LearnPhilanthropy Team's Blog

Submitted by Dara Major on May 6, 2013
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LearnPhilanthropy is happy to share this guest post from Fiscal Management Associates (FMA)... a LearnPhilanthropy Content Partner

By Courtney Geiss

 

Want to build your own financial management capacity – and that of your grantees?

Check out the (free!) tools, how-to’s and guides for grantmakers and nonprofit leaders available at the newly-released site StrongNonprofits.org.

StrongNonprofits.org is a capacity building resource developed in partnership by The Wallace Foundation, a national philanthropy that supports education and enrichment for disadvantaged children, and Fiscal Management Associates (FMA), a national consulting firm dedicated to building nonprofit fiscal strength.

Just some of the tools you’ll find at StrongNonprofits.org include:

  • Budgeting and Financial Planning Tools-  Excel-based templates to provide organizations with a framework for:
  • Go or No Go: Funding Decision Tool- an interactive tool that helps organizations decide whether applying for a potential funding source would help or hurt their organization

To introduce the site, we’re offering a free webinar on Tuesday, May 21 with Nancy Devine, Director of Learning and Enrichment at The Wallace Foundation. 

Nancy will share the history and outcomes to date of the capacity building initiative - Strengthening Financial Management (SFM)- that inspired the creation of StrongNonprofits.org.  She’ll describe how The Wallace Foundation helped to improve the financial management skills of 26 Chicago-based out of school time providers through training, one-on-one consulting and other assistance provided by Fiscal Management Associates (FMA).   And she’ll offer insights into how you can help improve your own, and your grantees’, fiscal strength too.

To learn more and register for this special funder-only orientation webinar, click here.  We hope to see you there!

 

Submitted by Dara Major on April 26, 2013
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LearnPhilanthropy is pleased to share this guest post from the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers....
 
By Martha Johnston, Project Director
 
Part think-tank and part service organization, the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers provides a learning community and a forum for open discussion among consultants dedicated to increasing and strengthening philanthropy. The Network's mission is to increase the quality, effectiveness and capacity of grantmakers by mobilizing and strengthening the work of knowledgeable, ethical and experienced consultants. 
 
We've been thinking a lot lately about big data and connecting people in the field to innovative tools.  NNCG members and colleagues recently met in Chicago during the Council on Foundations' Annual Conference for networking, information exchange, and an introduction to new tools for grantmakers and consultants. Our Annual Convening on April 7 featured Lisa Philp, the Foundation Center's Vice President, Strategic Philanthropy, who demonstrated new tools available to consultants that increase grantmaking effectiveness and impact. Participants were so enthusiastic about the new Foundation Center resources - such as Philanthropy In/Sight - that they encouraged sharing them more broadly with NNCG members. NNCG is pleased that Lisa will reprise her presentation as an NNCG webinar.  You can find more info on this and upcoming NNCG webinars here.  We invite philanthropy consultants to join us for this, whether you're a member or not!  And we invite grantmakers to let us know: what's your big data story? 
 
Submitted by Dara Major on January 16, 2013
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LearnPhilanthropy invited Content Partner National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy to share this guest post, as a follow-up to their recent article on this theme.  Happy reading!
 
By Christine Reeves
 
Last July, I went to Detroit, to participate in the Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG)’s Social Justice Institute at the Skillman Foundation, also a LearnPhilanthropy Content Partner. Whenever I get involved in an NFG event, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll learn or who I’ll meet, but I know that it will be surrounded by wisdom and ideas that strengthen my understanding of philanthropic skills. Well, sure enough, I met Cris Doby of the Mott Foundation. On the last night of the event, we sat together on the hotel terrace until after midnight, talking about big problems, ideas and trends.  
 
Our article in the fall issue of Responsive Philanthropy, “Generalist or Specialist: A False Dichotomy,” became our opportunity to discuss a trend we had both recognized: the seeming tendency of grantmakers to put more value in one over the other. We had a myriad of goals for the article, but the three stood out above the rest.  
 
First: we wanted to make the case that while specialists are experts, generalists are experts, too.  In our conversations with philanthropic practitioners, from entry level staffers to board members and presidents, we find that hiring managers often (but not always) favor specialists.  Some of the hiring managers then feel confident that the specialists can quickly attain generalist “soft” skills, but we reject the premise of this thought and explained why in the article.
 
Second: We wanted to recommend action items, so that specialists and generalists can more astutely learn from and positively challenge each other. Specialists and generalists alike must be proficient in: 
 
• Connecting silos
• Shedding one’s previous role
• Acquiring new skills
 
Doing this well often requires that we embrace, discuss and apply our passion – even, at times, anger.   We did not go into detail about this in the article, but it is important to note.  Sure, being polite is great.  However, let’s ask ourselves: Can’t we be both passionate and courteous? The problems in our world, the problems right outside our office windows (hunger, disease, pain, violence, poverty, crime) demand our passion and yes at times anger, because and survivors of these problems deserve our best efforts. Tapping in to our deepest beliefs and values can be a tool to marshal our thoughts, fix our moral compass, build relationships, and embolden us to fight the fights that need winning. 
 
When generalists and specialists grow in thoughtful, active compassion, good things can and do happen. Nothing stops us from remaining polite, generous, and kind to each other while, attacking problems as truly engaged problem-solvers because, over time, our only remaining option is to grow apathetic. 
 
I am incredibly impressed with funders who listen more than talk, question more than answer, and recognize the expertise of nonprofit and community leaders as being superior or no less than equal to their own. Then, I am doubly impressed with funders who put a higher premium on actionable passion than casual politeness.  If you are interested in a further discussion about passion and due anger that we can funnel into productive, compassionate grantmaking, you may want to read this blog post on “The Gift of Anger” from Philanthropica.  
 
Third: we wanted to frame our thoughts in terms of strengthening philanthropic practitioners to better serve marginalized communities; we did not want to limit our conversation to merely professional development. So, we hope that we gave good action items and conversation starters for the staff meetings, board meetings, and even the water cooler.  We are all interested in professional development goals.  However, we are most useful when we ensure that our professional development goals help us better serve communities… and not the other way around.
 
One of my all-time favorite quotes remains, “My business is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." These words of Mary Harris Jones, a nineteenth century labor rights leader, should make us – comfortable philanthropic practitioners – reflect, discuss and then afflict ourselves with tougher questions. This quote and many others inspired me to write a four-part blog series on how philanthropic practitioners can ask themselves tougher questions. I hope that asking ourselves about generalists and specialists is a good, tough question to ask ourselves.  What good, tough questions are your staff asking?  What good, tough questions would you like to discuss more?
 
 
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Submitted by Dara Major on December 12, 2012
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LearnPhilanthropy's Content Partner the Center for Effective Philanthropy has released a new report entitled, "Employee Empowerment: The Key to Foundation Staff Satisfaction."  The report analyzes data from the 31 mostly US-based foundations that commissioned CEP Staff Perception Reports between 2007 and 2011.

As CEP's Ellie Buteau notes in her recent blog (the first in a series on this theme):

"We wanted to understand how satisfied foundation employees are with their jobs and what best predicts how satisfied they are.... Our research indicates that the strongest predictor of how satisfied foundation staff are with their jobs is not what they are paid or how they see their workload: it’s how empowered they feel."

and

"Having analyzed the quantitative data with my colleagues, and having personally read through several hundred qualitative responses we collected through our SPR surveys, it is quite clear that not all foundation employees feel empowered. And not all employers care about how empowered employees feel.
 
"If the performance of foundation staff has the potential to impact progress on important issues, then how satisfied foundations staff are in their jobs should be of utmost concern to foundation leaders. Foundation leaders who overlook or deprioritize employee empowerment do so at their own peril. As one staff member wrote in our survey, 'Overall, staff members, myself included, think the CEO has no interest in the staff and doesn’t care if they leave the foundation.' ”
 
Do you feel empowered on the job?  Looking for ways to expand your skills... for your next job?  Browse LearnPhilanthropy's collection of resources under "Individual Development" for inspiration :)
 
Submitted by Dara Major on November 29, 2012
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What skills do great grantmakers need?  Check out this article from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's fall 2012 issue of Responsive Philanthropy, Specialist or Generalist: A False Dichotomy.

 

".... We believe that the multifaceted skills of a generalist are neither soft, nor easily attained.  Furthermore, thoughtful grantmaking requires us to address struggles and limitations that specialists and generalists (as well as those who fall somewhere on the middle of the continuum) have with their skill sets.  Upon doing so, we realize that the struggles of specialists may be more difficult to overcome than some might expect, while the underrepresentation of generalists is at the root of some growing problems in our sector."

 

What do you think: are you a specialist, or a generalist, or.....?

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