Grant Makers Seek New Ways to Influence Obama’s Foreign Policy

Eric Schwartz and Nancy Soderberg first met decades ago when they both worked on Capitol Hill, he for Rep. Stephen J. Solarz and she for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Their careers have taken similar paths since. The two did stints at the United Nations and served on the National Security Council under President Clinton.

Now Mr. Schwartz has recruited Ms. Soderberg to succeed him this month as head of the Connect U.S. Fund, an alliance of foundations working to promote a foreign-policy agenda characterized by international cooperation and progressive ideas.

She joins the organization as it enters a new phase: trying to help left-leaning Washington charities and other policy groups adapt their advocacy to an administration more sympathetic to their goals.

Connect U.S.’s backers say Ms. Soderberg’s knowledge and connections will be vital to continuing her predecessor’s leadership at the fund, which operates not only as a grant maker but as an advocate for its grantees.

“She’s incredibly well networked and she knows all of the key players and is extremely well respected in these communities,” says Nancy Youman, deputy director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Institute, in New York, one of five foundations that started the fund in 2004.

Ms. Soderberg will work three days a week from Washington and continue her job as a visiting scholar at the University of North Florida, where she has worked since leaving the nonprofit International Crisis Group in 2005.

Fostering ‘Engagement’

The organization grew out of conversations among leaders of the Open Society Institute, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and the Ford, Charles Stewart Mott, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

They were concerned about the direction of U.S. foreign policy and wanted to encourage what they dubbed more “responsible engagement” in issues such as climate change, human rights, global development, and nuclear weapons.

In 2006, the foundations hired a staff of two, led by Mr. Schwartz, to make the alliance more effective and strengthen its presence in Washington. The fund now employs five people.

Creating a Network

Mr. Schwartz, who joined the State Department this month as assistant secretary for population, refugees, and migration, says he’s sought to build a network of nonprofit groups in Washington that share similar values and face parallel challenges but have little opportunity to interact because they are busy working on different issues.

The fund does this by bringing together charities that work on issues such as climate change and global development, for example, and encouraging them to discuss the ties between their work and develop common messages they can present to policy makers and the public.

And last year, the Connect U.S. Fund assembled more than 200 former government officials, scholars, grass-roots advocates, and think-tank leaders to draft a comprehensive foreign-policy strategy for the new president.

‘Rapid Response’

The fund’s approach to collaboration has evolved. It abandoned a requirement in its early years that charities must apply for a grant with other groups.

“I’m firmly of the belief that you don’t force marriages,” Mr. Schwartz says. “You create an environment in which there is a heightened degree of contact and communication so that opportunities for collaboration are much more likely to be seized on.”

Connect U.S. also operates a “rapid-response” fund through which it can give out small grants in as little as 24 hours. For example, the fund awarded $25,000 to InterAction, the umbrella group of international charities, to help it advocate against the partner-vetting system, a proposal to screen nonprofit groups for terrorist ties that is opposed by most international-charity leaders.

Grant makers say Connect U.S. has helped them advance a broad foreign-policy agenda, educated them about new grantees, and provided a way to respond to crises more quickly than they could have on their own.

“Some of the small grants that Connect U.S. makes support our larger agenda and in some cases we may come in with larger grants,” says Smita Singh, director of the global-development program at the Hewlett Foundation, in Menlo Park, Calif. “We wouldn’t be able to make some of these grants or see the opportunities that Eric has.”

Despite the economic climate, Mr. Schwartz says he anticipates that most of the fund’s donors, which now include Atlantic Philanthropies and the Ploughshares Fund in addition to the original five foundations, will continue their support.

The Mott foundation, however, does not intend to renew its grant, and other grants may be smaller. Mr. Schwartz says he expects the budget this year will be about $2.5-million.

A Changing Climate

Many of its grantees, meanwhile, are hurting. The economic crisis has forced many to tighten their budgets and contemplate mergers and other ways to cut costs.

Mr. Schwartz says Connect U.S. could help ensure that organizations interested in merging or dropping programs know of potential partners. The fund, meanwhile, has recently acquired the Peace and Security Initiative, a project established by the Ploughshares Fund.

There is also concern among nonprofit officials that some donors will cite the changed political climate in Washington as a reason they can pull back. Yet Connect U.S.’s supporters say now is the time to step up, not back, on advocacy, because there is a better chance to make actual progress.

But that will require a different approach. Earlier this year, the fund surveyed its grantees and other leaders of charities to learn how its approach might change. Nonprofit officials said they would have an even greater need for quick infusions of money because Congress and the administration would be more likely to introduce legislation and raise new issues, and that the fund should try to broaden support to include new constituencies, such as retired military officers.

Building Support

Ms. Soderberg says Connect U.S.’s role will be less about pushing an intransigent administration and more about creating support among members of Congress and the public. She cites the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on nuclear weapons, which the White House supports but will face a tough battle in Congress, as one example.

“Just because the Obama administration believes in a particular idea doesn’t mean it will happen,” she says. “You have to build constituencies for it and build an environment in which you can get things through a skeptical Congress.”

Ms. Youman, whose Open Society Institute plans to continue its support for Connect U.S., says one of the key reasons why Connect U.S. was founded — to build cohesion in a fractured foreign-policy community — is as pertinent today as it was during the last administration.

She adds: “It would be easy to say we have a new president and everything’s hunky dory. But these are very difficult issues, and they can’t be solved overnight.”