Does the Public Deserve a Voice in Foundation Grant Making?

To the Editor:

Your recent story on what appears to be a trend among foundations to invite the public to vote online as to which groups should get their grant dollars (“Casting Ballots for Charity,” July 26) was balanced and thorough.

But it may have missed an opportunity to address a larger issue, specifically: What responsibility do foundations have to a public from whom they derive significant tax benefit? Do they owe the public a voice in the decisions these institutions make?

Instead, the piece focused primarily on one of the many tactics some foundations are using to invite more public involvement in their decisions — in this case, online voting — which should be viewed as a means to a greater end, not an end unto itself.

There are legitimate critiques of online voting, of course, not the least of which is that it can become a “free for all” or that the most sexy projects will be selected, rather than those that may be the most effective.

That’s why it will always be important to have intermediaries and, yes, experts involved in these kinds of processes. And, to be sure, there’s a strong argument to be made that private foundations have every right to decide what to do with their money, especially in the case of living donors.

But given the increasing and palpable animosity between grant seekers and grant makers — and a parallel increase in the amount of suspicion bubbling up in the public domain about what foundations do, and how — perhaps it’s time for foundations to start considering that the nonprofits and individuals they support might actually have something more to offer than proposals and reports.

Essentially, grant makers might start exploring new ways to develop stronger partnerships between foundations and “real people” on the ground living in real communities. That will mean going beyond simply hiring consultants to interview those people for input that usually gets fed back to the foundation experts who ultimately decide what they’re going to do. Instead, it will require more-meaningful involvement of people in communities in decisions about where funds are allocated, why, and how.

Asking people to vote on grant-award dollars is a step — but only one step — in this direction. Another might be recruiting people in communities to help advise foundations in developing foundations’ grant criteria, application process, and overall programs.

Unlike some foundations that define transparency as publishing an annual report, grant seekers have long known that real transparency is when funders are clear about the decision-making criteria they’re using and why. Foundations can also ask the public to engage in their priority-setting when they do their periodic assessments, hold occasional meetings for the public, and bring in practitioners and outsiders to brief foundation staff members on a regular basis.

Admittedly, this kind of participatory philanthropy won’t be easy to embrace for institutions that have historically and traditionally been shrouded in secrecy. Particularly difficult will be giving some control to a large group of people with little or no experience in professional philanthropy, which is, to be sure, a risk.

But is it worth it? You bet.

Even if it fails, it’s at least an attempt to help nudge the philanthropic community toward a mind-set that considers ways in which it might be more responsive, real, and respectful to the public it purports to serve.

That’s a real stretch from the way in which many foundations operate, which raises the hackles of nonprofits that feel there’s too much talk about transparency and not enough “do.”

But that doesn’t mean that foundations have to give up all control; after all, they are fiscally and legally responsible for their practices. What’s needed is more of a balance between the professionals and the public, as well as more discussion about how to achieve that goal through a wide variety of tactics that reflect participatory philanthropy — not just online voting.

Cynthia M. Gibson
Cynthesis Consulting
New York