| ||||||
Let's Stop Reinventing Potholes |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently published an editorial by the presidents of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the James Irvine Foundation that calls for a "more open culture in philanthropy." The piece highlights two recently released reports by the foundations that share the challenges that occurred during large-scale efforts and outline steps taken to address midpoint shortfalls. Politicians and philanthropic organizations share a common fault: We find it difficult to admit when we have made mistakes. In politics, it's easy to understand why. Voters may treat a legitimate mistake as a sign of incompetence and throw an elected official out of office. But the public does not generally hold foundations accountable for results, if only because most people do not know much about what we do. And as grant makers we are seldom critiqued by grantees, who are reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them. Being insulated from criticism perhaps lures us into believing that we, as grant makers, never make mistakes — a temptation reinforced by a pervasive tendency not to evaluate the results of our efforts. We rarely acknowledge shortcomings even to ourselves, let alone to others. The Irvine report describes the difficulties experienced by the CORAL initiative and provides critical lessons for future efforts. In arriving at lessons, I am also influenced by my own three decades of experience with major philanthropic initiatives while working at MDRC and Public/Private Ventures, and by my experience serving on the boards of directors of various foundations. Using the example of the CORAL initiative, this report describes the context and motivations behind the inception of major programming, pinpoints the grantmaker inclinations that help and hinder program design and implementation, and recommends strategies for overcoming the inherent challenges to honest midcourse assessments and improved program results. CORAL is based on the premise that education is a community-wide responsibility, and not just the province of public schools, and therefore involves students, families, schools, and community-based organizations in high-quality out-of-school learning opportunities. Foundation staff had identified a set of key developmental gateways, such as the ability to read at grade level by fourth grade, that have been linked with continued academic success and that might, therefore, serve as leverage points for programmatic intervention. In May 2003, the evaluation firm's first major report to the Foundation gave, with a few exceptions, low ratings to the quality of programming in the five cities. Multiyear, multisite, multimillion-dollar initiatives like CORAL are not unusual. When implementation issues arise, an organization's best bet is to have enlisted enough capable, experienced staff, and to have incorporated a regular executive and Board review. But it is too easy to assume that because something is difficult to do, "more" is needed to get it done. The history of major initiatives offers little evidence that extended time and increased external resources produce better results in either of these areas. The report from the Hewlett Foundation highlights a philanthropic initiative that did not meet the expectations of its many stakeholders. Given the challenging social problems that foundations and grantees try to solve, it should be expected that shared aspirations might not often be met. When this happens, the opportunity should be seized to understand the causes in order to improve performance and benefit others working in the field. From 1996 through 2006, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation committed over $20 million to a Neighborhood Improvement Initiative (NII), an initiative designed to improve the lives of residents in three Bay Area communities - West Oakland, East Palo Alto, and the Mayfair area of East San Jose. The Hewlett Foundation enlisted three community foundations as "managing partners," and we created new organizations as well as involving existing ones in the neighborhoods. The NII was intended both to achieve tangible improvements for residents and to strengthen the long-term capacity of the community foundations and neighborhood organizations to sustain change. While some stakeholders view characterizing the NII as a failure as too harsh, it certainly was a great disappointment. The entire field is fortunate that two acknowledged experts in community development were willing to undertake this study, and also fortunate that many participants in the NII were willing to speak frankly to them. In the face of the Rashomon-like quality of this complex venture, Prudence Brown and Leila Fiester have done a remarkable job identifying what is known and what is contested. Most important, they have drawn valuable conclusions that will help others who are undertaking comprehensive community initiatives. For us, it reinforced the critical importance of clarity about goals, strategies, and indicators of progress, as well as the need for all the participants in a joint venture to agree on these matters at the outset. Given the complex relationships among the various organizations, and the power dynamics that infused them, what the Foundation intended as helpful interventions were sometimes taken as capricious intrusions.
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
