Rapid Turnover at Foundations May Harm Professionalism, Say Grant Makers

Charities say frequent turnover among the program officers who handle grant applications at foundations is a major problem, often leading to inconsistent financing and other challenges.

But some experts say the transitions are also leading to a major gap in professionalism and retention of institutional knowledge.

Some grant makers believe regular transitions are good, and a few even promote term limits, in part because they think doing so avoids the hazards that can come with sitting in a privileged seat handing out money for too long.

But Rusty M. Stahl, executive director of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, a national network of young program officers and others, says the term limits also demonstrate grant makers’ ambivalence about the value of experience.

And that, he says, is one reason so few foundations give much attention to training newcomers.

“You constantly have new people coming in who are getting no orientation,” Mr. Stahl says. “They’re learning by trial and error, and that hurts your grantees. You’ve linked anti-careerism to antiprofessionalism.”

Institutional Memory

When Joel Orosz became a program officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in 1986, six of his fellow program officers had at least a decade of experience to share.

Now, the median time on the job for all program officers in the country is down to just three years.

“Who’s going be your mentor?” Mr. Orosz asks. “The person down the hall who has been there for two years?”

The available resources for program officers have improved over the past decade, with the creation of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy; GrantCraft, which provides tools to program officers; and the Grantmaking School at Grand Valley State University, which Mr. Orosz founded.

Capturing Knowledge

Still, the best aid for an incoming program officer might be a deep set of foundation files that would add context to its past few years of grant making. Kristi Kimball, a philanthropic consultant who was formerly a program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, says Hewlett and nearly all foundations first need to do a better job of capturing this knowledge so that it can be passed along to newcomers.

Hewlett program officers are typically scrambling to evaluate grant requests on a three-times-a-year schedule, which means reflection and writing get short shrift, Ms. Kimball says.

Her solution: Give each program officer four months a year for this important but less-urgent work.

“The challenge is figuring out how to get people to slow down,” she says.

In the early days of the Rockefeller Foundation, which will celebrate its centennial next year, program officers were required to keep daily diaries of their activities, says James Allen Smith, vice president and director of research and education at the Rockefeller Archive Center.

The writings were passed on to secretaries, who typed them up and circulated multiple copies throughout the office.

“What those files provided was a sense of continuity, so that when a new person came in there was documentation of what had gone on before,” Mr. Smith says.

Foundations should also place more value on the wisdom and relationships that veteran program officers acquire, says Dave Beckwith, executive director of the Needmor Fund.

Frank Sanchez, the foundation’s only full-time program officer, started in 1997. He’s been around long enough, Mr. Beckwith says, to know that when one grantee says a charity’s program is helping 100 people, he probably means 80, while another grantee with a stricter upbringing is probably underestimating when she says 100.

Foundations should seek out people who have the “soft skills” to notice those nuances, Mr. Beckwith says: “When there’s a transition, recognize the loss of that wisdom, and search for replacements who bring a similar richness.”

How Foundations Can Improve Program-Officer Transitions

Give grantees as much warning as possible

Let them know a change is in the works.

Aim for a smooth hand off

When Jacob Harold joined the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation as a program officer, his predecessor took him on a tour of the East Coast to introduce him to existing grantees.

Emphasize “soft skills” when hiring

An expert in the arts, education, or other topics who can’t build relationships with grantees is unlikely to be an effective grant maker—and will probably botch the transition when he or she leaves.

Consider collaborative grant making

Allow two or more program officers to work together to evaluate grants for a particular cause.

Keep a record

Collect as much information as possible from the departing program officer.