July 24, 2003 | Read Time: 1 minute
Philanthropy’s Challenge: Building Nonprofit Capacity Through Venture Grantmaking
by Paul B. Firstenberg
This book discusses “venture grant making,” an approach the author believes can help foundations more effectively support nonprofit organizations.
Paul B. Firstenberg, executive director of American ORT, an organization in New York that raises money for educational programs throughout the world and a former officer at the Ford Foundation, suggests that foundations should work more closely with the charities they support, invest money in those organizations over several years, and provide management assistance to help them run better.
He writes that many foundations like to keep their grantees at “arm’s length” and provide little management oversight. But now, Mr. Firstenberg says, some grant makers are becoming more involved and requiring frequent exchanges of information with their grantees. He argues that many organizations lack the skills to handle legal issues, develop business opportunities, evaluate programs, manage cash flow, or recruit staff members, and that grant makers can lend their expertise to train charities in those areas. Some foundations even place one or more of their employees on a charity’s board of directors, to exercise greater control over defining the group’s mission, hiring key staff members, and strengthening programs.
Mr. Firstenberg also offers advice on choosing grantees and determining when a charity has met its goals and no longer needs close supervision.
The book profiles several foundations that have engaged in this approach to grant making, including the Edna McConnell Clark and Robin Hood Foundations and the Vera Institute of Justice.
Publisher: Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003-3076; (212) 807-3690 or (800) 424-9836; fax (212) 807-3691; http://fdncenter.org/marketplace; 184 pages; $39.95 cloth, $29.95 paper; I.S.B.N. 1-931923-53-1.
