I picked up a recent Time magazine and was frankly depressed by the article entitled The Decade from Hell.  If the narrative wasn’t enough, yearly call-outs assaulted me with remembrance the headlines from the past  10 years - Y2K, two recessions, Enron, 911, Ponzi schemes, tsunami’s, worldwide financial bailout… – you get the picture.  I felt as though post traumatic stress disorder should be the only appropriate response.

The first decade of the 21st century also represents 90% of my tenure with the Community Foundation of Lorain County (I started in 1998) and looking at the last 10 years through the lens of the Community Foundation paints a very different picture.  Part of that picture is financial, and people typical ask first about our assets, which have weathered the two recessions and are once again where we began in 2000 (~$75M).  This is remarkable when you consider the ~$35M we’ve invested back into our community through grants and scholarships during that same period.  The number of our endowed funds has doubled since 2000 (to 500) and while the number of donors is only slightly larger, the amount of giving has grown from ~$2.8M per year to almost $5M per year. 

As I look back on the many grants we’ve awarded and the fruits of our investment, I have a very different perception of the past ten years.  When I add the accomplishments of our partner organizations; Lorain County Community College, Oberlin College, United Way, Stocker Foundation, Nord Family Foundation, Nordson Corporation Foundation, our community is much better situated for the future than it was in 2000.  Our efforts to create a regional strategy for economic transformation through the Fund for Our Economic Future is paying off with local impact and national attention. 

I’ll be very relieved to have the decade described in Time magazine end, but I have nothing but wonder and awe for the decade to come as seen through the lens of the Community Foundation.

sent Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Ms. Mincer;

Like many of my colleagues, I was very disappointed that your WSJ article on donor advised funds failed to acknowledge the unique value-add of an advised fund at a Community Foundation.  Our donors love the fact that our staff vet all grant recommendations and in fact we typically present “great investment” grant opportunities to our donors for consideration.  Just today I called a donor to insure that he wanted to suggest a grant to an agency that we know is having financial troubles.  His intent is to help the agency through tough times, but he appreciated our watchdog role to help him avoid recommending a bad grant.  Community foundations have a vested interest in the communities we serve.  We know what is working and what isn’t.  A friend once described the unique value add of a community foundation as “sitting in the front row of the mezzanine – we see not only what is happening onstage but also what is going on in the audience”.  Proximity to those we serve, whether as grant recipients or donors, is probably our most important attribute.  The commercial entities you mentioned are great at transactional philanthropy but they cannot and won’t care about our communities or have the insights available through a locally governed public charity. 

Brian Frederick, President/CEO

Community Foundation of Lorain County

I’m tired of bad news and as a result I am very selective about what I read in the newspapers and I don’t watch news on television before I go to bed.  Well let me clarify because I don’t want you to get the impression that I have my head in the sand.  There’s a lot of news having to do with the economy and its impact on people we care about and that’s important to what we’re trying to accomplish at the foundation.  The bad news I’m talking about is what I observe to be a growing trend to spotlight hate , violence, fear, and disrespect…  You get it. 

I guess this is on my mind today because I just returned from our second Women of Compassion award luncheon where we honored six extraordinary women who are making a real difference to lives of many, but who might otherwise go unnoticed.  The stories ranged from feeding the hungry, empowering cancer survivors, educating our youth, advocating for the elderly, balancing college with social engagement and turning the tragedy of a lost child into a movement to cure brain tumors.  Wow!  And none of these women gave any indication that they thought what they had done was special.

Sometimes I think the only reasonable reaction to a world described in the “traditional” news is to lock our doors, distrust everyone and isolate ourselves from all the bad folks out there.  What a different feeling I have from the event today.  This “other” news left me inspired, empowered and ready to roll up my sleeves and do something for someone else. 

I’ve heard the argument that “bad news sells” but I also know it doesn’t build community.  Just knowing that for every honoree today there are probably hundreds of others doing great work to build up our County gives me hope.  It’s too bad their stories aren’t told more often.

We’ve written about it in Sprouting Hope, our eNewsletter, and on our website, but I just have to say a bit about our project in the annual United Way Day of Caring this year – IT WAS GREAT.  We’ve always done something on the Day of Caring, partially to support our neighbors and colleagues at the United Way and partially because we like getting our hands dirty.  But usually, some of our staff were off picking apples with pre-schoolers and some were painting a group meeting room and others may have been weeding the garden at a senior center. 

This year our staff decided early that we wanted to do a project together and we wanted it to be something significant.  So we contacted our friends at the Lorain County Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services and they told us that they really needed a room where new mothers could learn to bond with their children while dealing with recovery from their addiction.  Perfect!  Our staff was good with painting and minor rehab and absolutely shined when it came to shopping, but we needed a hole cut in the wall and a two-way mirror installed, not to mention some major disconnection of plumbing.  No problem, our friends at the Business Industries Association came through to make the project complete.  And what better inspriation for our work and the final product but The Giving Tree by Shel Silversteen.   I see the talents of our staff of ten day in and day out, but I learned that each has hidden talents that I haven’t yet experienced.  I’m confident that in some small way the fruit of our labor will help break the cycle of addiction for a few families in Lorain County, but I know that the labor itself has made our team appreciate each other just a little stronger.  If you’ve got 5 minutes check out our video chronicle of the day.

Nineteen Board members and five management staff spent last Friday evening and Saturday morning looking out into the future for our Community and our Foundation.  On Friday we spent time describing the current status of Foundation finances and efforts and then looked ahead a few years to forecast the impact of the Recession on operations and grantmaking.  Small groups spent the remainder of Friday evening discussing some hypothetical situations in the year 2013 and how the Foundation might react.

 On Saturday morning our Governance Chair, led Board Committees through an exercise to begin the process of crafting a Foundation Diversity and Inclusion strategy.  The remainder of the Retreat was spent comparing our community leadership strengths and capacity to a Leadership Framework created by CFLeads and then applying those strengths to some current work with our Community Development Corporations.  My reaction – the retreat affirmed both the direction we are headed and our desire for continuous improvement.  We also have some great new ideas to explore.

The level of engagement, depth of understanding and commitment, and certainly the creativity of ideas from our Board and staff continue to inspire me.  Plus it speaks volumes that we had such as strong turnout on a summer weekend (out of 20 board members and 5 mgmt staff) .   I sometimes have colleagues who lament that their boards “don’t really get” their community foundation beyond taking in contributions and making grants.  This weekend certainly proved that is NOT the case in Lorain County and we are a stronger community and foundation because of it.  The CFLC is a tribute to the commitment of current and past board members and staff.

Those who know me have heard me say that a significant part of my job is cheer-leading.  Not the rah-rah-sis-boom-bah type but sharing real stories of positive opportunities in our community.  Opportunities derived from organizations that are down in the trenches trying to alleviate distress for our friends and neighbors who are suffering.  Opportunities that are emerging from the numerous entrepreneurial businesses popping up all over our area.  Opportunities from the many generous people who continue to invest in our community despite the fact that the recession is impacting their own bottom line.  My theory is very simple – people will only engage and be part of the solution when they feel hopeful.  And there are many reasons for hope even in this difficult economy.

In our continuing efforts to find new, better and more effective ways to communicate with our community, the Community Foundation has debuted a new eNewsletter called appropriately, Sprouting Hope.   The monthly newsletter is free and features positive stories about people and organizations that are making a real difference in Lorain County.  We will regularly highlight local nonprofits and include wishlists of ways people can directly assist their efforts as well as an events calendar.  Additionally, we will include videos from people you may know, and some you may not, talking about their visions for our community and what gives them hope.  You can sign up online through our website.

I invite you to join us in spreading hope in Lorain County.

For the past six years the Community Foundation of Lorain County has been a proud founding member of the Fund for Our Economic Future, a 100+ collaborative of organized philanthropy in NE Ohio.  Beyond the unprecedented accomplishment of getting more than one hundred foundations, colleges, universities and such to agree on a data driven, unified approach to regional economic developement; the Fund has had a part in remarkable impact including more than a billion dollars of venture investment transforming the region into an entrepreneurial hot spot. 

But what has captured my excitement today is not the millions in dollars awarded to our grantees, or our mayors, city managers, and councils who are pushing regional land use planning and revenue sharing through the Regional Prosperity Initiative – it is a small initiative that has leverage not just changes in attitude but changes in behavior.

EfficientGovNowis intended to encourage, spotlight and reward real government collaboration. More than 60 applications were received for projects involving two or more public collaborators.  A committee reviewed public input on the applications and selected nine finalists, three of which will receive up to $100,000 from the Fund.  During the month of July, 2009 residents of Northeast Ohio will vote to determine which of the projects receive funding. 

The nine competing projects are:

1. Mahoning River Corridor Interactive Web site: “Rollin’ on the River”
2. “Sustain a Greener Ohio,” A Collaboration to Map the Storm Water Conveyance System in Stark County
3. Combined Dispatch to Use New Technology to Save Lives and Money (Ashland County)
4. Westshore Regional Fire District Project (Cuyahoga County)
5. Mahoning/Youngstown Regional Information System (MYRIS)
6. City/Township/School District Fleet Management Collaboration Project (Oberlin, New Russia)
7. Creating Efficiencies and Cost-Savings through Consolidation of Public Health Services in Summit County
8. Rittman and Orrville Schools Administrative Compact
9. Master Plan for the Western Reserve Joint Economic Development Zone of the Cities of Cuyahoga Falls, Hudson and Stow

We know that some of the projects had been under discussion prior to the initiative, but we also know that several of the projects were crafted specifically for the application.  Regardless of their genesis, what inspires me is the desire by so many public leaders to shed the confines of our traditional boxes and to explore new and better ways of working together.  It may be the realities of the current economy that triggers change, or it may be the grant dollars from the Fund, but whatever the cause – I’m glad to see it happening.

Last week I had the distinct pleasure of serving as faculty for 39 people who are relatively new to the community foundation field.  I’ve been teaching the 3-day Community Foundation Fundamentals for the Council on Foundations for about six years now and this class was particularly special as it included colleagues from Ohio and our neighboring States of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois.  The Midwest Community Foundation Ventures (I serve as Vice-Chair of the Board for this collaboration), sponsored the training and the Cleveland Foundation graciously provided free meeting space. 

I teach the course for a number of reasons.  This fast paced, interactive class gives me energy and charges my motivational batteries.  It is next to impossible to spend that amount of time with enthusiastic minds and not become inspired. And I invariably  learn something new in the process.

I also believe that we in the field have a responsibility to raise the bar for our own organizations and the community foundation field in general.  Sharing of best practices, promoting National Standards for US Community Foundations and assisting with professional development through courses like Fundamentals does make a difference.

But perhaps the main reason I teach is to help continue a long and honored culture of sharing and collaboration that is inherent between community foundations.  The history of field is a story of this grand idea (called a Community Foundation) passed from Cleveland in 1914 throughout the United States, Canada and then the rest of the world.  The Community Foundation of Lorain County has experienced such remarkable growth because of the ideas, policies, programs and efficiencies we’ve borrowed from colleagues.  It would be difficult to go anywhere in the world and find a Community Foundation that has grown in a vacuum.  But like many native american cultures – if the stories aren’t told and future generations aren’t taught the language, it risks fading away. 

I wasn’t disappointed in Cleveland last week. Thirty-nine people came into the course wanting to learn more about their jobs and hopefully left with a little better understanding the 100-year evolution of a remarkable community building tool.  And more importantly, by understanding our past and present and culture, they now will begin to refine this model to better serve the needs and dreams of our communities in the future.

It probably isn’t’ any surprise to you that I’m a big fan of accountability. I’ve often said that the most precious asset of the Community Foundation, even beyond our endowment, is our integrity and the trust we’ve earned from the donors, grantees, and the community we serve. If we lose that, we’ve lost everything.

I know that earning the trust of our constituents is increasingly difficult as public scrutiny has increased along with the number of public charities and the massive dollars being socially invested by our nation’s foundations and nonprofit organizations. Both supporters and critics alike want charitable dollars spent wisely for results and we often hear calls for nonprofits to be “more business-like”, or to measure the impact of our actions, and we are seeing indications of growing interest in legislative regulation. Paul Light had a great discussion of this in his book Pathways to Nonprofit Excellence.

Within the foundation, staff and board, have worked hard to hone our back-office business practices so that things like a 24-hour turnaround on gift receipts, accurate accounting on 500 individual funds, and timely grant processing all happen without the public being aware of the considerable work involved. But not all business practices work in a public charity; in fact I contend that running a for-profit company is easier than running a nonprofit, because the outcome of our work isn’t a widget with precise specifications and quality standards. Being business-like, mission focused and values driven means that sometimes the wisest decision doesn’t result from a cost benefit study.

We are trying to gauge the effect of our grantmaking and community involvement to help us better utilize our monetary and human resources to truly lead our community to a better future. But having spent the first one-half of my professional career in research and evaluation, I know too well the fallacy of relying on evaluation for “the definitive answer”. Evaluation is an important tool for learning what seems to work and what doesn’t and it is part of the business-mission-values equation.  It is critical to know what your trying to accomplish and why you believe you can accomplish the desired results.  It’s similarly critical to evaluate your actions and results, but the learnings are often less than crystal clear, especially in the difficult work of public charities.

I greatly prefer self-regulation over external regulation that derives is sanction from suspicion and punishment. We’ve seen only too clearly the unintended consequences of this form of external regulations with the implementation of the Pension Protection Act of 2008. That’s why I’ve advocated and worked for National Standards for Community Foundations since 2001 as a rigorous tool to promote quality and consistency among the 700+ Community Foundations in the United States. But National Standards mean nothing if the organization has no value for what they represent.

In the final analysis, I’m convinced that earning trust all about balance and dealing with the many shades of gray that color our day-to-day work in this field. It’s about being professional but not forgetting that we’re a publicly supported charity. It’s about doing your best to be accountable but doing so with honest transparency even if the picture is sometimes blurred. And it’s remembering that what we are trying to accomplish is sometimes illusive.

Warren Buffet described it well in 2003. “The nature of the problems that a foundation tackles is exactly the opposite of business. In business, you look for easy things, like very good businesses that don’t have very many problems and that almost run themselves. In the philanthropic world, you’re looking at the toughest problems that exist. The reason why they’re important problems is that they’ve resisted the intellect and money being thrown at them over the years and they haven’t been solved. You have to expect a lower batting average in tackling the problems of philanthropy than in tackling the problems of business.”

I’m off this weekend to Washington DC (actually Crystal City Virginia) for my final meeting on the Standards Action Team of the Council on Foundations and the first meeting of the Board of Directors of the Community Foundation National Standards Board.  A number of words come to mind – “maturation”, “formalization”, “transformation”, “validation”, and “whew”.

Community foundations took a bold step in 2000 by adopting the first ever National Standards for US Community Foundations.  While we were mostly all similar, this was a significant step to ensure that community foundations employ critical policies and effective practices.  I joined the Standards Action Team in 2001 and have been engaged in the arduous process of confirmation for the 700+ community foundations across the nation.  During the past five years we’ve seen almost 563 community foundations agree to comply and  463 successfully demonstrate compliance.  Most of the rest are still in the review process.

As the field prepares for reconfirmation in 2010 (certification is good for 5 years, so the first group to comply in 2005 will need be reviewed again in 2010), the fields decided that National Standards needs to be housed in a permanent organization, the National Standards Board.

As one of the few “senior members” (referring to my time on the committee NOT my age), I’ve agreed to serve on the National Standard Board for a two year term to assist with the transition.  And I have to say that I’m feeling very proud of what we all have accomplished.  In a time where scrutiny is paramount, community foundations are well poised to demonstrate our integrity through transparency of what we do and how we do it, as well as our voluntary commitment to compliance with National Standards.  The process has been far from easy but I firmly believe that the donors, grantees and communities served by the field of community foundations in the United States can rest a little easier because of the rigor of the process. 

These two days will be a passing of a baton of sorts, and hopefully a milestone in the history of community philanthropy.