An Open Letter to Funders in the Region from Ike Leggett

In January, a delegation of funders from Washington Grantmakers
met with County Executive Ike Leggett in the second of a series of meetings occurring with local elected officials. Hearing Mr. Leggett’s concern that philanthropy doesn’t really know Montgomery County, WRAG President Tamara Copeland asked him to write this piece to introduce you to his Montgomery County.

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An Open Letter to Funders in the Region
By Isiah Leggett, County Executive of Montgomery County, MD
2.28.11

The Montgomery County that you have thought of as a rich, white suburb that doesn’t need the attention of the Washington region’s philanthropic community has been changing rapidly in the last quarter century.

Hidden among our general affluence are people who are hurting, people who are really poor. Let me share just one statistic that will surprise you: there are more students in our Montgomery County Public Schools who are eligible for free and reduced meals than there are students in the entire District of Columbia Public Schools system. In addition to our traditional poor, the collapse of the international economic system has pushed many previously comfortable families into poverty. We know that to be poor among the affluent is a special burden. And we know that a community with an increasing gap between rich and poor is not a healthy community.

The need for services is skyrocketing at a time of steeply declining revenues. We’ve reorganized. We’ve cut budgets. We’ve increased taxes. And we have recognized that government can’t do it all. Now more than ever, we are working with our philanthropic, business, and nonprofit partners to ensure that Montgomery County continues to be a welcoming community to people of all races, ethnicities, and incomes. As County Executive, I look forward to continuing to work with you and our nonprofit partners to tap the time, talent, and treasure of our community to ensure that all our residents share in the benefits of our wonderful region. Together, we can make great things happen.

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Funders – Join Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett and senior members of his staff at the Funders Roundtable of Montgomery County this Thursday, March 3. Leggett will discuss the FY2012 budget, priorities for the coming year, and opportunities for collaboration with funders. If you are funding in Montgomery County, but not located in the county, this is a great opportunity for you to learn more about its needs. More information here.

Bill Gates: How to turn our schools around [News, 2.28.11]

On the subject of education reform, measuring teacher effectiveness is the hot topic. In an op-ed for the Post, Bill Gates – co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – reaffirms that the key to both high-quality education and a thriving economy is teacher development.

But at the moment, Gates points out, the United States is on the wrong track. We’ve wasted a lot of money on ineffective ventures – including spending $50 billion a year on automatic raises for teachers who don’t necessarily deserve them. He breaks down the United States’ education shortcomings compared to more successful countries, recommends approaches for policymakers, and lays out his foundation’s strategy:

[O]ur foundation is working with nearly 3,000 teachers in seven urban school districts to develop fair and reliable measures of teacher effectiveness that are tied to gains in student achievement. Research teams are analyzing videos of more than 13,000 lessons – focusing on classes that showed big student gains so it can be understood how the teachers did it. At the same time, teachers are watching their own videos to see what they need to do to improve their practice.

Our goal is a new approach to development and evaluation that teachers endorse and that helps all teachers improve.

A great read from a true issue expert. (WaPo, 2/28)

EDUCATION | The Center for American Progress ranks our region’s school districts based on efficiency.  (WaPo, 2/28)

NONPROFITS | Opinion: Ralph Nader says that Obama’s Silence on the Achievements of Struggling Nonprofits Is Deafening. (Chronicle, 2/20)

YOUTH
- Local restaurateur Paul Cohn thinks that there hasn’t been enough done in D.C. to provide work for the city’s residents, so he’s opening a summer camp for DCPS students to learn “core competencies of running a restaurant, including kitchen management, purchasing, marketing and accounting.” (WaPo, 2/28) Neat idea!

- When looking for a summer camp, it is best to plan ahead. (WaPo, 2/27) Possibly even years ahead, from the sound of it.

AGING | The AARP Foundation is hoping to raise between $50 and $100 million to combat hunger issues for older Americans through a sponsorship of car racer Jeff Gordon – the first major cause-related sponsorship for NASCAR. (Forbes, 2/28) And you thought NASCAR was just a bunch of cars driving in circles!

ENVIRONMENT/BUDGETS | The District has abruptly suspended its Renewable Energy Incentive Plan due to the city’s budget gap – meaning many residents who were promised reimbursement for installing solar panels will have to foot the bill themselves. (WaPo, 2/28)

EVENTS
- Wed., March 2: Waiting for Superfunders: How Donors Can Leverage K-12 Education Reform sponsored by Arabella Advisors and featuring a panel that includes Meika Wick of WRAG member  CityBridge Foundation.

- Thurs., March 3: Funders Roundtable of Montgomery County: A Conversation with County Executive Ike Leggett

WEATHER | Watch out for…tornadoes? I saw a tornado form in NE D.C. in high school. It was crazy.

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I’m a big movie nerd, and I have to take a fairly cynical view of the voting process for the Academy Awards. Sure, The King’s Speech was a very good movie. But The Social Network, The Fighter, and True Grit were truly great movies. And how newcomer Hailee Steinfeld didn’t win an Oscar for True Grit is an unfathomable mystery to me. Yes, these are my opinions, but come on! Steinfeld out-performed Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon at the same time!

Billy Shore on hunger and the future…Prince George’s approves huge schools cuts…D.C. bag tax not hurting business [News, 2.25.11]

CHILDHOOD HUNGER
- Following up on Share Our Strength’s survey on childhood hunger, founder Billy Shore says that President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness is spinning its wheels by not looking at root problems: “To seek economic competitiveness without addressing childhood hunger and poverty, is like seeking military superiority without investing in the physical fitness of the troops.” (Huffington, 2/24)

- Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced $5 million in Hunger-Free Community grants, and went on to say that childhood hunger needs to be tackled at a local level with support from nonprofits and corporations. (USDA, 2/24)

INNOVATION | I always worry about computers taking over the world like they did in Terminator, but IBM thinks that Watson – the supercomputer Jeopardy! champ – might actually be able to help solve social problems in ways that humans haven’t considered. Curiouser and curiouser…(Chronicle, 2/24 – subscription)

EDUCATION
- The Prince George’s County school board has approved a budget that will cut more than 1,300 jobs and make class sizes much bigger. School Superintendent William Hite Jr. hopes that the passage of the dire budget will “persuade the state and county governments to contribute more money.” (WaPo, 2/25) Probably not a reasonable expectation, unfortunately.

- New District deputy mayor for education De’Shawn Wright talked to the city council about his vision for the position. (WaPo, 2/24)

WRAG’s Public Education Working Group will meet with Wright and Hosanna Mahaley, the State Superintendent of Education, on March 14. [More info.]

GIVING | A donor is demanding the return of more than $3 million in contributions from a college football program after not being given a say in hiring a new coach. Is it reasonable for him to ask for his money back? (WSJ, 2/24) Philanthropy isn’t supposed to be a back door to ownership, so I say no.

ENVIRONMENT | The Alice Ferguson Foundation has found that despite accusations that the D.C. bag tax harms business, 78% of businesses surveyed reported a neutral or positive effect on their bottom line. (DCist, 2/25)

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One of our regular readers suggested that my paraphrasing of the Chronicle’s article on Charles Feeney’s signing of the Giving Pledge might have betrayed the intended meaning. To be clear, I meant to emphasize that Feeney had already dedicated his fortune to charity long before anyone even asked him to – a testament to his extraordinarily and impressively generous character. Surely his signing of the Giving Pledge will inspire other billionaires to do the same.

Most teachers have hungry kids in the classroom, and the problem is getting worse. [News, 2.23.11]

A survey conducted by Share Our Strength begs the question, what country are we living in, again?

Two-thirds of [public school] teachers, grades kindergarten through eighth, say they have students in their classes who regularly come to school hungry because they aren’t getting enough to eat at home, and 63% of the teachers say the problem increased this past year.

The survey also notes that while there are programs which make food available, a lot of students still aren’t getting fed for various reasons. (USA Today, 2/22)

GIVING | Charles Feeney, the founder of the Atlantic Philanthropies, has signed the Giving Pledge started by Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. His pledge won’t do much more for nonprofits, though. Turns out that he is way ahead of the curve as  “he’s already given away nearly all of [his] fortune.” (Chronicle, 2/22)

EDUCATION
- Surprise! DCPS and the Teachers Union are arguing – this time over who should be paying former union head George Parker for not working right now. (WaPo, 2/23)

- Yesterday, the Post‘s Jay Matthews said colleague Valerie Strauss is wrong about school vouchers. In response, she says Matthews is actually wrong. Sounds like a simple back-and-forth, but the debate is definitely worth reading. (WaPo, 2/22)

HOUSING | Following up on yesterday’s good news that regional home prices are up 4.1%, it turns out that the Greater Washington region has the best housing market in the entire country. (Examiner, 2/23)

NONPROFITS | Obvious news of the day: nonprofits oppose federal budget cuts. (Chronicle, 2/22)

HEALTH | “The union representing about 1,600 nurses at Washington Hospital Center have notified management they plan to hold a one-day strike March 4.” (WaPo, 2/23) It sure seems like the entire world is protesting or striking right now.

Huge funding gap for retiree health care in Maryland…Vouchers debated…Dentists on wheels for kids in Prince George’s [News, 2.22.11]

AGING/BUDGETS | Md. faces $16b funding gap for retiree health care benefits (Examiner, 2/22) – “Now, as the population grays and health costs skyrocket, states are unable to pay what they owe. So they are cutting back on their promises, since health benefits are not legally protected.”

EDUCATION
- The Post’s Valerie Strauss doesn’t appreciate U.S. senators using the voucher program as political leverage. She cites a study that says the vouchers aren’t even effective. But her colleague Jay Matthews says that Strauss is wrong on D.C. vouchers. (WaPo, 2/21)

- An interesting perspective from a UCLA educator: The meaning of Michelle Rhee (WaPo, 2/22)

HOMELESSNESS | D.C. Social Worker Offers Brutal Choice To Homeless Mother (City Paper, 2/19) This is a tough issue on all sides; the story puts a face on the problem.

HOUSING | Washington-area home prices rise 4.1% in past year (WBJ, 2/22)

HEALTH
- Colbert King: In the District, struggling to deal with teen pregnancy (WaPo, 2/19)

- Mobile dental clinic brings care to poor children in Prince George’s County (WaPo, 2/22) This is a nice story, though there is still much work to be done – “The District received a “D” and Virginia received a “C” on benchmarks such as getting dental care to Medicaid children and expanding the roles of dental hygienists or trying other ways to provide this care.”

ARTS | The Atlas Performing Arts Center has named Sam Sweet as its new executive director. (Informer, 2/18) The Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation recognized Sweet’s leadership and vision with an Exponent Award in 2007.

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Hope you all enjoyed the long weekend. Hot or cold? Maybe the weather will make up its mind soon. Speaking of which, here’s a cool look at how the Verizon Center converts from ice rink to basketball court in only three hours.

Deloitte donates help to DCPS…Get to know Walmart Foundation’s Margaret McKenna…Robocop [News, 2.17.11]

Feb. 22 – Philanthropy in Action: Charting a Course for Social Change (Open to Washington Grantmakers Members)

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EDUCATION
- To help DCPS find new savings and sources of money, Deloitte will offer its services pro bono. (WaPo, 2/17)

- Sens. Lieberman and Collins said that Congress will likely cut DCPS funding if the federal voucher program isn’t brought back. (WaPo, 2/17)

PROFILE | The Walmart Foundation’s Margaret A. McKenna – an “unlikely philanthropy chief.” (Globe, 2/16)

FLAVORFUL DEMOGRAPHICS
- NPR is on the hot seat after running a story titled D.C., Long ‘Chocolate City,’ Becoming More Vanilla. (NPR, 2/15) Apparently they learned nothing from Ray Nagin. Apologies to any strawberries or mint chocolate chips who feel neglected.

- Interestingly enough, while the District is seeing a higher percentage of white residents, the suburbs are seeing exactly the opposite. (Examiner, 2/17)

TRANSIT | Gray team slams DDOT under Fenty staff (Examiner, 2/17) Eh…give us streetcars, please.

ART
- It’s the age-old story: Citizens want a statue of RoboCop. Mayor says no. Citizens use the internet and raise the money themselves. In fact, the campaign was so successful, so quickly, that the organizers are now looking at ways to leverage both the fundraising surplus and popularity into new projects to improve Detroit. Interesting lessons here, methinks.

- Charitable Deduction Limit: Bad For Art Nonprofits? (NPR, 2.17)

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An early Happy Presidents’ Day to everyone. We’ll be back on Tuesday. Enjoy the warm weather!

Bob Grimm: Rethinking “Impossible”

Feb. 22 – Philanthropy in Action: Charting a Course for Social Change (Open to Washington Grantmakers Members)

Bob Grimm, the former Director of Research and Policy for the Social Innovation Fund, will lead a conversation on February 22nd about developing grantmaking strategies to effect social change.  Here , he gives us a preview:

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Q: As the former Director of Policy and Research for the Social Innovation Fund, what advice do you have for funders who want to have a greater impact on the issues they care about but don’t know where to start?

A: One way to start is to have some serious discussions about what would constitute a game-changer or breakthrough result for the issue you are working on. What are the main obstacles to that result becoming a reality today? What all would need to happen to get you even close to that outcome? In addition to discussions, research also can be a powerful tool to help answer these questions and shape your plan of action. As my friend Rob Sheehan writes in his recent book Mission Impact, too often we tacitly assume a breakthrough result is impossible but if we don’t think the impossible is somehow possible we will always fall well short of our mission.

Q: What exactly is a “breakthrough result” and how does focusing on the concept potentially change how a funder might operate?

A: A breakthrough result depends on your organization but it could be reducing the incidence of a problem by 50% or even eliminating it altogether in an area. No matter what you envision as your game-changer, I believe striving for that outcome will make you realize that focusing on leverage, networks, and partnerships are more important than your direct grant dollars. With a quick look through WG’s Beyond Dollars you will find bold examples of how a few local funders are working in this way.

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Robert Grimm, Jr., is currently a Professor of the Practice of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management at the University of Maryland. On Feb. 22nd, he’ll moderate WG’s program Philanthropy in Action: Charting a Course for Social Change.

IMPACT overhaul recommended…Too many theaters?…WG members help save teen homelessness program [News, 2.16.11]

EDUCATION | Mayor Gray’s education transition team – led by the CityBridge Foundation’s Katherine Bradley and United Negro College Fund’s Michael Lomax – has recommended an overhaul of the IMPACT evaluation system.  (Examiner, 2/16) While making the announcement, Gray also confirmed that Kaya Henderson is in the running for permanent schools chancellor.

ARTS | Rocco Landesman – the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and a major Broadway theater owner and producer – made waves last week when at a conference he stated, “There are too many theaters…You can either increase demand or decrease supply. Demand is not going to increase. So it is time to think about decreasing supply.”

The Post took Landesman’s point and gauged the reaction of both local and national arts advocates. It is a fascinating debate, especially in light of the proposed $21 million budget cut for the NEA. (WaPo, 2/13)

HOMELESSNESS | Thanks to grants from the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region and the Northern Virginia Community Foundation, the Homeless Youth Initiative in Virginia will continue to operate after critical funding through the stimulus package ran out. (Connection, 2/15)

BUDGET | Although President Obama trimmed funding for the Promise Neighborhoods program, Corporation for National and Community Service CEO Patrick Corvington feels that the budget still shows the president’s continued “support for national service, support for the corporation.” (Chronicle, 2/16)

HEALTH | Catania bill seeks to provide birth-control pills over the-counter (WaPo, 2/16) That’s a pretty powerful drug to make available without a doctor’s oversight.

LOCAL | Not that its legend wouldn’t have sufficed, but history will surely remember Ben’s Chili Bowl now that the family that owns it has donated papers and artifacts to GW’s Africana Research Center. This gives me an excellent excuse to mention the Blues Brothers for the second time this week – apparently Blues mentor Cab Calloway was one of many celebrities to have eaten at Ben’s. Cool!  (WaPo, 2/16)

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Borders has filed for bankruptcy protection, and the region’s locations are on the chopping block. It would be a real bummer to loose a handful of bookstores.

Should we streamline the Common Grant Application?

By Carolynn Mambu
Vice President, Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers

Over the last year, we have heard from our members that it is time to revise the Common Grant Application (CGA). Since it was last revised in 2004, we initially agreed and began doing some research to lay the ground work.

It turns out that many of our members are streamlining their applications by moving into an online environment. When that happens, funders typically abandon the CGA in favor of an application specifically designed to their foundation.

This led us to wonder, if we revise and streamline the CGA would anyone use it? Or, has its utility become obsolete?

To help us answer this question, we need to hear from you. Your perspectives will dictate how we move forward. Please take two minutes to share your thoughts in a quick survey.

- Survey for funders
- Survey for nonprofits

The surveys will close on March 1st. Thank you!

Marathon training to combat HIV/AIDS

By Channing Wickham
Executive Director, Washington AIDS Partnership

In January, I was approached by AIDS United (formerly the National AIDS Fund) to see if the Washington AIDS Partnership would like to help bring the Team to End AIDS (T2) marathon training program to Washington D.C.

Several years ago, there was an AIDS-awareness marathon training program in D.C. but there currently isn’t one. This seemed like a great opportunity to bring T2 to Washington, D.C., raise funds for the Washington AIDS Partnership and much-needed HIV/AIDS services, and get runners engaged in an important health issue.

T2 will train individuals to complete a half or full marathon. Many of the program’s past participants in Chicago were first-time marathoners; it’s a great fit for beginners or experienced runners! Training begins May 14, 2011 for the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, D.C.