The border between the United States and Mexico spans 2,000 miles, touching four US and six Mexican states. The area is fraught with social and economic challenges.
The region's population is growing rapidly -- from nearly 10 million people today to an estimated 20 million by the year 2020. Communities on both sides of the border are struggling with inadequate social services and infrastructure, low wages, and high unemployment. Rapid, unplanned growth is causing environmental crises -- with water shortages and air and water pollution.
Mexican border cities are increasingly unable to fulfill expanding demands for basic health, housing and public services. US border counties have some of the worst poverty rates in the nation. At the same time, the massive flow of migrants from Mexico crossing the border under dangerous conditions has resulted in human rights abuses.
In the past, foundations have supported isolated actions on the border. The US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership focuses on long-term solutions and community development.
Synergos Facilitates the Launching of a Major New Initiative
In 1995, at a joint meeting of the Council on Foundations and the Mexican Center for Philanthropy, Susan Berresford, President of the Ford Foundation, announced her interest in creating a $10 million fund to promote border philanthropy. She subsequently set aside $3 million toward the creation of the eventual US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership.
Following up on this commitment, in 2001 the Ford Foundation asked Synergos to conduct a feasibility study. We interviewed leaders on both sides of the border, as well as potential donors. The study investigated existing foundations on both sides of the border and whether they could be strengthened to play a larger role in improving the quality of life in border communities. It also assessed donor interest in the community foundation concept for sustainable community development. In addition, we looked at funder collaboratives established elsewhere to draw lessons on how to best shape a governance system.
Synergos found 14 US and 7 Mexican community foundations operating along the border. Despite their diversity and varying levels of development, all were playing or had the potential to play critical roles in their communities, including:
- Acting as community-based grantmakers, matching resources with local needs
- Strengthening the capacity of nonprofit organizations and community groups serving the local communities
- Bringing together representatives of the public, private and nonprofit sectors in action partnerships
- Connecting local efforts to national and international networks
- Expanding local foundation grantmaking through permanently endowed funds
- Providing a voice for local disenfranchised citizens and communities.
A program needed to be designed that would not only cover the needs of all of these community foundations, but also would be convincing and interesting to potential donors.
A creative way to make this happen was through a partnership between national and regional donors and community foundations that would benefit both groups. Such an initiative was an opportunity not only to address sustainable community development, but also to initiate bi-national learning, resulting in an increase in funding to the region and bringing tangible benefits to border families and communities.
Building the Partnership for Long-Term Development Along the Border
In 2001, Synergos and the Ford Foundation, along with the Texas-based Meadows Foundation, convened a group of potential funders to launch the process for creating a cross-border philanthropic initiative.
From this, the US-Mexico Border Philanthropy Partnership, a collaboration of 9 founding international, national and regional foundations and 21 border community foundations, was established. The Partnership is bound by its members' common concern that the area's social, economic and environmental challenges be adequately met.
"This is a historic event," says Enrique Suarez of Fundación Comunitaria de la Frontera Norte, a Mexican border community foundation. "Two very different countries come together to address common critical needs through a philanthropic network."
The Partnership's main objectives are to:
- Build and strengthen the organizational leadership, programs and institutional resources of border community foundations -- rooting development efforts in local participation and building local social capital
- Encourage cross-border collaboration that will result in an improved quality of life.
It sets out strategies to assist border community foundations -- capacity building, bi-annual "Learning Communities" to share best practices; inter-foundation exchanges; bridge building between diverse community segments and between the foundations and members of other societal sectors; and technical assistance in fundraising and grantmaking. More information is available online at www.borderpartnership.org.
Funders have provided close to $2 million for a pooled fund, managed by Synergos, to be used for capacity building technical assistance, communications, partnership management, and liaising with current and future funders. And they have committed up to $10 million in unpooled funds that will go directly to border community foundations.
"The Border Philanthropy Partnership that Synergos helped initiate sets in place an infrastructure for communities along the US-Mexico border that will expand local philanthropy and cross-border collaboration to promote development in this important region," says Berresford.
Learning from Each Other
The first Learning Community was held in the fall of 2002 in Chihuahua, Mexico. The three-day meeting, organized and facilitated by Synergos staff, established a basis for interaction among the partners, a definition of Partnership governance structures, measurements for success, and determination of future Learning Community goals.
At the meeting, partners worked together to draw collective pictures of their vision of the border in 2020 -- imagining the region with strong, vibrant community foundations and nonprofit organizations. A common theme in all their pictures was a border not characterized by social, economic and political divisions.
On another day, attendees participated in Peer Advice Breakfast Roundtables led by the US and Mexican peers. Roundtable topics included:
- Getting started in Mexico
- Getting and keeping your board engaged
- Community-based asset development as a strategy
- Building donor services to build assets
- Getting started in the United States
- Using affiliates to increase reach and assets.
Other group sessions brought together funders and border community foundation representatives to discuss ways to work together, measures for success, and organizational governing structure. It was determined that the Partnership would be governed by an executive committee, which will work along with program, membership and development, and communications committees made up of both founding and border community foundation members.
At the close of the meeting, Ramón Pérez Gil of the founding foundation Fundación Gonzalo Río-Arronte compared his feelings about the Partnership with those he had had as a child, receiving a new bicycle for Christmas: "After months and months of anxious expectation, I finally had my new bicycle that I'd been dreaming about for so long. Now it was time to learn how to ride, to get myself up after hard falls, and most of all to explore the unknown paths that this new bicycle would allow me to discover."
A Year of Progress
Since its inception in September of 2002, the Partnership has made impressive strides.
Its governance system is up and running. Site visits were made to all border community foundations, more than $125,000 in technical assistance funds was authorized, and nearly all participating community foundations received individual technical support. More than $6 million in direct grants have already been awarded.
Small community foundations have been able to increase board development efforts, reach out to new communities, and create new collaborations. Collaboration among founding funders has allowed them to be more effective grantmakers, reaching across geographic boundaries to work for a common goal.
"We have the opportunity to do something completely new in a new place," says Linetta Gilbert, a program officer at the Ford Foundation. "We are attempting a new thing -- to make a difference in border communities by increasing community philanthropy and engaging new leadership."
For More Information
Visit www.borderpartnership.org.