opportunity for the foundation to receive constructive stakeholder feedback and begin a dialogue.

To embrace NCRP’s recommendations, the Hess Foundation doesn’t have to look far for support and inspiration. I recently attended an event at Exponent Philanthropy – an outstanding organizational resource for foundations like Hess with few to no staff – to hear a talk by Anne Gunsteens, executive director of the J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott Foundation, a $630 million grantmaking institution also funded by the success of a corporate empire. She shared how her staff has grown from one to five during her tenure, and that the foundation’s first website is in the works. These strides made by the Marriott Foundation stand in stark contrast our findings on the Hess Foundation.

There may be good intentions behind the Hess Foundation’s lack of transparency – perhaps the trustees are keeping operations lean to direct more money to grants, or to keep the spotlight on its grantees. Nonetheless, such good intentions are not necessarily good grantmaking, and the foundation must move beyond checkbook philanthropy to amplify its impact and that of its grantees. Check out our report and the accompanying video, and tell us what you think!

Caitlin Duffy is the project associate for Philamplify at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP and @DuffyInDC on Twitter and join the #Philamplify conversation.

NCRP launched Philamplify in 2014 as a safe vehicle for grantees and stakeholders to provide honest feedback to foundations. Given the power imbalance between foundations and grantees, grantees are often wary of providing foundations with constructive criticism. Yet, without grantee feedback, foundations may be unaware when they are underperforming and how they can get better.

When NCRP released its Philamplify report on the Walton Family Foundation last month, we also launched a new poll on the Philamplify website asking visitors to the site: “What is the top reason why a nonprofit would choose not to openly criticize a foundation?” The poll received 91 responses.

Respondents overwhelming chose “Fear of being ‘black-listed’ or de-funded” as the top reason for avoiding criticism, with 82 percent selecting that choice. Among the other answer choices:

  • “Don’t want to come across as ungrateful” (7.7 percent)
  • “Why bother? It won’t make a difference” (4.4 percent)
  • “I don’t think nonprofits avoid foundation criticism (2.2 percent)
  • “Don’t know the foundation’s operations well enough” (1.1 percent)
  • “Too busy with work” (1.1 percent)
  • “Nonprofits are not qualified to critique foundations” (1.1 percent)

No respondents selected the “Other” option.

It’s clear that many nonprofits are acutely aware of the power imbalance between funders and the organizations they fund. While such organizations may have the most information about what a grantmaker is doing poorly – and well – they also have the least recourse to express this opinion safely.

To coincide with this week’s launch of our latest Philamplify report on the Hess Foundation, “Will This Secretive Foundation Evolve Beyond Checkbook Philanthropy?” we’ve introduced a new poll tailored to the unique challenges we encountered conducting this assessment. Visitors can answer, “What’s the most important tool foundations can use to build transparent relationships with grantees?” choosing among a website, full-time staff, publicly stated goals and strategies, routine communication with grantees, social media, face-to-face meetings and site visits or other. They can also say that the foundation has no obligation to provide any such services.

The Hess Foundation is the most insular and least transparent foundation that NCRP has philamplified and the only one that has refused to communicate with NCRP researchers. As our complementary Philamplify video “Just How Hard Is It to Get a Meeting with the Hess Foundation?” details, the foundation’s trustees did not respond to NCRP’s attempts to contact them via email, phone calls, letters or even in-person visits by NCRP Executive Director Aaron Dorfman. The foundation has no website or full-time staff, and its mailing address is the office of its accounting firm, CohnReznick. It also does not make public its goals and strategies. The Hess Foundation’s grantees and philanthropic peers see this opaque behavior as a missed opportunity for greater impact.

Please visit the Philamplify home page to participate in the poll. Then check out the Hess video and recommendations.

Peter Haldis is a research fellow with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and contributed to the production of the Philamplify assessment of the Hess Foundation. Follow @NCRP on Twitter and join the #Philamplify and #PhilamplifyHess conversations.

Nonprofit Quarterly on June 8, 2015.

One year ago, we launched an ambitious project that seeks no less than a reshaping of the culture of philanthropy from one that’s “killing itself with kindness” and where foundations are encased in an “isolation bubble” to one where direct feedback and critique are welcomed and encouraged.

One end of that cultural equation involves foundations’ attitudes, expectations, and actions that may hinder honest feedback from grantees, peers and other stakeholders to inform decision-making. The other end involves nonprofits’ capacity and willingness to provide that critical feedback.

With several philanthropy organizations calling for more openness, and the rise of social media, the Internet, and the proliferation of crowdsourcing tools, the environment seems ripe to push for this cultural shift – and to keep pushing – but we know it will be a monumental task. Foundation leaders, affinity groups, and regional grantmaker associations are hesitant to openly critique their peers while nonprofit leaders are loath to share their honest opinions with their funders.

We know, of course, that opinions abound, because we have engaged in hundreds of conversations with nonprofit and philanthropic executives who had really smart, thoughtful, and nuanced things to say about grantmakers. And thousands of individuals responded candidly in grantee surveys we conducted for Philamplify – as long as the conversations were confidential, the surveys were anonymous, and it all took place in a safe “one-on-one” environment.

Our efforts to engage these same folks on Philamplify.org have not taken off as we had hoped. Even with the option to post anonymously, we have seen limited use of our online platform enabling commentary on the recommendations we’ve made for each foundation we philamplified. No one used our tools to directly email and tweet the CEOs of assessed foundations. Yet, we know that thousands of people have downloaded our reports and watched our videos. In just a few short weeks since we released our assessment on the Walton Family Foundation, the special video on WFF has been viewed nearly 5800 times on YouTube, and we’ve logged more than 3,000 report downloads.

And we’ve even generated some lively discussion on Facebook about one foundation, William Penn, with commentary likely coming from many Philadelphia residents who don’t work at foundations or nonprofits.

An ongoing poll on Philamplify.org asks readers for the top reason why a nonprofit would choose not to openly criticize a foundation. As of the time of this article, 83.8 percent identified “Fear of being blacklisted or defunded” as the primary obstacle. Yet, 1350 nonprofit leaders spent 20-30 minutes completing an online grantee survey and 335 stakeholders each spent an average of 45 minutes talking to us on the phone.

A Daniels Fund grantee also took the time to send an email in response to our last NPQ feature on assessing racial equity. We had a lengthy conversation about it a few days after. This person wanted me to know their frustration with Daniels’ approach to youth-serving organizations, and equal frustration with other grantees that would credit Daniels with advancing equity.

“Having worked directly with program officers at the Daniels Fund, I have found ours to be explicitly anti-systemic reform. In my experience, Daniels Fund’s main message to us in helping us write a proposal to them was that we should show how our kids (majority Latino, African American, multiracial) are upholding traditionally ‘American’ values, i.e., knowing the pledge of allegiance, valuing ‘free-market’ principles and ‘hard work’ and wearing traditional clothes like ties; in fact, they wanted us to implement a youth leadership curriculum that was called ‘cowboy ethics,’ but we felt it wasn’t culturally competent and it didn’t resonate with our youth of color.

“I am just shocked to see their grantees responding so favorably to questions about advancing equity and I think it speaks to the larger problem of the (sometimes willful) ignorance and silence on the topic of white privilege and systemic injustice among more conservative, right-leaning groups in our country.”

NCRP is still experimenting to find out which tactics and tools can best foster digital engagement to help reach and cultivate the growing yet cautious community who are willing to publicly provide feedback. We have received numerous ideas for improving the site, including more opportunities for engaging individuals who don’t feel knowledgeable about a particular foundation’s work to join a conversation. With the release of the Walton Family Foundation assessment, it is now possible for visitors to provide comments about the foundation and overall assessment, in addition to voting and commenting on individual recommendations.

Also, we’ve created a new feature called “Which Foundation Should We Philamplify?” We know from conversations in the field that everyone has their own opinion about which foundations deserve an in-depth look, whether to spotlight best practices or reveal obstacles to impact.

So are nonprofits ready to give honest feedback to funders? The answer is yes – when initiatives like Philamplify give them the chance. The same is true for foundation peers. But without that shield of anonymity, the answer is mostly…not yet.

What will it take to change the culture of excessive deference and philanthropic isolation? I believe that foundations, nonprofits, and sectoral organizations all need to commit to bold and fearless action to help propel this cultural revolution. Although this can take many forms, the two most important steps that each group needs to take now are:

For foundations:

  1. Solicit feedback routinely and in myriad ways while building trust with your grantees. Reassure your nonprofit partners that honesty will be rewarded, not punished.
  2. Publicly share the feedback received. Model openness and shared learning as values that are the norm, not the exception. For example, what if every foundation that commissions one of the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s Grantee Perception Reports posted the full findings on its website with a thoughtful reflection from the CEO and board chair? Since 2009, only 26 GPRs have been made public.

For nonprofits:

  1. Provide feedback when invited to participate in one-on-one surveys or interviews as well as on open platforms like philamplify.org. In open forums, established nonprofit leaders can model boldness, knowing they have less to lose than smaller nonprofits. For those not ready to be so bold, Philamplify visitors can register as guests and provide anonymous commentary.
  2. Tell your funders that haven’t asked for input that you would welcome the opportunity to exchange feedback in a spirit of mutual learning. Ask your foundation what it is learning as a way to open the door to giving feedback. Many foundations believe that they are soliciting input while their grantees say they aren’t. An open conversation can help get everyone on the same page.

Sectoral organizations such as regional associations and affinity groups play a unique role in fostering a culture of transparency, knowledge sharing, and openness. They need to push their members to embrace the discomfort of forthright feedback, even from their own peers. How many RAGs and affinity groups use their gatherings to promote authentic debate among their funder members or with nonprofits about relevant strategies and issues? Of all the stakeholder groups NCRP reaches out to for Philamplify, affinity groups are the most reluctant to talk to us. They don’t want to tell us what they think of any of their members’ work, even off the record. Sectoral organizations need to see themselves less as service organizations and more as “effectiveness organizations” to enhance philanthropy’s positive impact on the world. State and local nonprofit associations can also play a role, in partnership with RAGs, to provide a “safe space” for nonprofits to offer honest feedback to funders.

Every time we conduct interviews for Philamplify and a person says, “I think it’s so great that your organization is doing this. I really appreciate the chance to share my opinion,” we are reminded that nonprofit leaders have so few opportunities to provide feedback in a safe environment. We all need to create safe spaces for input in philanthropy.

Lisa Ranghelli is director of foundation assessment and Yna Moore is communications director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP and @ynamoore on Twitter and join the #Philamplify conversation.

While NCRP appreciates and encourages participation from the grantmakers we assess, our Philamplify reports are written with or without foundation cooperation. However, to date, all of the foundations evaluated have responded in some way to our research. Whether they’re grateful for the feedback or not, all have engaged in dialogue with us about our findings and taken at least some of our recommendations to heart. We’ve never encountered complete radio silence.

That is, until our latest assessment. Today marks the release of our Philamplify report on the Hess Foundation, which asks, “Will This Secretive Foundation Evolve Beyond Checkbook Philanthropy?” In the course of our research, the foundation never responded in any way to our attempts to get in touch – sadly augmenting our chief finding that grantees and peers crave more open communication from this mysterious family foundation.

The $800 million Hess Foundation was established by Leon Hess, founder of oil company Hess Corporation and former owner of the New York Jets. It’s currently led by his son and current CEO of Hess Corporation, John Hess, joined by his sisters Marlene and Constance and two friends of the family. It primarily gives to large and elite organizations in the New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia metro areas, most of which have personal ties to the Hess family, including museums, educational institutions and medical centers.

Read “Hess Foundation: Will This Secretive Foundation Evolve Beyond Checkbook Philanthropy?” Now!

Our assessment, written by philanthropy expert Elizabeth Myrick, details how the foundation could be more effective by increasing its transparency and communication, and following other concrete recommendations. As Elizabeth said, “It’s a classic case of checkbook philanthropy getting in the way of truly meaningful philanthropy.” While there’s no sign of malfeasance on the part of the foundation leadership, it’s clear that they’re only doing the bare minimum in terms of achieving social justice impact.

Our Philamplify video on Hess shows just how hard it is to get any response from the foundation. After months of ignored phone calls, emails and even certified mail, I spent a rainy day driving from office to office in the tristate area trying to get someone from Hess to meet with me. In the end, it wasn’t surprising that no one did – only disappointing how this foundation is losing opportunity after opportunity to engage stakeholders and really make a difference.

Visit philamplify.org to read the Hess Foundation assessment, agree or disagree with our recommendations, comment on the report, take our poll and share which foundation you think should be “philamplified” next. As always, philamplify.org users have the option to remain anonymous.

Imagine the impact on our communities when foundations get the feedback they need – especially foundations like Hess, which lack any internal mechanisms for receiving input. You can help break the isolation bubble in philanthropy – be a part of this movement and share your thoughts about the Hess Foundation assessment today.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP on Twitter and join the #Philamplify and #PhilamplifyHess conversations!

This post first appeared in Nonprofit Quarterly on December 22, 2014. It is the third in a series of articles based on insights and lessons from Philamplify, NCRP’s new initiative combining expert assessments with stakeholder feedback to help improve the effectiveness and impact of our country’s foundations.

Is there a place for secrecy and anonymity in philanthropy? Some argue that there probably should be a place for anonymous giving and for privacy when setting and executing grantmaking strategy. Even if I agreed with them, it has become clear to me that secrecy isn’t really possible anymore. Technology and a shift in societal expectations have completely changed the game. Gone are the days when foundations and other donors could operate quietly below the radar. Those who give away large sums must get on board the transparency train or expect to get run over by it.

Much has changed since the organization I now lead published Foundations and Public Information: Sunshine or Shadow in 1980. At that time, our research found that “almost 60 percent of the country’s largest foundations do not meet an ‘acceptable’ standard for providing information to the public, and half of these foundations refuse to provide any information to the public when requested.” The report grew out of immense frustration on the part of nonprofit leaders and some members of Congress that in spite of the fact that foundations receive tremendously preferential tax treatment, it was nearly impossible to understand what they were doing with their millions. Release of the report at the Council on Foundations’ annual conference caused quite a stir.

For thirty years after that report was published, our nation’s philanthropies gradually became more transparent. Increasing numbers of foundations started publishing annual reports in the 1980s. In the 1990s, many grantmakers began sharing information via newly created websites. GuideStar made viewing foundations’ financial information easier when they began publishing 990-PF tax returns of private foundations in 2000.

Since 2010, however, the pace of change has been accelerating. The transparency train is rapidly gaining speed. Some of the momentum is coming from organized efforts in the sector, led by infrastructure groups that support philanthropy.

Foundation Center launched its Glasspockets website in 2010, and that site has become a hugely useful tool moving the transparency conversation forward. Foundations can review the arguments in favor of greater transparency, and they can compare their transparency efforts to those at other leading foundations.

Philanthropy Roundtable has also contributed to the momentum. In 2013, they published a guidebook that, as expected, argued against greater government-mandated transparency. However, the guide also put forward a compelling case for why foundations might find value in increasing the amount of information they share.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy is certainly moving the transparency train forward, too. Our Philamplify initiative, launched earlier this year, assesses the practices of some of the nation’s largest foundations whether or not they wish to be assessed. Some of the funders we are assessing would prefer to operate quietly and exercise their immense influence behind the scenes, unexamined by outsiders. Philamplify makes that increasingly difficult.

The most recent effort adding speed to the transparency train is the Fund for Shared Insight, a funder collaborative that is backing a variety of efforts to create greater two-way communication and foster openness and feedback loops between and among funders and grantees. The members of the fund prefer using the word “openness” to “transparency”—and there are important distinctions between the two concepts—but it’s clear to me their efforts will add momentum. More than a dozen organizations have just been approved for funding for projects that may further accelerate the pace of change.

In addition to these organized efforts to promote transparency, other factors such as technology, investigative reporting, and leaking information are also contributing to the momentum in favor of greater transparency. Groups of major donors on the left and the right have seen materials from their meetings leaked and shared with increasing frequency. Formerly anonymous donors have been outed by enterprising reporters. Large grantmakers have been embarrassed by information about their assets discovered in their publicly available documents. And someday soon data from foundation and charity tax returns may become available in machine-readable formats, not just PDFs, which will further accelerate the current trend.

If grantmakers don’t want to get run over by this rapidly accelerating transparency train, they should get on board. If they don’t want someone else to share their information for them, they need to take serious steps towards meaningful transparency, and soon. But how?

Participating in the Foundation Center’s Glasspockets initiative is a good place to start. Funders who want to be proactive can go through the checklist and make sure they’re sharing the relevant documents such as governance policies and information, grantmaking information, performance indicators and others. They can see what peer foundations are doing and challenge their own institution to be as or more transparent.

The approach promoted by John Tyler and others with Philanthropy Roundtable is a little different. Tyler encourages foundation leaders to have conversations about how greater transparency might contribute to achieving foundations’ goals and to take action accordingly. This is useful advice, and society would be better off if more foundation leaders followed it, but it isn’t enough.

When we discuss transparency in the sector, some assume—wrongly, in my estimation—that foundation decision-makers are or should be entirely in control of whether they share information, how much and when. But we live in a world where that isn’t sufficient, or even possible. Stakeholders now expect to have a greater say in private philanthropy, and they have tools at their disposal that make it very difficult for funders to operate clandestinely. Like it or not, many players will be sharing information from foundations or major donors and criticizing or praising what they see. It’s virtually impossible to keep philanthropy secret these days.

What if foundation leaders instead embraced the idea that they really are partners with the public in pursuing the common good? What if they shared information openly and freely, inviting others into the conversation, instead of trying so hard to keep control of the flow of information? True openness will help foundations achieve better outcomes for the people and causes they care about, and it will make policymakers and others less suspect about the generous preferential tax treatment foundations and donors enjoy.

If foundation leaders want to get on board the transparency train before it runs them over, they should start with the radical proposition that other stakeholders actually have the potential to be true partners. Society needs grantmakers to share more, not less, and to listen more, not less.

Secrecy isn’t possible anymore. The sooner the nation’s grantmakers get used to that idea, the sooner they’ll start sharing information freely and openly and begin real conversations with their partners about how their dollars can make the world a better place.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP and join the #Philamplify conversation on Twitter.

In my role as a research assistant for NCRP’s Philamplify initiative, I have found that “transparency” is defined and applied differently from one foundation to the next. Not only is it rare to find details like contact information, internal policies and strategic plans, but I also found that it can be difficult to source seemingly simple things such as documentation around foundation strategies, grantmaking guidelines or even a list of organizations and projects that receive funding.

Even when such materials are provided, increased disclosure and transparency are not ends in and of themselves. Rather, they allow philanthropists, political leaders, activists and everyday citizens to better hold foundations accountable to the public good. In that, these demands are similar to those advocating for freedom of information in government and corporate responsibility in global markets.

Philanthropic institutions provide vital support for organizations that serve the public interest. Yet, foundations possess an ambiguous identity that is neither completely public nor private, and which operates at the intersection between government and the private sector.

While historically foundations have been created with capital from elite private ventures, they fund services that benefit society, and thus enjoy tax-exempt status as nonprofit entities. This dual nature has for years spurred debate over the public versus private nature of a foundation’s tax-exempt assets, such as whether foundations have a responsibility to redress institutional and societal inequities or if they should be required to release internal documents for public scrutiny.

While the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Tax Reform Act of 1969 mandate that foundations annually file the 990-PF tax return, which provides valuable insight into their charitable operations, such documents are not reader friendly for the larger public. Furthermore, voluntary annual reports are often limited to impact stories and basic grantmaking numbers. The task of making sense of what information is provided, and investigating what is left unexplained, is left to academics, journalists and interested citizens.

In spite of the ease of online research, it can be a struggle to find information and data about foundations’ grantmaking practices. For decades, organizations such as NCRP have advocated for the maximization of philanthropic accountability and responsiveness by calling for stronger oversight and enforcement of standards, such as elements for self-regulation and foundation transparency. Today, transparency advocates are more widespread than ever.

Not only are foundations themselves growing in their willingness to communicate and share, among them the James Irvine Foundation and the Wallace Foundation, but groups such as the Foundation Center and GuideStar have revolutionized our understanding of foundation operations. Their databases facilitate access to a foundation’s annual grant sizes and recipients, assets, expenses and staff lists. In addition, the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Inside Philanthropy and NCRP’s Philamplify, also offer tools for foundation analysis and invite dialogue about what works well and what can be done better in philanthropy.

The Foundation Center, through its Glasspockets initiative, strongly advocates for increased transparency in philanthropy, promoting the more general benefits of funder transparency as:

  • Strengthened foundation credibility
  • Increased public trust
  • Improved relationships with grantees and regions served
  • Reduced duplication of effort among foundations that care about the same issues
  • Facilitation of greater collaboration and collective problem solving
  • Cultivation of a community of shared learning among foundations

Despite the clear advantages, only 66 foundations among the thousands in operation in the United States have submitted profiles on the Glasspockets website. A recent article on a new guide to transparency by GrantCraft, a division of the Foundation Center, cited a grantmaker survey from which “three quarters of respondents reported a greater demand for foundation transparency during the past five years.” The question remains: will foundations respond to that demand?

How has transparency led to accountability in your experience? What standards would you like to see applied to foundation transparency to advance a mindset of openness in philanthropy?

Caitlin Duffy is the project assistant for Philamplify at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow NCRP on Twitter (@ncrp) and join the #Philamplify conversation.