A Tip of the Hat to The Whitman Institute
“Talk to John and Pia.” I did. It’s some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten.
As The Whitman Institute (TWI) sunsets today (they announced ten years ago that they'd spend down their endowment over a decade – and now the day has come), I wanted to reflect on its significance and thank Co-Directors John Esterle and Pia Infante for the meaningful roles they have played in my development and that of Robert Sterling Clark Foundation.
New to my role leading an organization, I had been harboring notions of what I’d do “if I ever had the chance” to be on the other side of the nonprofit/funder dynamic. Two decades of frustration as a grantseeker left me scarred and vowing to do things I dreamt about – like providing general operating support and multi-year funding, and offering straightforward applications. As I shared these musings with colleagues, they kept telling me to talk with The Whitman Institute, and more specifically Pia and John.
They won’t remember, but our introduction was a series of innocuous handshakes and quick pleasantries as I walked by their table in the ballroom minutes before the opening plenary of the 2016 GEO conference in Minneapolis. Embarrassingly, I missed their session on the importance of trust in grantmaking, as I was navigating a conference that had a newbie like me racing from session to session trying to stuff my head with as much information as I could.
A week later I found myself engrossed on the phone with Pia getting a one-on-one briefing of that missed workshop. As I paced excitedly in my hotel room in Washington DC, I knew that TWI’s work was everything that I had envisioned. And then some. The ideas and concepts themselves weren’t new, but by codifying a group of actions – and giving it a name – they’d defined an approach that was informative and powerful. In a moment of excitement and clarity, I asked if we at Robert Sterling Clark might use the term that TWI had coined, trust-based philanthropy, as a way to describe our work and our approach. Pia needed to check with John, and after a follow-up on how we were incorporating or thinking about the practices, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation became the “first follower.”
That signature moment shaped the path forward at the Foundation. It unfolded in stages, often by phone, but we always tried to meet with John and Pia whenever we were in the Bay Area or they in New York. I remember an extended session in their office, which was a repurposed apartment (coincidentally, our space is the same) near the Embarcadero, where we were sharing some ways in which we were expressing some of the practices, teasing out the nuances between some of them, and workshopping ways that we could incorporate a principle that would be consistent with our approach. Those times, which were about operationalizing elements of the work, were really the personification of the approach. With its relational focus on how to help us succeed in our work, the collaborative massaging of ideas, and dialogue about spreading the word on the approach, we forged a relationship and partnership that has been powerful and a reminder to me about the importance of that in all aspects of our lives.
As I reflect, some moments stand out. I remember our first round of grants in the Fall of 2016 using the trust-based model that TWI created having a board member comment that it was clearly aligned with our values and reflected the ways in which we did, or wanted to do, our work. I realized that trust-based philanthropy was “a thing” two years later doing the Opening Plenary session at the PEAK Conference in Orlando with Pia (and doing our own pre-conference session at Disney World) – and even seeing that the wifi password was ‘trust2018’. And I’ll never forget the conversations that resulted in the creation of the COVID-19 Pledge that 800 foundations signed to adopt, at least short-term, based on ideas fostered by trust-based philanthropy.
Their vision and boldness to share the idea – responding to a request from their grantees – with the larger philanthropic community was, and is, an incredible gift. The notions of power and control that underpin so much of philanthropy are disrupted by this more equitable framework by understanding that grantees with their lived experiences and being closer in to the work know how to best deploy the resources. The legacy of The Whitman Institute will largely be for changing the lens through which the sector does its work.
For me, though, I’ll think about how John and Pia move about the world and the humble way in which they inhabit the work. It’s been a privilege to have a front-row seat these past half-dozen years. I’m thrilled that John will enjoy his well-earned retirement though I may seek his wisdom periodically, and delighted that Pia will continue moving this work this forward by joining the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project.
By doing what they thought was right, John and Pia created a new arc for the way philanthropy can, and should, do its work. It’s looking at things in a new way – Return on Relationship instead of ROI. It’s all about trust.