Who would have thought Americans would be nostalgic for a week ago? Today I woke wishing that all we were managing was a global pandemic, more than 100,000 deaths in the United States, and a deepening economic crisis.
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Talking in public about toilet paper ranks right up there with jokes about “quarantinis” and Zoom Brady Bunch references on my list of pandemic pet peeves.
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I always thought the saying ”You can’t step in the same river twice” came from the Quaker nature camp of my youth, but apparently it was the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who said it (significantly earlier than when I was a camper in the 1980s).
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At the beginning of the Covid-19 shelter-in-place guidance, I went up and down the staircase of my 13-floor Brooklyn apartment building, slipping notes under people’s doors, assessing need, collecting offers of help, and navigating different levels of technological savvy to create and moderate an online discussion list for building residents to stay in touch with each other.
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Last week, over 200 foundations signed a pledge calling upon philanthropy to loosen restrictions on nonprofit partners amidst the mounting uncertainty of COVID-19.
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This is a moment of great anxiety, and in my work with small and mid-sized nonprofits and social enterprises, everyone is on edge.
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For the last two weeks, I have been picturing Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner right off the cliff – and in particular I am feeling the moment he looks down and notices the ground beneath him is missing.
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About two years ago, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation launched the Sterling Network NYC as an exploration into the power of networks to catalyze system-level change around economic mobility at the intersection of racial equity.
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Today, the Headwaters Foundation, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, and The Whitman Institute announce the launch of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, a five-year, peer-to-peer funder initiative with the goal of bringing greater vulnerability, transparency, and humility to philanthropy.
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Over the last two years the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation has launched a network, grown our grantmaking, joined several national funding collaboratives, been a founding member of the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project, created an evaluation system, redecorated our office, brought on new board members, updated our website and started a blog.
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‘Tis the season…to be on the move. It’s that time of year when so many of us travel to be with our families and friends for the holidays.
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What makes for great relationships between funders and their nonprofit partners? We at The Whitman Institute (TWI) have always believed that it starts with respect, authenticity, and honesty across power differentials in ways that build trust over time.
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Hot enough for you? We are having a typical sweaty summer here in New York City – on a recent July weekend the temperature hit 100 both days, and most of my conversations have been about how miserably hot and humid it is, or else about the movies I’ve seen to escape into air-conditioned darkness.
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My colleague Lisa Cowan revels in drawing on “worst practices” as a way for us to learn and improve the ways in which we work at the Foundation, from operations and administration to grantmaking. So we have been quite excited on more than one occasion when we have we happened upon funder “fail fests,” where our colleagues promise to describe mistakes and consequences.
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It’s important for us to approach our work with the understanding that it’s the Foundation’s job to get to know prospective grantees, and not theirs to educate us. They’ve got important work to do. And so do we.
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I was at an engaging talk this past weekend that reminded me why effective communication must be at the core of our work at the foundation. The talk topic was ‘How to use behavioral economics to shape food policy and make choices of what to put in our bodies.’ Some of the ideas that were discussed are common here in New York City: taxing sugar-laden beverages and providing calorie information on menus. But one research study grabbed my attention (I know, it may not sound that exciting, but stick with me here!).
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Last weekend I took a yoga class near my home in Brooklyn. The fit and kind young yoga instructor started the class by interpreting some of the dharma. Now to be honest, I usually zone out during this part–I have a hard time taking ancient wisdom from 23-year-olds. But this time the message permeated a bit as the instructor talked about the Bhagavadgita, the Hindu text which speaks about giving:
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Two weeks ago, we invited the program directors from our New York City grantee partner organizations to join us on a retreat. Our plan is to do this annually, so that our partners get to know each other’s programs and build community. This part of our work falls under the Trust-Based Philanthropy principle of providing “Support Beyond the Check.” We also think of thought partnership, support around leadership transition, introductions to potential funders or allies, and lending our offices for off-site meetings as ways we support grantee partners beyond the check – some of them more helpful than others.
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Two year ago, we launched a new grantmaking area here at Robert Sterling Clark—we now fund network and leadership development programs. As we developed this new grantmaking area, we also implemented a new way to evaluate our grantmaking. We asked each of our grantee partners to complete a self-assessment tool to help us understand the progress they were making with our support.
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I started my career as a grant writer for a small nonprofit organization in Boston. I remember how strange the grant-seeking process seemed to me then– I would write some things down and put it all in an envelope (this was pre-email—use your imagination).
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