Affinities

Grantmakers Partner with the White House

The Grantmakers Forum on Community & National Service expected 75 attendees for its November conference in Washington, DC. Instead, nearly 200 came to hear presentations based on the theme of "Calling the Nation to Serve: Opportunities for Philanthropy.

Jill Blair, forum project director, said, "The grantmakers forum has been around for about nine years. Over those nine years, we have become more and more relevant: We had President Clinton call the nation to service with AmeriCorps, and the current President Bush has called the nation to a slightly different version of community service—his father's vision for volunteers combined with government support."

"September 11 made community service even more relevant to the nation in that people feel more responsibility to each other. That vision is what we've held and promoted," says Blair.

During the November conference, the keynote address was given by John Bridgeland, assistant to President George W. Bush and director of USA Freedom Corps, a council created by the president to strengthen the culture of service in this country and find opportunities for every American to volunteer.

"There was a dialogue afterward about the role of foundations, and in the course of that, Bridgeland invited us to come and work with him," said Blair. "Part of our responsibility now is to figure out that vision for engaging Americans in volunteerism and who can we work with to form strategies."

But Blair admits there are some challenges: "We just finished a small-scale examination of the cost of a volunteer program and found that nonprofits aren't really ready to incorporate a huge influx of volunteers: about half of nonprofits weren't able to accept any volunteers, and support for those programs is primarily through philanthropy, not government. So we went to nonprofits to try to find out what it takes to launch a great volunteer program." The results of that survey are at www.gfcns.org.

Smart Growth Doubles Attendance

The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities expected an audience of 300 for its national summit on equitable development in mid-November in Los Angeles—the group's first national meeting—but nearly 700 community leaders and national experts attended.

Said Executive Director Benjamin Starrett, the burst of interest "happened for two major reasons. First, equitable development is gaining enormous traction—people are frustrated with sprawl and are interested in how communities are coping and who has power."

"Second, we partnered with PolicyLink, an excellent nonprofit" dedicated to advancing policies to achieve economic and social equity through research and advocacy. "It was a real partnership between a funder group and nonprofit practitioner," Starrett said. "We are showing how funder affinity groups can be collaborators with nonprofits."

One more reason for the high attendance, said Starrett, was "good old-fashioned organization. We worked with our members to support travel for grassroots leaders and provided scholarships from the Ford, Casey and Rockefeller foundations that allowed low-income residents and other stakeholders to attend."

The conference presented case studies on issues such as how to connect central city residents to regional employment opportunities and how to improve affordable housing.

The network has two other new reports: Livable Communities @ Work and Biodiversity and Smart Growth—Sprawl Threatens Our National Heritage. Visit www.fundersnetwork.org.

A Question about . . . Moving from Philanthropic Backwaters

When The Communications Network was established as a 501(c)(3) organization five years ago, its aim was to "move communications out of the philanthropic backwaters" and combine it with programmatic areas in foundations (see "CNIP 'Out of the Backwaters,'" Foundation News & Commentary, March/April 1998, www.foundationnews.org/CME/articles.cfm?ID=29&IssueID=1453). Amber Kahn, the network's executive director since May 2002, explained just how far communications has come in philanthropy:

What I've experienced is not only an appreciation of the role of communications in philanthropy, but a burst of interest in how it can be useful. That's because of the current climate of mistrust in the nonprofit sector by the public and because foundations' declining assets have made funders look for new ways to make the best use of their resources. Interest has also increased because some large and small foundations have provided leadership in the field by showing how communications leveraged their grantmaking.

There are a lot of examples of communications efforts in the field, but until now there's been no effort to show where philanthropy is with its communications efforts. So in January 2003, The Communications Network will begin a research project to get a picture of just how well the field is using communications compared to other sectors of society.