Philanthropy Study
Group
Practical
Issues in Philanthropy:
A Study Group for
Practitioners and Researchers
Formed in October 2008, the Practical Issues in
Philanthropy Study Group (PSG) brings together students,
researchers, faculty and practitioners to explore
contemporary issues, controversies and challenges within
philanthropy. The PSG will be of interest to students who
wish to better understand the role of philanthropy in
society, in the US and globally. The monthly meetings
feature practitioners and researchers working in the
sector. Topics include the growth of philanthropy globally,
the rise of new funding and management approaches,
questions around accountability and the role of
intermediary organizations, and the relationship between
philanthropies, the state and the private sector.
The group is convened by Steven Lawry, a Senior Research
Fellow at the Hauser Center, and Mary Alice McCarthy, a
master’s student at the Kennedy School and Midcareer Fellow
in Philanthropy at the Hauser Center. Monthly meetings take
place in the Hauser Center conference room. For more
information about upcoming and past meetings, see below.
Meetings
Thursday,
October 22 2009
4:00 –
5:30 PM
Philanthropy
Study Group:
Fully Leveraging
Philanthropic Assets for Long-Term Social and
Environmental Impact
@ Weil Town Hall in
Belfer Building at Harvard Kennedy
School
Future meeting dates will be posted here. Please come
prepared with your comments and questions. We are hoping
for a lively and vigorous discussion around the central
questions facing philanthropy today.
Also, PSG co-convener Steve Lawry is currently
guest-blogging about philanthropy issues on the Hauser
Center Humanitarian NGOs blog. You can read his entries at
http://hausercenter.org/iha/
Friday, November 6 2009
12noon - 1:30pm
Catalytic
Philanthropy
Mark Kramer, Managing Director of FSG Social Advisors
Location: Weil Town Hall at Belfer Building at Harvard
Kennedy School
Hosted by: The Philanthropy Study Group of the Hauser
Center for Nonprofit Organizations
Summaries
of Recent Meetings
April 8th, 2009: Foundations and
Education Reform: Alison Bernstein of the Ford Foundation
and Jim Honan of the Harvard Graduate School of Education
(HGSE)
On April 8th, the PSG welcomed Alison
Bernstein, Vice President for Knowledge, Creativity and
Freedom at the Ford Foundation, and Jim Honan of the HGSE
to discuss foundation approaches to education reform.
Alison focused on private philanthropy's role in expanding
access to higher education and supporting curricular
reform. She kicked off the discussion with a fundraising
letter sent to a potential donor from a Harvard College
trustee dating back to the 17th century. The relationship
between philanthropy and higher education dates back to the
earliest institutions in the United States and remains
strong. While demonstrating that private philanthropy has
played a central role in the development of higher
education, Alison was critical of philanthropy’s impact,
arguing that it had done too little to equalize opportunity
and democratize access to knowledge. That said, she did
point to some promising trends, particularly the new focus
of the Gates and Lumina Foundations on access to
post-secondary education. In all cases, however, she
advised for greater focus on education policy, as opposed
to supporting specific institutions.
Jim Honan is the Senior Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate
School of Education and Co-Chair of the Institute of
Educational Management. Jim has worked closely with
Grantmakers for Education to
develop principles and practices for effective
grant-making in education. Jim explained that
grant-makers of all sizes are generally looking to
fund results-driven organizations with clear
strategies and strong management. He shared a number
of specific examples of organizations supporting K-12
education and emphasized the importance of clear
metrics and explicit evaluation systems to funders.
April 2, 2009: Mission-Related Investing: A Primer
from Luther Ragin of the FB Heron Foundation
On April 2nd, the PSG welcomed Luther Ragin, Jr., Vice
President for Investments at the FB Heron Foundation, for a
discussion on the value and practice of
mission-related investing. Luther is a widely
recognized expert on this growing practice in
philanthropic investing. Mission-related investing
refers to investment strategies that prioritize both
economic and social returns, often by directly
investing in grantee organizations. According to
Luther, a lack of alignment between investment offices
and program offices is typical of most foundations.
The staff in charge of managing the endowment are
rarely expected to be intimately familiar with the
foundation’s grant-making priorities, much less
seeking ways to invest in the activities of grantees.
Luther made a strong argument in favor of greater
alignment between the two and provided a number of
concrete examples from FB Heron’s work of successful
mission investing. In fact, according to Luther,
mission-related investments in affordable housing and
economic development have fared better than many of
the foundation’s non-mission related investments.
Luther’s comments provoked a wide-ranging discussion on
mission-related investing. A number of participants were
interested in how the legal and regulatory systems could be
used to encourage mission investing. Other questions
focused on whether a move toward mission-related investing
strategies might lead foundations away from funding
nonprofits specializing in advocacy and rights-based work.
While he agreed that project-based work (housing, economic
development) lent itself better to mission-investing than
advocacy work, Luther did not rule out the possibility of
finding creative investment strategies that would support
the work of advocacy nonprofits.
January 2009: The Drive to Measure Impact: Help or
Hindrance?
Professor Alnoor Ebrahim of the Harvard Business School and
Hauser Senior Research Fellow Steven Lawry engaged in a
lively debate over the role of impact measurement in
shaping the programs and organizations receiving foundation
funding today. While both presenters agreed on the value of
performance monitoring and long-term impact studies, they
disagreed on the role of short-term impact measures in
evaluating program effectiveness. Steve presented a
critique of the growing emphasis on short-term,
quantitative measures, arguing that they drive nonprofits
toward technical approaches to social change and away from
programs that produce long-term, systemic change. He argued
that programs based on a rights-based, or “humanistic”
approach to social change may not produce strong results in
the short-term, but are much more likely to generate
long-term, sustainable change. Steve pointed to the Ford
Foundation’s support for the anti-apartheid movement in
South Africa as an example of the kind of work that might
not be funded today given the emphasis on short-term impact
measures.
Alnoor presented a strong defense of the need for on-going
impact assessment, arguing that the focus should not be on
lifting the requirement for short-term measures, but on
improving them. He questioned the assertion that the need
to measure impact drives nonprofits away from complex,
systemic problems, arguing instead that it forces them to
think more systematically about how their theories of
change are linked to their program models. Both presenters
agreed that funders must take greater responsibility in
helping grantee organizations design evaluation models that
are rigorous, but also grounded in the complex reality
facing social change organizations.
December 2008: An Overview of Foundations: Trends
in Funding, Practice and Impact
Hauser Center Senior Research Fellow Steven Lawry presented
an overview of foundations and trends in funding and
organizational practice. The presentation focused on the
tremendous growth in both the number of foundations and in
the funding flowing through foundations since the 1990s.
The marked increase in the number of wealthy individuals
over the last two decades has given rise to many new family
foundations. New approaches to managing the operation of
philanthropies and their relationships with grantees have
also emerged over the last two decades, drawn largely from
techniques used in finance and information technology
fields where much of the new wealth was created. Most
notably, “venture philanthropy” approaches are increasingly
popular among new foundations and are based on some of the
practices used by venture capitalists for identifying and
developing successful start-ups. Steve also outlined the
effects of the economic crisis on foundation endowments and
a discussion ensued bout the possible effects of the crisis
on the sector.
November 2008: Philanthropy in a Globalized World:
A Report from the meeting of the Philanthropy Council of
the World Economic Forum
Harvard Kennedy School Associate Dean Christine Letts led
the first meeting of the PSG and provided the group with an
overview of the meeting of the Philanthropy Council of the
World Economic Forum in Dubai. According to Dean Letts, the
key feature driving the major challenges and opportunities
in philanthropy today is the highly decentralized nature of
the sector. On the hand, decentralization creates a
pluralistic environment in which creativity flourishes and
programs can be tailored to meet specific needs and goals.
On the other hand, decentralization may lead to redundancy
and inefficiency as philanthropies re-invent the wheel and
fail to take advantage of opportunities to replicate
successful models. Decentralization and fragmentation also
makes it difficult to link funders to new and capable
nonprofits, leaving many good ideas under-funded. The group
had a lively discussion around the role of intermediary
organizations in matching donors to NGOs and sharing best
practices.