Changes to disability retirement in MoCo…Social media in philanthropy…Interview: Flamboyan Foundation’s Susan Stevenson [News, 6.29.11]

PEOPLE
- WRAG Member Profile: Meet Susan Stevenson, executive director of the Flamboyan Foundation’s D.C. office – and learn what a flamboyan is!

- The Examiner’s 3-Minute Interview with Mary Procter of Capitol Hill Village – “one of the first nonprofits around the country to help people stay in their homes as they age.” (Examiner, 6/29)

PHILANTHROPY FACTOIDS | Early this week, Tamara asked, What is Philanthropy? On Wednesdays, beginning today, we’ll build on her explanation by sharing quick facts that you might not know about the field of philanthropy. It’s Philanthropy Factoid Wednesday!

SOCIAL MEDIA | More Than 90% of Foundations in New Survey Use Social Media (Chronicle, 6/28) Note: this survey was only of funders with communications staff, so the high number is somewhat misleading.

Related: Earlier this month, social media guru Larry Blumenthal led a panel of WRAG members to discuss social media strategies for foundations. (WG Daily, 6/29)

AGING/HEALTH | Montgomery County Council approves changes to disability retirement program (WaPo, 6/29)

ENVIRONMENT | The second phase of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup will set new criteria for local governments. (WAMU, 6/29)

TRANSIT | Bike lanes planned for D.C. are on hold and at risk of being eliminated due to “a loss of parking, along with the potential for new transit routes and a loss of revenue, as factors that could cut the proposed lanes.” (Examiner, 6/29) Bad idea.

FOURTH OF JULY | The Daily will be on Fourth of July hiatus until next Tuesday. But since the Fourth is one of my favorite holidays, I have to share a few things in advance:

- “Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!” (I know I posted this last year, but it’s awesome.)
- A very glittery live version of Neil Diamond’s Coming to America
- Quiz: Can you name the Founding Fathers?   (Ahem.)

CLARIFICATION | On Monday, I linked to an article about foundation leaders being arrested for District Voting rights and mentioned the “efforts (and incarcerations)” of a number of WRAG members. To clarify, George Vradenburg was not among those arrested.

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For those of you who watched Nick’s masterpiece Transforming Philanthropy last year, you might be interested to see how the Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon turned out. It opens today.

Happy Fourth, and see you all next week!

Philanthropy Factoid Wednesday: Andrew Carnegie

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It’s easy to associate the name Andrew Carnegie with philanthropy, but it wasn’t until the end of his life that he made his mark as a philanthropist. He believed dying without dedicating his wealth to a cause would be shameful, so he endowed the Carnegie Corporation with what today would be $3 billion. This allowed his charity to continue long after his death and set the example for the modern foundation.

How can foundations use social media to advance their missions?

By Rebekah Seder, Program Coordinator

In the Daily last month, Terri Freeman, President of the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, kicked off a conversation about the value of social media to philanthropy. A few days later, Larry Blumenthal, a consultant with Open Road Advisors, led a workshop with funders titled Social Media: How and Why Foundations Should Join the Conversation. His baseline: online tools like Twitter and Facebook are invaluable means through which foundations can strengthen the philanthropic sector.

Using these tools allows foundations to be more open in their grantmaking processes; enables them to be better listeners of both their grantees and other organizations working in their areas of interest; and, enhances their role as collaborators, information sharers, and conveners.

In addition to Blumenthal, three WRAG members formed a panel and offered plenty of advice to colleagues considering getting started with social media.

Michael Smith (The Case Foundation) works for a foundation that has been at the forefront of social media for several years. He shared the story of how The Case Foundation came to view social media as the means through which they could best promote their goals of civic engagement and fostering collaboration to solve social problems. Online engagement, however, led the foundation to learn an important lesson about social media:  using these tools means giving up some amount of control over message and content, which requires a real mind-set change for a traditional foundation.

Victoria Vrana (Venture Philanthropy Partners) reminded the audience that whether a foundation is using social media or not, its grantees likely are – and might very well be talking about the foundation. For that reason, outlets like Facebook and Twitter are a good way to both stay up to date with your grantees, as well as to stay informed about what is going on in your issue areas. Vrana also advised the audience to start small. Just as you wouldn’t walk up to a random group chatting at a party and start talking, when getting started on Twitter it’s important to listen before you join the conversation.

Mariah Craven (Washington Area Women’s Foundation) described how using social media has been key to furthering her foundation’s mission. It has enabled WAWF to increase the number of well-informed supporters who both donate to and promote the work of the foundation. Likewise, social media gives the Women’s Foundation a venue to better promote their own programmatic work, as well the work of their grantees. Craven also discussed how she managed the increased workload by planning tweets and Facebook posts in advance. However, she also noted that effectively using these tools requires being flexible enough to recognize opportunities to get involved in or start a conversation.

Each speaker emphasized the importance of starting out slowly with social media and thoughtfully integrating it into an overall communications strategy. While blogs, Twitter, and Facebook may seem to be unlikely communications tools for foundations, at the end of the day they are simply another set of tools in the communications toolbox that have the potential to increase the impact of a foundation’s philanthropy.

Two-thirds of nonprofit execs plan to leave jobs… ‘The age wave is coming’…D.C. finds funds to expand youth jobs program [News, 6.28.11]

A new report from the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation and CompassPoint titled Daring to Lead surveyed more than 3,000 nonprofit executive directors and found that two-thirds of them plan to leave their jobs in the next five years.

Executives express frustration with nonprofit funding models, amplified by the recession, but remain resolved and engaged.
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Most respondents—84%—reported negative organizational impact from the recession, with one in five reporting significant negative impact.
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Nearly half of respondents (46%) said their organizations had operating reserves of less than three months of expenses, even though three months is the minimum level of reserves suggested by most experts.

AGING | If baby boomers stay in suburbia, analysts predict cultural shift (WaPo, 6/28) Older people “are changing the image and priorities of a suburbia formed around the needs of young families with children.” And a local county supervisor says, “Clearly, the age wave is coming.” Silver Tsunami Alert!

YOUTH | So ignore what I posted yesterday about summer jobs. Mayor Gray now says he has found additional revenue to fund 4,000 more young people to participate in the city’s summer jobs program. (WaPo, 6/28) Maybe they should rename “revenues” and call them “surprises” instead, because it seems like nobody ever knows quite what to expect. The city found $20 million of additional surprises today.

STREAMLINING | Late last year, WRAG held a workshop on streamlining the grantmaking process. We checked in with Kathy Jagow at the Moriah Fund about their new and improved application and reporting guidelines. (WG Daily, 6/28)

EDUCATION
- Montgomery Co. Schools Superintendent Jerry Weast’s farewell address (WAMU, 6/28)

- Editorial: For D.C. students, new hope in revived school voucher program (WaPo, 6/28)

PEOPLE | Atlantic Philanthropies has named Christopher Oechsli, a lawyer and former aide to Sen. Russ Feingold, as interim president. (Chronicle, 6/28)

WORKFORCE | Mayor Gray announces new plant, other developments (WaPo, 6/28) “[The] plant will bring 300 new jobs to Ward 8 and … several new restaurants and shops will give a boost to a waterfront development near Nationals Park.”

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Check this out: When fish attack! (It gets crazy around :30 in.)

Project Streamline: The Moriah Fund

Late last year, WRAG held a workshop that used the Project Streamline report as a framework for exploring concrete ways for funders to streamline their grants processes – reducing costs, minimizing burden for both grantees and funders, and maximizing efficiency.  Since then, we’ve held follow-up workshops to discuss funders’ progress and give participants an opportunity to brainstorm.

The Moriah Fund is one foundation that has fully embraced streamlining. We talked to Moriah’s Administrative Officer Kathy Jagow about their progress and challenges:

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Q: Could you tell us about your changes and why they came about?

Kathy Jagow: We decided to revise our grant process because we were receiving longer and more repetitive applications and reports than we needed. We were asking our grantees for similar information twice a year, once in the interim report they submitted with their new applications and a few months later in a final report. We felt that our current process was making both our staff and our grantees deal with more paperwork than was necessary. We were treating long term grantees the same way as new grantees.

To address these issues we cut the size of applications, no longer require subject headings, and greatly reduced final report guidelines for grantees who have recently received a grant renewal. We are also implementing the right sizing principles included in Project Streamline by having different requirements for returning grantees, new grantees, and different sized grants.

Q: Do you expect any difficulties in transitioning – either for you or your grantees?

K.J.: I expect that after we do one round of grants with our new guidelines we will probably discover that we need to make modifications to the process. Both our grantees and our staff will have to adjust to shorter applications and reports. We had the revised guidelines reviewed by some of our grantees and included some changes they recommended in the final draft. We hope that the grantee review will minimize problems.

Q: How will the streamlined process benefit you as a funder?

K.J.: I think our streamlined process will benefit Moriah by allowing our program officers to spend less time processing paperwork and more time collaborating with our grantees. It will allow our grantees to spend less time on paperwork and more time on their missions which helps Moriah to receive more value for its investment. So far our grantees have responded very enthusiastically to the changes.

Q: Did WRAG’s Project Streamline workshop help your streamlining efforts?

K.J.: The Project Streamline workshop provided a great frame work that helped our staff think through the process of revising our grant requirements and helped us to set aside the time to focus on it. It was useful for us to hear what our colleagues were thinking and to learn about best practices.

Q: Do you have any recommendations or cautions for other funders interested in streamlining?

K.J.: I would recommend taking the timeline you develop for the streamlining process and doubling it. I had really hoped to have finished the process by the end of January, and we did not have new guidelines up and running until June. I would also recommend that you ensure your grantees’ input is part of the process. We had several of our grantees screen drafts of our new guidelines and their input was very helpful.

What is Philanthropy?…National HIV Testing Day…Foundation leaders become ‘jailbirds’ for voting rights [News, 6.27.11]

PHILANTHROPY | June 2011 is the hundredth anniversary of organized philanthropy, celebrating the founding of the Carnegie Corporation. And wouldn’t you know it, a lot of people have no idea what philanthropy is. Case in point – at a wedding last summer, I told somebody I worked in philanthropy. Her eyes widened and she said, “You work with dinosaurs?!”  And our colleagues in Minnesota filmed a video with similar results a few years ago.

At WRAG, we want to spread information about the field of philanthropy, and we are kicking off a campaign with a piece by Tamara – What is Philanthropy? (WG Daily, 6/27)

Members of the 8 Neighbors coalition are helping get the word out through websites, blogs, and newsletters. And, in the Daily we’ll be running “Philanthropy Factoid Wednesdays” – we’ll share a quick fact about the field of philanthropy that you might not know. Stay tuned!

HIV/AIDS | Today is National HIV Testing Day. (WaPo, 6/27) Members of the Washington AIDS Partnership’s AmeriCorps team are working at free testing sites throughout the city – Channing Wickham says, “I’m very proud of the hard work the team is doing to raise awareness of HIV – it makes a huge difference.”

- Nonprofits Use Creative Measures To Educate Teens About HIV/AIDS (WAMU, 6/27)

D.C. VOTE | The Chronicle of Philanthropy talks about the efforts (and incarcerations) of Annalee Ash, Diane Bernstein, Tamara Copeland, George and Trish Vradenburg, and Daniel Solomon in the fight for District voting rights. (Chronicle, 6/24)

Related: Here are pictures from Saturday’s rally in front of the White House. (WaPo, 6/27)

YOUTH | D.C. Youth Fixed to Go Broke (DCist, 6/26) “Jobs are down from 22,000 last summer to just 12,000 this summer.”

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Last week, I mentioned Saturday’s Ozomatli concert with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. At the show, the program explicitly requested that patrons refrain from dancing and stay in their seats. Well…that didn’t happen. And it was an awesome show!  Hope you all had a nice weekend.

What is Philanthropy?

By Tamara Lucas Copeland
President, Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers

What is philanthropy?

The easy answer is that philanthropy is the awarding of grants to worthy individuals or causes. That answer is clear, concise and incomplete. It captures the facts, but not the soul of philanthropy. The best definition I’ve ever seen is from Paul Ylvisaker, a legendary program officer with the Ford Foundation. He said “philanthropy is America’s passing gear.” Philanthropy is just that. It is the spark that leads to change on a level that is often transformational for society. Consider a few noteworthy examples:

A white line on the right side of the road was an idea from the Dorr Family Foundation. In 1953, John Dorr received permission to fund the addition of outer lines on the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. His wife had mentioned that at night the headlights of oncoming traffic caused her to drift toward the shoulder. Today, we take for granted a simple line that defines a space and has probably saved thousands of lives. Dorr was the spark.¹

Sesame Street was born in the late 1960s through a collaboration between Joan Ganz Cooney, an award winning documentary film producer, government, and philanthropy. Carnegie started with a $1 million investment, then the Ford Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the U.S. Office of Education joined. Today television, when used properly, is widely accepted as a viable component for the education of young children. The Carnegie Corporation was the spark. ²

Hospitals in rural areas were severely lacking in the 1920s. In fact, more than one-half of the counties in the US didn’t have one. The Commonweal Fund recognized the problem and began to establish rural hospitals. Ahead of their time, they required the hospitals to serve any person, regardless of “race, color, creed or economic status.” That program led to the 1946 passage of the Hill-Burton Act for hospital construction. The Commonweal Fund was the spark.³

911, the professions of nurse practitioner and physician’s assistant, multiple think tanks and over 2800 public libraries built in the late 1800s and early 1900s had their genesis – their spark – from philanthropy.

This month as the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers joins others across the country in celebrating the 100th anniversary of institutional philanthropy, it is important to remember that philanthropy can’t do it alone. While philanthropy might be that spark that engages the passing gear, it takes others to keep the engine roaring. Only when government, business, nonprofits and philanthropy join forces do we experience the social change that benefits us all.

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WRAG is a member of 8 Neighbors, a regional collaborative composed of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, the Nonprofit Roundtable, the United Way of Greater Washington, the Community Foundation of the National Capital Region, Leadership Greater Washington and the Center for Nonprofit Advancement. 8 Neighbors is working to make  metropolitan Washington a region in which all have the opportunity to succeed.

CareFirst teams with YMCA for youth fitness…Surprising facts about race…House cuts D.C. funding by ten percent [News, 6.24.11]

YOUTH | CareFirst awarded at $500,000 three-year grant to the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington to continue a youth fitness program that has reached 61,500 District youth since 2008.

COMMUNITY | Earlier this week, I linked to an article that said class, rather than race, was dividing the District. Terri Freeman, president of the Community Foundation for the National Capital Region, left a comment saying that the keynote speaker at their recent annual meeting “made it clear that race and class are too closely linked to talk about one without the other.”

Here’s an interesting follow up to the Community Foundation’s annual meeting – titled Putting Race on the Table – where a panel of experts was asked to share surprising facts about race. (WAMU, 6/22)

EDUCATION
- At an Arlington school, parents “sing praises” of a year-round school schedule. An article about Bancroft Elementary weighs pros and cons. (WAMU, 6/24) The kids, on the other hand, sing Alice Cooper.

- Retiring Montgomery County Superintendent Jerry D. Weast has recommended approval of the county’s first charter school – Community Montessori Public Charter School intended to be opened in Kensington in 2012. (WaPo, 6/24)

BUDGET | On top of yesterday’s news about lowered revenue projections, the District might also have to contend with a 10 percent cut in federal funding. The House Appropriations Committee approved a $62 million reduction to funding for D.C. courts, school construction, and the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program, among other things. The bill keeps the rider preventing the city from spending on abortions, though allows medical marijuana and needle-exchange. (WaPo, 6/24)

HIV/AIDS | Homeless women in the region are 150% more likely to suffer from HIV/AIDS than the general population. (WaPo, 6/23)

HEALTH | On the subject of race, a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology finds that black men in America have a higher survival rate in prison than outside. The most likely reason? “Health care for many black men in America is so poor that they actually get better care in prison.” (io9, 6/24)

- Related: In the article about the Community Foundation’s annual meeting above, Margaret O’Bryon of the Consumer Health Foundation discusses racial health disparities in D.C.

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Happy Friday, folks. Hope you enjoy the last weekend of June?! Can’t quite believe that next weekend is the Fourth of July.

If you are looking for something to do tomorrow, tickets are still available for a concert featuring Ozomatli and the NSO at the Kennedy Center – a decidedly unusual but exciting combination. Ozo puts on a fantastic live show.

Walmart announces major local funding for youth nutrition, jobs, and learning…United Way promotes health with grants to DCPS and charters…DC budget faces problems [News, 6.23.11]

As part of a $25 million national effort, Walmart and the Walmart Foundation are giving $665,000 locally for school nutrition, summer jobs, and learning programs. (WaPo, 6/23)

Wal-Mart said the money would deliver healthful meals to about 26,900 school-age children locally, enroll 120 youths in summer learning programs and provide jobs to 180 District teenagers.

Grants will go to organizations including the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington, Higher Achievement, Capital View Program Center, the Latin American Youth Center, D.C. Hunger Solutions, the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Urban Alliance.

GIVING | The United Way of the National Capital Region, in partnership with the District Office of the State Superintendent of Education and General Mills, announced $200,000 in grants for D.C. public and charter schools to support nutrition and physical activity. (Newswire, 6/22)

BUDGET | Projected tax and fee revenues in the District are lower than expected, meaning that parts of the recently passed budget that were to be funded with these revenues are now in jeopardy. Jack Evans and Phil Mendelson want to reopen budget talks. (Examiner, 6/23) And somewhere, Natwar Gandhi is banging his head on a desk saying, “I told you so!” (He did.)

POLITICS | Grand Jury Investigates Gray Campaign (WAMU, 6/23) “The grand jury investigation won’t necessarily lead to an indictment, according to the NBC report.”

TRANSIT | Greater Greater Washington has a good post about the merits of WMATA expansion despite the system’s major problems with maintenance. (GGW, 6/22) Speaking of problems, I saw a maintenance truck breakdown and block the tracks during an unscheduled repair the other night…

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Wow! Elusive Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, one of the FBI’s ten most wanted, was finally caught yesterday (at the age of 81) after 16 years on the run. Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson’s character in The Departed. Between Osama bin Laden and Whitey Bulger, I’m starting to have faith that, in the end, you can’t escape justice.

Henderson confirmed as chancellor…A tribute to Lois and Richard England…Changes at DYRS after escape [News, 6.22.11]

EDUCATION
- Kaya Henderson can knock “Acting” off her title as she was officially confirmed at D.C. Schools Chancellor yesterday. (WAMU, 6/22)

- A poll of DCPS parents found that for the first time in a decade, the majority ranked the system as either “good” or “excellent.” (WaPo, 6/22)

COMMUNITY
- The Columbia Heights Educational Campus – which houses Lincoln Multicultural Middle School and Bell Multicultural High School – recently honored WRAG members Lois and Richard England. As part of the tribute, the schools filmed a video about the Englands, their philanthropy, and the impact they had on one student in particular.

- Check out the CityBridge Foundation’s brand new website! Looks great.

JUVENILE JUSTICE | A ward of DYRS escaped (and was later caught again)  because the corrections officers assigned to transport him were late.  Now fingers are being pointed and quick fixes proposed. (WaPo, 6/22)

LOCAL | Here’s an interesting article on the new CityCenterDC project under construction at the site of the old convention center – “envisioned as a modern-day Rockefeller Center.” (NY Times, 6/22) Wait…isn’t Rockefeller Center a modern-day Rockefeller Center?

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I had jury duty yesterday, and though I can’t say I enjoyed sitting in the jurors’ lounge for eight hours, I do have to admit that the District provided some pretty comfortable chairs to wait in. So comfortable that I dozed off at one point and drooled on my shirt. And the woman in front of me noticed and started laughing. She wouldn’t have laughed if she knew that my juror ID number was “007″!  – Christian