Shedding Light With Shadows

Foundation officials gain a better view of how charities work by following executives on the job

The day Irene Cooper-Basch went back to high school, inspiration struck. Ms. Cooper-Basch, then a program

officer at the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey, in Livingston, took a turn as “Principal for a Day” at a Newark high school in 1999. The program allowed lawmakers, business leaders, and grant makers to shadow principals to get a behind-the-scenes sense of how schools are run. Since the Healthcare Foundation of New Jersey includes educational organizations among its grantees, Ms. Cooper-Basch wanted to get a stronger sense of how a school uses its money.

Her conversations with the administrator she shadowed proved candid and eye opening, she said. “I got a depth of understanding of the principal’s work at ‘Principal for a Day’ that I wouldn’t have had otherwise,” says Ms. Cooper-Basch, now a program officer at the Victoria Foundation, in Glen Ridge, N.J. Because foundation trustees and staff members often come to their work from business or government, she began to think that the “Principal for a Day” concept was worth translating to the grant-making world.

The result: In March 2000, members of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, in Trenton, were invited to become executives at charities — for part of a day. For the grant makers, it was a chance to learn more about the inner workings of the organizations they support — and to learn which kind of aid is most helpful. For most of the nonprofit leaders who were shadowed, it was a rare chance to talk frankly with grant makers about their groups’ needs and frustrations.

A Broadened Perspective

The Nonprofit Executive for a Day program — which Ms. Cooper-Basch created with the help of Elliot D. Lee, then chairman of the program committee for the council — was spurred by concern that many foundation trustees and employees don’t fully understand their grantees’ challenges.

“Elliot and I have both worked in foundations and nonprofit organizations,” she says. “We know how hard it is to do an executive director’s job,” she says. “You don’t get a clear picture of an organization from site visits, where funders get the best face of a nonprofit and hear about the need for a specific project, or from audited financial statements and Form 990s.”

The hope was that the program might broaden the perspective of grant makers, says Mr. Lee, who is director of the Morris County program for the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, in Morristown, N.J. “Given the fact that grant makers have money, which gives them influence and power, it’s easy for them to become arrogant,” he says. “But it’s important for funders to understand how nonprofit organizations work when making decisions. This program lets funders walk in the shoes of charity leaders.”

The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers joined forces with the Center for Non-Profit Corporations, a state association of charities in North Brunswick, to carry out the program. Linda Czipo, executive director of the center, says she can see the benefits for nonprofit executives in opening their doors to grant makers.

“The idea of being able to share discussions, without having the added pressure from a funder site visit or a grant at stake is very appealing,” she says. “To communicate while feeling safe and frank, and to see a little more of the other’s perspective, is really the most beneficial.”

All of the matches, says Ms. Cooper-Basch, were made with nonprofit organizations in Newark, which was chosen specifically because it’s an economically depressed city whose charities are often strapped for resources. Although grant makers were given the option of shadowing the head of a nonprofit organization they support, most chose not to, believing that would allow for more candid conversation.

Shadow Day

When the first Nonprofit Executive for a Day event took place three years ago, grant makers shadowed nonprofit executives all morning. At noon, grant makers and charity leaders gathered for lunch and discussed what they had learned from each other. The initial effort went so smoothly that no changes were made when the event was held again in March 2002, says Barbara Rambo, executive director of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers.

Mariko Lockhart, state director of Communities in Schools of New Jersey, in Newark, which provides tutors and other resources to schools with needy students, says her shadower at last year’s event, Betsy S. Michel, president of the Jockey Hollow Foundation, in Bernardsville, met Ms. Lockhart’s staff members and visited their modest offices. Ms. Lockhart says Ms. Michel “sat in on a meeting with a man from a for-profit who was trying to partner with our organization and visited a schoolroom which was used for storage and was gross, but being converted to an art room.”

“She said what we do is [a form of] ‘parenting,’ and that really is one void we fill,” adds Ms. Lockhart. “She was able to grasp that from being with us. We wouldn’t have had that depth of conversation without her seeing us.”

Ms. Michel says she participated in the program because she thinks it’s a good idea for grant makers to see the “other side of the aisle.” Although she has spent time on that “other side,” as a trustee for private schools and other charities, she says participation in the Nonprofit Executive for a Day program has given her a more holistic view of the issues charities face when she reviews grant applications.

In particular, she says, she has gained a greater understanding of the need for unrestricted donations that can cover operating costs. “Foundations really like to support programs, but they take a lot of horsepower,” she says. “The importance of supporting the day-to-day needs of an organization is reinforced in a visit like this.”

Ripple Effects

Nancy Zimmerman, senior program officer of the Victoria Foundation, last year shadowed the head of AD House, a community organization that serves troubled teenagers. She sat in on the executive director’s meeting with an AD House program director and also attended a meeting with a group of staff members who operate a prenatal-care program whose circumstances had changed.

“They had to move the program from being in-house to a local hospital,” says Ms. Zimmerman — a move that sounds simple, but entailed tremendous changes for the charity’s staff members and clients. Moving the program to a hospital, she learned, meant that the organization’s clients now had to deal with more people when seeking services, and meant that the charity’s employees needed to help the clients navigate the new venue and forge new professional relationships with a variety of hospital staff members.

“There are a lot of small obstacles to getting any program to run smoothly that a foundation program officer doesn’t ordinarily see,” she says. “The upshot for grant making is that you don’t see the whole picture from informational interviews you have with a program director seeking funding.”

As a result of her experience, she says, she learned to ask more probing questions of grantees, to learn about the ripple effects of program changes.

Ms. Cooper-Basch, the originator of the Nonprofit Executive for a Day program, participated in both the 2000 and 2002 events, spending time first at Newark’s Planned Parenthood organization and later at St. Columbus Neighborhood Club, a community center that serves mostly Hispanic clients of all ages. (Neither organization, she says, was a grantee of her then-employer.)

She, too, learned how things that look insignificant on paper — such as slight shortages in money or personnel — can mean serious hardships for charity workers.

“At St. Columbus, they have a Friday lunch program for seniors,” she says. “I saw that various staff members will come in with parts of the meal to serve.” Seeing instances like that, she says, made her more conscious of grant making’s results. “I don’t think that foundations always understand the human impact of their decisions.”

Clearing the Air

During both Nonprofit Executive for a Day events, discussions at the group lunches and debriefing sessions focused on concerns common to those on both sides of the grant-making process. In an effort to keep the discussion section of the Nonprofit Executive for a Day program intimate, only 10 foundation trustees and staff members were allowed to participate at a time. Some of the charity leaders who attended said the feedback session gave them a chance to air some longstanding gripes about the grant-making world.

Sandra Accomando, executive director of Apostles’ House, in Newark, a charity that provides services to homeless women and children, says she raised issues during last year’s group session about communication between foundations and grant seekers.

“Funders all ask for same information, but in different formats,” she says. “I know there is a common application form, but very few funders that I know of use it.”

She also pointed out that even though she’s been applying to some grant makers for a decade, they require the same documents each year, such as the IRS form showing that her group has charity status and the organization’s articles of incorporation.

“Every year, it’s paper, paper, paper,” she says. “I spend 85 percent of my time raising money. I have nine separate sources of income. That means nine reports, nine renewal applications, nine of everything and writing grants takes up a lot of time. I don’t know if anyone will change, but it made me feel better to say it.”

Charity executives who attended last year’s event also said that the experience allowed them to hear how their peers face similar challenges, even though they run different types of organizations.

“One guy who runs a theater felt that if there are problems or challenges in a nonprofit organization, that should be more of a reason for funders to fund them — to strengthen them,” Ms. Lockhart, of Communities in School, says. “He pointed out that when funders make site visits when a grant is being considered, nonprofit organizations cover up weaknesses. It was a good discussion for funders. I felt they really heard our views.”

For their part, the grant makers say they appreciated the candor. At the debriefing, Ms. Michel says, she sometimes thought, “Gee whiz, I’d like to hear more of this in a proposal.”

Creating the Event

The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers matched participants to organizations by surveying grant makers to find out where their interests lay. From six options, they were asked to pick the type of organizations they wanted to be matched with: arts, education, community development, health, environment, or some other type of nonprofit organization. They were also asked the kinds of activities they wanted to experience — such as staff meetings, one-on-one talks with board members or program specialists, or fund-raising meetings.

The information from the foundation trustees and staff members was then passed along to the Center for Non-Profit Corporations, which provided the nonprofit matches. The logistics, says the center’s Ms. Czipo, are simple, mostly involving making certain that the charity head to be shadowed will be available that day. “It’s pretty easy to put together,” she says, “and costs to us are in terms of time, and that’s negligible.”

The costs to the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers for putting on the program are also slight, says Ms. Rambo, who notes that preparing for the event took up only about 17 hours of staff time. The 350 mailed invitations to New Jersey grant makers, soliciting their participation in the program, cost the group $125. The tab for the group lunch and the use of a meeting room for the debriefing session, she says, were underwritten by the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, one of the council’s members.

The council intends to run another Nonprofit Executive for a Day event in the fall, and at least one other regional group, the Associated Grantmakers of Massachusetts, in Boston, has discussed starting a similar program, according to Gail Pinkham, the organization’s director of communications. Although there are currently no plans to expand the New Jersey program, some participants suggest some tweaks.

Ms. Accomando, of Apostles’ House, says awkwardness can result when charities are paired with foundations that support them. “Maybe funders shouldn’t be given a choice, and have to go someplace they don’t fund,” she says. “If you’re getting funded, you’re going to give the funder a pitch about how wonderful you’re doing.”

The program is designed to last only half a day, at the request of the foundation trustees and staff members who first participated, says Ms. Rambo: “They weren’t ready to commit a whole day to the process.” However, she says, that could change if participants demand it. “Both funders and charity heads would have liked more time for the debriefing,” she says. “We could have probably stayed on for more in-depth discussion for at least another hour.”

For her part, Ms. Cooper-Basch — who says she plans to participate in the fall event — says the council should encourage more foundation trustees to serve as Nonprofit Executives for a Day. Most of the participants thus far, she says, have been foundation employees.

Mr. Lee, of the Dodge Foundation, says that foundation and charity leaders have been startled by how much they have learned about each other through the program. “The grant-making and grant-seeking processes are two sides of the same coin,” he says. “You’ll have superior work in the sector if both sides have greater appreciation of what the other’s challenges are.”

In fact, Mr. Lee says, because of how valuable this program has been to grant makers, the council is now considering a similar program to allow charity leaders to shadow foundation officials.