Foundations Urged to End Their Timidity Over Advocacy

Foundations, especially those on the left of the political spectrum, have grown timid in their efforts to change public policy and have adopted an overly technical approach to philanthropy, a panel of nonprofit leaders said here last month.

At a meeting organized by the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute’s Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership, both liberal and conservative foundation experts agreed that grant makers must do more to influence public-policy debates if they want to be more effective.

Foundation officials today lack confidence and as a result are not trying to create large changes in society, said Emmett D. Carson, president of the Minneapolis Foundation and chairman of the board of the Council on Foundations, a coalition of grant makers in Washington. “Foundations have ceased to believe they can fly,” he said, paraphrasing the recent pop song by R. Kelly, “I Believe I Can Fly.”

Mr. Carson also said grant makers shy away from advocacy efforts because they misunderstand the law regulating such work and have become afraid of controversy. “We are too thin-skinned that someone might disagree with us,” he said.

Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for advocacy at the National Council of La Raza, in Washington, agreed. “Impact doesn’t come without some degree of controversy,” she said.

She encouraged grant makers to allow advocacy groups they support to develop strategies to change public policy, rather than imposing their own agendas on the grantees. “We view ourselves in the general’s role,” not the solider’s, she said.

Foundations fail to support efforts to change public policy because they are too focused on measuring a project’s immediate results, said several speakers. While grant makers need to hold the organizations that receive their money accountable, they said, many foundations have placed too much emphasis on measurement.

Said Mr. Carson: “We have to bring balance back to evaluation.”

End Small Foundations?

Mr. Carson also floated a controversial proposal about how to improve oversight of grant makers as Congress prepares to introduce new legislation governing nonprofit organizations. He proposed eliminating all foundations with assets less than $1-million, an idea similar to one offered by the New York State attorney general’s office two years ago.

The move would reduce the regulatory burden on the Internal Revenue Service by decreasing the number of foundations by 48,000, Mr. Carson said. These donors, however, would still be able to give through other means, such as community foundations and donor-advised funds operated by financial-services companies, and would forgo the legal and administrative burden of establishing a grant-making organization. They are “not ready for that kind of structure,” he said. “It inherently has no advantage to giving.”

A transcript of the panel’s discussion will be available at the end of May on the center’s Web site at http://cpnl.georgetown.edu.