Philanthropic practice

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

2008, 141 pages. Council on Foundations, 2121 Crystal Drive, Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22202 (703) 879-0600, www.cof.org

This robust report features a series of essays on aspects of rural philanthropy from a diverse range of perspectives. The conclusion, by Sherece Y. West, alone is worth the price of admission. The report concludes with a summary of funding recommendations from the Council on Foundations Conference on Philanthropy and Rural America: A 21st Century Agenda, held in August 2007 in Montana.

Language Lessons

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

Working at a busy foundation involves a lot of reading and listening to smart people who are working hard to improve the world we live in. One thing comes across loud and clear: how little value added is being contemporaneously realized from the definitional leaps of our unsustainably complex verbiage.

In other words, it's time for us nonprofit people to learn to MAKE IT PLAIN.

Firsts

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

There are few moments in life when you get to experience a series of "firsts." That thought occurred to me in the Albuquerque airport as a first-time visitor to New Mexico, as well as a first-time attendee to both the GFE and GIA conferences.

Operating Support Grants

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

A continuation of the discussion on strategic operating support grants. Do these grants improve an organization's accountability and stability? How do private and public grantmakers sustain the arts ecosystem without creating an over-dependence on any one funder? When providing strategic operating support for organizational change, where does the funder's role end and the arts organization's board of directors' role begin and end?

Accountability vs. Trust

Endowments and Arts Organizations

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

A discussion of “The Grasshopper or the Ant: A Review of Endowment Giving Policy Options,” a paper by Russell Willis Taylor that challenges assumptions, examines costs and benefits of raising and managing an endowment, and considers the capacity and expertise needed to do it well.

Russell Willis Taylor, National Arts Strategies (presenter, moderator); Ben Cameron, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation; Gene Lesser, Hans G. and Thordis W. Burkhardt Foundation; Gayle Morgan, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust (interlocutors).

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

Is a trend developing that favors drawing foundation leaders from the for-profit sector rather than from philanthropy or the nonprofit sector? If so, does it change senior grantmaking staff's challenges and opportunities? Would a more corporate view of private philanthropy affect how foundations view the arts?

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

A conversation between essayist John Rockwell and Linda Breneman (Breneman Jaech Foundation) about cultural patronage today, from the perspectives of a journalist and an individual donor. Funders with varying relationships to living patrons, donors' estates, and philanthropic institutions chime in on how risky, enduring art is—or might be—supported.

Leadership Transition

May 31, 2008 by giarts-ts-admin

Are we helping nonprofits prepare themselves for the challenges of future leadership transition?

Jennifer Hill, Ruth Mott Foundation (moderator); Lauren Renee Hayes, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund; Lisa Mount, Alternate ROOTS (interlocutors).

October 31, 2007 by giarts-ts-admin

When funders move into indigenous communities they tread a very fine line. On one side of the line they have a duty to undertake sufficient investigation to ensure that they properly understand a funding request and their own role in relation to it. On the other side, obtaining the information may conflict with the ability to acknowledge and give appropriate respect to the applicant's indigenous culture and its bounds.

September 30, 2007 by giarts-ts-admin

Nonprofit should be nonexistentthe term, not the type of organization. The time is right to insist on a term that focuses on the investment, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial imagination that have always been so essential to organizations that serve the social good. “Social-profit organizations” is a term that can better capture the contribution made by entities that have too long been known as charities or nonprofit groups…