Innovations in Grantmaking

1
Innovations in Grantmaking

• Associated Grant Makers Annual MeetingPhilanthro
  py as Civic Leadership
• MIT Endicott House June 24, 2005
• Marion Kane

2
Funding Outcomes, Not Organizations

• Stories
• Ending Homelessness Pine Street Inn/Healthcare
  for the Homeless/Goodwill Industries
• Strengthening Connections The Boston Youth
  Sports Network
• Creating New Leadership Barr Fellows
• Tools and Frameworks
• Getting the big picture
• Measuring change and impact
• Increasing coordination
• Building knowledge

3
Ending Homelessness
Pine Street Inn, Goodwill and Boston Health Care
for the Homeless collaborate to preserve services
for the homeless

• "What is it like being homeless?
  
• It is like being a suspect and a potential victim
• Its like being ignored
• Its like really appreciating the coming of
  springtime
• Its like paying special attention to the
  forecast to see if and how much youll suffer at
  night
• Its like the sinking feeling you get when you
  have no blankets and your call to the hypothermia
  hotline goes unanswered"

David
4
Homeless Services Map - 2002
EmergencyShelter
Heathcare
Food
Clothing
Jobs
Pine Street Inn
Healthcare forthe Homeless
GoodwillIndustries
Bay Cove Substance Abuse Treatment Center
Homeless Population
5
Homeless Services Map - 2004
EmergencyShelter
Heathcare
Food
Clothing
Jobs
Pine Street Inn
Healthcare forthe Homeless
GoodwillIndustries
Bay Cove Substance Abuse Treatment Center
Homeless Population
6
Outcomes Achieved

• 1200 homeless men and women served daily
• 41 positions eliminated
• 2 million dollars saved annually
• Resources aligned to preserve services
• Services improved
• Duplication eliminated
• Food services at Pine Street become profit center
• Root causes of homelessness better addressed

7
Strengthening Connections
Boston Youth Sports Network
8
Boston Youth Sports Map
9
Boston Youth Sports Initiative
The purpose of the Boston Youth Sports Initiative
is to promote youth sports as a positive youth
development approach in the out-of-school hours.

• BYSI promotes high-quality affordable and
  accessible sports opportunities for all of
  Bostons young people.
• Working with and for Bostons urban youth sports
  programs and supporters, the BYSI encourages,
  strengthens, and builds network connections, with
  the goals of improved information sharing,
  quality, scale and sustainability in the sector.

10
Funding Network Weavers

• Role of the Youth Sports Coordinator
• Serve as network weaver making connections
  between organizations to help increase resources
• Connect scattered organizations and small
  networks to each other and resources by building
  BYSI as central router and communication hub
• When new resources are needed, work to find and
  connect underutilized support networks to the
  Boston youth sports programs
• Work with individual organizations and small
  groups to build their capacity to collaborate and
  use networking strategies

11
Network Evolution
Stage I Scattered Clusters Stage 2 Single
Hub Spoke
Stage 3 Multi Hub Small World Stage 4
Core Periphery
Source Valdis Krebs June Holley, Building
Sustainable Communities through Network Building
12
Boston Youth Sports in relation to other networks
Health Fitness
Before
After School
Youth Development
Education
Community Building
Mentoring
13
Boston Youth Sports in relation to other networks
Health Fitness
After
After School
Youth Development
Education
Community Building
Mentoring
14
Creating New Leadership
Barr Fellows Program
15
Assumption
The great opportunity for philanthropy is to
help create a more effective, adaptive, connected
universe of actors seeking social benefit
Looking Out for the Future, recent report on
philanthropy by Katherine Fulton and Andrew Blau
16
Why the Fellows?

• The leaders we need are already here. The Boston
  nonprofit sector is blessed by a rich diversity
  of leaders with proven track records
• Ageing of nonprofit leaders calling for
  regeneration, investing in/honoring wisdom
• Diversity of city, especially increase in
  immigrant populations, is calling for crossing
  cultures, global perspective
• Complexity of world calling for
  interdisciplinary action and connectedness

17
Highlights of the Barr Fellows Program

• Program components
• Learning Journey to South Africa and Zimbabwe
  with Berkana Institute
• Pairing with Ashoka Fellows who are doing similar
  work in Africa
• Three month sabbatical
• Executive coaching
• Organizational support for remaining staff during
  Executive Director sabbatical (research shows
  that sabbaticals are good for leaders but not so
  good for everyone else)
• On-line community (SharePoint site)
• Every 6 Months a retreat over course of 3 years

• Selection
• 15 nominators, over 100 candidates, 6 member
  selection committee, 12 fellows
• Benefits to Boston
• Contributions of Executive Directors and their
  organizations to the city and to their fields
• Emergent contribution of this network as it grows
  over time
• Benefits to Barr
• Goodwill of fellows
• Learning about leadership, networks, global
  relationships

18
Why the trip?

• Designed to open hearts wider see how to turn
  limitations into possibilities
• Designed to connect with the wisdom, innovation
  and cultural competencies of third world countries

• Safari
• Nature as teacher about leadership
• Extraordinary order and self-regulation
• Ecology of co-dependence

19
Desired Outcomes

• A group of outstanding Boston nonprofit leaders
  is rejuvenated and restored, enabling them to
  remain longer in their jobs
• Their organizations become stronger through
  transition planning and technical assistance
  while they are on sabbatical
• The Fellows develop cross-disciplinary
  connections with others doing innovative work in
  Boston
• The Fellows develop a shared understanding of a
  new kind of generative leadership
• A critical mass of Fellows with a shared
  perspective will, over time, transform leadership
  in Boston

20
Tools and Frameworks

• Getting the big picture systems and grant maps
• Measuring change and impact network analysis
• Increasing coordination collaborative work
  space
• Building knowledge sharing data and knowledge

21
Systems Maps Arts Culture
22
Grant Maps
23
Grant Maps
24
Network Analysis
Before
25
Network Analysis
After
26
Collaborative Workspace
27
Sharing Data Knowledge
28
Challenges

• Who will serve as fiscal agent
• Who is accountable for results
• Cost of integration
• Operational transparency
• Standards
• Who gets the credit
• New skills needed negotiation, facilitation
• Time required to build trust
• Knowledge capture systems