Foundations and the Press: Forging Better Ties

Buried in the mammoth spending bill signed by President Clinton last month was a small provision that requires foundations to make their tax returns more accessible to the public.

Many observers see such increased accountability as a positive development. But in reality, it may not do much to improve public understanding of what grant makers do.

A new report commissioned by the Urban Institute Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy provides some insights about why that is the case.

The report, “Overcoming the Jitters,” is based on a survey of nearly three dozen executives of philanthropies, journalists, and other non-profit observers by the consulting company Burness Communications. It concludes that the real reason the public has a poor grasp of foundation activities is that the people running those organizations have done too little to work with the news media.

According to one communications staff member interviewed for the survey, foundations have been asleep at the wheel when it comes to building relationships with reporters. They have too often tried to avoid the press, rather than cooperate with it, or to emphasize what their grantees are doing, rather than what they are. Although more effort has gone into communications in recent years, the absence in many cases of a strategy for dealing with the press has made much of it wasteful.

The news media came in for their share of criticism, too. According to both the foundation staff members and journalists who were interviewed, too much press coverage focuses on scandals and mega-gifts, rather than on the day-to-day influence that non-profit groups have on their communities. The news-media respondents admitted that neither they nor their editors and publishers knew much about philanthropy, but they also faulted foundations for failing to provide enough useful information or story ideas. Over all, the survey found, journalists appear to consider foundations very closed organizations, unwilling to answer questions, provide data, or allow access to staff members.

Making foundation tax returns more accessible — foundations will have to provide their three most-recent returns to anyone who requests them in person and send them within 30 days to people who make written requests — will ease at least one source of journalists’ complaints. But, contends the report, much more needs to be done. In particular, it calls for a number of steps aimed at teaching journalists about philanthropy and the non-profit world. It also endorses an effort — already begun by the Council on Foundations and the regional associations of grant makers — to show foundation staff members how to work more effectively with the press.

Such steps surely won’t be harmful and may even do some good. But they will not in the end make the relationship between grant makers and the press much smoother, or significantly improve public understanding of what foundations do.

That is partly because the report does not deal with the chief obstacle to greater cooperation. Since most philanthropists do not have to rely on financial support from the public, they have little incentive to cultivate better press relations. Some, in fact, are convinced that maintaining a low profile, or even anonymity, is essential for effective grant making. Although the Urban Institute report suggests that lack of openness could lead to greater regulation, the most controversial episodes in recent years have involved organizations — such as the United Way of America, the Freedom Forum, Covenant House, and the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy — not known for their shyness.

In any case, with their tax returns soon to be readily available, many foundations will understandably wonder why they should do more.

What’s more, giving the news media more information — and special training — is not likely to do much to enhance coverage of philanthropy. That is because reporting depends not just on what a journalist knows, but also how he or she approaches a story: the questions asked, the amount of time spent on it, the lenses through which the facts are interpreted, the people interviewed, and the like.

Surely, it is revealing that the information currently available about non-profit groups from the Internal Revenue Service and other sources has largely fueled stories about high executive salaries, skyrocketing assets, and wide revenue disparities among charities. Those are familiar categories to most journalists, easily understood (and relished) by their readers. More complex, in-depth analyses — for example, of the role a foundation plays in its community or the considerations that go into its grant making — are not only harder to do, but also likely to be more subjective and, hence, more open to criticism. In addition, except in specialized publications or as part of special investigative reports, they do not easily fit into what most publications regard as newsworthy these days.

Even if that changed, foundations would have to do more than brush up their news-media techniques to get better press. They will also have to start being more candid about what they are doing and why. They will need to explain a lot more clearly than most philanthropies now do what goals they are pursuing, what reasons led them to think that particular projects were likely to achieve those goals, and what happened as a result of their grants.

Many foundations will also find it much harder to insist that they are politically or ideologically disinterested, concerned purely about the public good, and informed by the best available expertise. Unless foundations are willing to discuss such matters candidly, a more aggressive public-relations strategy may rouse more suspicion in reporters than a lackadaisical one may.

On balance, judging from measures of public attitudes, the non-profit world is not doing so badly compared with government or business, even though most people have only a nebulous idea of what it is. If philanthropy wants to do better, it will ultimately have to be more honest about what it knows or doesn’t know, what it is trying or not trying, and which of its undertakings have succeeded or failed.

Whether or not that bolsters philanthropy’s public image remains to be seen. But more candor about — and self-examination of — programs’ goals, motivations, and achievements is likely to lead to better grant making.

Leslie Lenkowsky is professor of philanthropic studies and public policy at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy and a regular contributor to these pages. His e-mail address is llenkows@iupui.edu.