Philanthropy for the Future (Post #3)

This week I’ll be discussing an article that was published on “Dialogues on Civic Philanthropy”, http://www.civicphilanthropy.net/. Rick Cohen, the former Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, posted an opinion piece on that website entitled What Can and Should Philanthropy Do in the Future? This is the THIRD in a series of posts on Cohen’s article.

Foundations Should Listen to Those Most Affected by the Challenges of our Society and Let Them Weigh In on the Solutions.

What Cohen is really advocating is the democratization of foundation philanthropy. He is urging foundations to stay open, above all to listen, to the nonprofits at the forefront of the biggest societal problems in the service area. This can’t help but grow the foundation’s understanding of critical community needs and inform it’s grant making accordingly.

Funding grassroots organizations gives voice and power to our diverse community. Without community input on community problems, donors to foundations will have turned over responsibility for helping to meet community needs to what Cohen calls the “philanthropic philosopher kings and queens” of the foundation world.

In this segment of his opinion piece, Cohen is focusing on the question of who. Who is most knowledgeable of critical community needs? It is of course the people most challenged by them and the grassroots nonprofits that help address them.

Philanthropy for the Future (Post #2)

This week I’ll be discussing an article that was published on “Dialogues on Civic Philanthropy”, http://www.civicphilanthropy.net/.  Rick Cohen, the former Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, posted an opinion piece on that website entitled What Can and Should Philanthropy Do in the Future? This is the SECOND in a series of posts on Cohen’s article.

Foundations Should Focus Philanthropy on Grassroots Nonprofits.

Rick Cohen believes that fundamental survival issues surface at the grassroots level of a community. Foundations must therefore listen to and support the nonprofits working at the grassroots level. When foundation executives, Board members, and program officers substitute their own judgment for that of the community’s, a “top-down arrogance” takes hold of the grant making, which is always the wrong way to go.

Grassroots nonprofits are community based and constituency led. So it is a terrible idea for the funder to do the thinking for the community or to pretend to know the answers better than the community itself.

Humility is information. It is information about yourself. It’s knowledge about what you know and what you don’t know. Without ever using that word in his opinion piece, Cohen is recommending a healthy dose of humility in foundation philanthropy. He wants us to get out there, listen, learn, and only then, give.