May 6, 2009 | Read Time: 2 minutes
A recent report from the National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy has roiled the foundation world, and during the Council on Foundations meeting several philanthropy officials debated the committee’s recommendations for good grant making.
The foundation watchdog’s contentious report, which was released in March, encouraged foundations to award at least 50 percent of their grants to disadvantaged populations, to provide a total of 6 percent of their assets to charities each year, and made other recommendations for “philanthropy at its best.”
(Read The Chronicle’s article about the publication.)
William W. Ginsberg, president of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, said adopting the committee’s benchmarks would hurt his organization’s ability to encourage charitable efforts by a broad group of Connecticut donors.
While he and the foundation are concerned about poverty in New Haven, “the criteria missed the mark on how community philanthropy really works.”
He later noted that only one community foundation has endorsed the report. He and Aaron Dorfman, the executive director of the committee, pledged to start a discussion with community foundations about how the standards could — or could not — apply to them.
Sherece Y. West, chief executive of the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, in Little Rock, supports the recommendations, although her organization does not meet all of them. She said her foundation is using the report as a tool to measure its social-justice work.
“It enables us to reflect on our grant making,” she said.
During the session, the participants argued about whether the report will influence lawmakers, whether the committee should have tried a softer approach to pushing donors, and whether the committee used solid data to conclude that only one-third of foundation grant dollars go to “marginalized people.”
Ms. West acknowledged the latter issue was important because better information is needed to track grant makers’ progress in trying to help the poor and others. But she emphasized that what foundations really need is a bigger discussion about the racial inequities facing America. The report, she hoped, would help trigger that conversation.
“Philanthropy hasn’t reconciled itself with institutional racism,” she said.
Her idea was echoed by Janine Lee, chief executive of the Southern Partners Fund, in Atlanta, who wrote an opinion article for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published Tuesday that backed the committee’s report.
