Katrina’s Lesson for Grant Makers: Build Self-Sufficiency

To the Editor:

As communities across the country continue to respond to the needs of those affected by Katrina, it is incumbent upon philanthropic organizations to ensure that nonprofits have the support they need. This is true both in the affected areas of the Gulf Coast, as well as in every community that welcomed displaced residents in the weeks after the storm.

For instance, in the Washington, D.C., region, the influx of more than 7,000 Katrina evacuees is proving the mettle of many local nonprofits. It is also taxing their resources, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. This experience should serve to strengthen, not cripple, those nonprofits that take part in helping people recovering from Katrina’s devastation.

Even as ripple effects of Katrina are being felt in communities across the nation, news from the Gulf Coast continues to be disheartening.

One of the most critical issues these communities are facing is a dramatic increase in the need for mental-health services. According to one recent report, Katrina survivors in Louisiana who are contemplating suicide must wait days — or even weeks — to receive emergency counseling. In turn, counselors are overwhelmed and desperate for respite from a situation that shows no signs of improving.

The level of desperation is understandable, since many communities look as if the hurricane struck five days ago, not five months ago. Tens of thousands of people are living in trailers and tents, with many more who would like to return and rebuild living in limbo, unsure of what the future holds.

Because the need is so great, and because many aspects of this crisis threaten to get worse before they get better, foundations must maintain and nurture networks with sister organizations in the Gulf, providing funding, manpower, expertise, moral support, and advocacy.

When the media’s interest wanes, and when the public and private sectors seem to have other priorities, philanthropy must keep these issues alive, both through compassionate, creative grant making, and by leading the way.

Furthermore, while the needs of Katrina survivors must be a priority, philanthropic organizations of all stripes must also join forces on the overlapping front lines of emergency preparedness and the war on poverty.

While philanthropy can’t prevent disasters, it is within our power to build strong, caring networks, regionally and nationally, that will ensure that no one will be abandoned during a crisis.

One of Katrina’s lessons is that true emergency preparedness, in its broadest sense, includes empowering more people to become self-sufficient. At the same time, systems must be in place to ensure that the most vulnerable among us are not doomed to desperate circumstances when disaster strikes.

Community foundations, in particular, can provide key leadership at this crossroads in our nation’s history. Large, well-established community foundations should devote staff members and resources to emergency-preparedness planning and to antipoverty efforts, and smaller community foundations should work to cultivate and support capable, knowledgeable leadership in the communities they serve.

In addition, the kind of systemic changes necessary to avoid another Katrina-like aftermath will require cross-sector consensus and commitment.

Across the board, community foundations should use their knowledge to cultivate relationships and enable communication among other foundations, individual donors, nonprofits, businesses, and the public sector.

Larger community foundations should draw on unrestricted dollars to leverage funding and focus attention to the issues, and every community foundation, no matter its size, should implement a multiyear plan for providing a clear and insistent voice on these issues — a voice that cannot and will not be ignored.

In addition, programs and initiatives that lift people out of poverty must receive significant, long-term support so that the ranks of the vulnerable can be significantly reduced. The most effective of these programs should be aggressively duplicated within and between communities.

Again, community foundations are poised to play a key role in encouraging investment in effective long-term solutions. Katrina provides an opportunity for conversations with all the stakeholders that community foundations come into contact with, in order to find ways to connect people with resources, ideas with outcomes.

For instance, in response to the attack on the Pentagon, the Community Foundation for the National Capital Area helped found the Greater Washington Task Force on Nonprofit Emergency Preparedness.

For more than three years, this task force has facilitated communication and coordination within the region’s nonprofit sector, as well as between sectors.

As a result, it is now much easier to articulate the community’s needs, make a compelling case for why emergency preparedness matters, and identify the best places for philanthropic investment.

The post-Katrina world is, perhaps, the ultimate test of accountability.

Rather than taking part in the frenzy of blame placing and blame avoidance, the philanthropic sector should stand up and say, with a resounding, unified voice: There must be change, and we are here to make it happen.

Terri Lee Freeman
President
Community Foundation for the National Capital Region
Washington

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To the Editor:

Mr. Gunderson’s response to my article (“After Katrina: What Foundations Should Do”) in the January 26 issue of The Chronicle reflects both a misunderstanding of what I said in my column and some confusion about the nature of charity, advocacy, and philanthropy.

Mr. Gunderson’s letter in the February 23 issue claims I support charity, by which I presume he means giving assistance and comfort to the needy, but dislike philanthropy.

Charity is an essential part of philanthropy, not something apart. And he can be sure that I am a strong advocate for the rest of philanthropy. That is why I have criticized foundations for many years for being so reluctant to fund strong advocacy, organizing, public-policy, and watchdog organizations. That is why the response to Katrina so far has been so inadequate.

Mr. Gunderson also argues that I do support philanthropy beyond mere charity but that this support is nothing more than a political agenda, that the advocacy work I promote is purely political. He can’t have it both ways.

I do not consider giving money to organizations that monitor and critique federal agencies such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Corps of Engineers, and Homeland Security or those that hold local and state governments accountable as “political” funding.

That is what part of the nonprofit sector should be doing in a nonpartisan way. That is why nonprofits historically have served as a check on — and balance to — government and corporate power.

And it is why foundations, the Council on Foundations, and nonprofits like Independent Sector should be pressuring the federal government, as well as philanthropy, to do a much more effective job than it has in dealing with the Katrina disaster. But perhaps Mr. Gunderson views this approach, pressuring a Republican administration in this case, as too political. His leadership would have been invaluable.

Contrary to Mr. Gunderson’s claim, the council has not moved decisively to eliminate misconduct among its members and other foundations. It tolerated scandals for a long time without saying a word other than it was just a matter of a “few rotten apples.”

To my knowledge, no member of the council was ever expelled for inappropriate behavior until the recent temporary suspension of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which was a justified if very mild rebuke for a host of questionable practices.

Mr. Gunderson states that he wants the council to provide real leadership. Many of us hope it will. It’s about time.

Pablo Eisenberg
Washington