This is a report on the Global Philanthropists Circle Spring 2008 Retreat, held in April at the Rockefeller Estate in Pocantico Hills.
Presenters included several GPC members and guest speakers. Member Greg Carr discussed his work in human rights and views on social justice, and member Mario Morino presented his approach to venture philanthropy.
A conversation with Michael Edwards, the author of Just Another Emperor: the Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism, challenged the adoption of business-like approaches to address social issues.
A session on “High-Impact Philanthropy” was led by Martin Fisher, the CEO of KickStart International and Kevin Starr, the Director of the Rainer Arnhold Fellows program and authors of A Brief Guide to High-Impact Philanthropy. According to Fisher, large-scale, lasting change requires that projects have measureable and proven impacts, be cost-effective, sustainable and scalable.
In April, a group of 30 philanthropists gathered at a Global Philanthropists Circle retreat at the Rockefeller Estate in Pocantico, north of New York City. During the two-day event, the group reflected on philanthropy's role in social transformation. A number of GPC members shared their work in the context of discussion about social justice and venture philanthropy. The participants also had a chance to look at their philanthropic impact. The agenda was designed to provide multiple, sometimes opposing, perspectives on the issues and to stimulate discussion and reflection. As in the past, the meeting was also an opportunity to receive advice from fellow philanthropists and experts in the field.
For those, who were unable to attend the meeting below we are providing highlights from the sessions.
Conversation with Barry Smith and GPC Member Greg Carr about Social Justice Philanthropy.
Barry Smith, the Senior Director of Synergos' Southern Africa office used the example of South Africa's modern history to talk about the struggle for social justice and the possibilities for philanthropy in that context.
Democracy and freedom in South Africa were not produced by philanthropy. That was done by the activists and social movements. However, philanthropists played a very important role in putting in place the transition system. They also played a critical convening role and opened doors for many conversations to take place. Altogether, they played a significant part in the success story. Clearly, it is not yet a finished story as the reality for the vast majority is dire and many citizens don't know their rights.
Some of the points that came up in the discussion are:
- Social justice philanthropy is a way of asking questions about the reality and approaching problems by thinking about their causes. This approach addresses complexity. It is about seeing the whole system that helps to perpetuate poverty and inequality. It looks at issues such as racism, gender inequality, discrimination of immigrants and refugees and repression of minorities. Philanthropy by itself is not sufficient to change the system -- collaboration is necessary. We cannot scale up if we don't intersect with the public sector.
- "Doing good" is not the same as changing things. Philanthropists pursuing social justice must be willing to take risks and embrace rights-based approaches to development (for example, based on human rights or the millennium development goals). A Social Justice approach empowers those who feel the problem on the ground most intensely. It requires listening and amplifying the voices of those most affected and excluded.
- Social justice philanthropy takes a critical view of the possibilities of market mechanisms; questions the long-standing monopoly of traditional philanthropy and different approach to grant-making since social change is not a linear process.
- A mistake that many philanthropists make is to bring too many outsiders who prescribe what the community should do. Instead, one should take time to listen and understand the community's needs; find out what the local leaders want to do and help them do it.
Conversation with Michael Edwards, the author of Just Another Emperor? The Myths and Realities of Philanthrocapitalism
This conversation explored the subject of the infusion of business thinking into philanthropy. Business thinking and the market are crucial to producing surplus to invest, but in his opinion when it comes to solving problems these approaches are less useful. Activism, social movements and social transformation are not easily explained and measured in traditional business terms. There is a great need for independent sources of funding for particularly complicated problems (to complement the more traditional sources) and philanthropists can play an important role here. Additionally, there are a number of characteristics that are extremely important in philanthropy:
- Humility -- it is difficult to retain a real sense of humility when you are distributing large amounts of money.
- Accountability -- we should make foundations more accountable and transparent than they currently are.
Currently, less than 6% of U.S. philanthropy will be used on root causes-we should aim to get at least 50% of foundations' grants to be directed to root causes. Long term social change requires social movements and collective action and they require organizing.
In order to make that kind of giving effective we need much stronger learning and accountability mechanisms. We also need a more creative approach to management that releases creativity, energy, etc. Most large foundations use very traditional management, planning and human resources and methodologies. Foundations usually hire fantastic people and don't use them.
Very often the missing element is how we relate to each other and to ourselves. We are not loving and compassionate enough. Engaging in social change through the spirit of love is a way to avoid burnout, to build bridges between conflicts of interests; it enables people to behave differently; create connectivity. This is a transformative wave for the future.
Conversation with GPC Member Mario Morino about venture philanthropy
In this conversation Mario Morino of Venture Philanthropy Partners shared his approach to philanthropic involvement. Some of the important discussion points that came up are:
- The funding system is very often the source of weakness in many nonprofits. Grant-makers impose rules and requirements that undermine the organizations.
- Trusting relationships- trust is required for the relationship between the funder and the grantee to function. The organizations where we built trusting relationships were the ones that benefited most from funding and technical support. It is vital to truly listen to people (not to pretend to listen!). Patience to build relationships-hear what people have to say about how to help them.
- Leadership is absolutely vital for success and good leaders are worth the investment. One important reason why replication often fails is that we don't have the right leaders to be in charge of the programs. We don't do enough leadership development. On top of that, many leadership qualities cannot be learned.
- Building Middle Management: social entrepreneurs are usually very good at vision and the details. What remains is the middle (the operations) is usually the "weakest" point. This is a great way philanthropists can contribute with both skills and resources.
Discussion about High-Impact Philanthropy with Martin Fisher, the CEO of KickStart International and Kevin Starr, the Director of the Rainer Arnhold Fellows program, authors of A Brief Guide to High-Impact Philanthropy
This session offered yet another approach to philanthropic effectiveness. In the world where almost everyone encounters the problem of limited funds an interesting approach to identifying and supporting high impact projects. In brief, Fisher and Starr believe that when you look at the high impact social enterprise and nonprofits you should look for the following four elements:
- Measureable & proven impact. (Is it proven that it works?)
- Cost effective impacts. (How much does it cost compared to other projects with similar effect?)
- Sustainable donor exit strategy. There are only 4 exit strategies:
- You hand over to government funding (like Head Start in the US)
- You leave in place a profitable business and supply chain (e.g. a microfinance org; introduce green technologies, etc.) that continues generating profit for the community
- Leave in place a sustainable community process that does not need outside funding (e.g. a locally managed endowment fund).
- You solve the problem.
- A model that is scalable and replicable
Some additional tips from the creators of this model:
- With the above criteria once you identify an organization, you invest in them for as long as the organization shows returns; "we would never bail out of an investment like that."
- We start by helping the organization to clarify its mission (in 7 words or less!)
- Then, what is their big idea for achieving this mission?
- What did they accomplish in terms of the mission? Are we accomplishing what we set out to accomplish?
- What has been the cost of that?
- How are they going to scale up? (We want to know if this is a good idea first, then we can think about scaling up).
- If the organization is not measuring and evaluating for itself (but for the donor) then that's not good.