Bucking Current Trends: A Large Grantmaker Makes a Surprising Decision
posted on: Wednesday, July 18, 2012
By Aaron Dorfman
When I returned to the office last week after a fabulous and much-needed vacation, I began working my way through the hundreds of email messages that had piled up while I was away. While catching up on the philanthropy news, one story caught my attention because of its “man bites dog” quality.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation announced late last month that it intends to cease running its own service programs and instead give out $20 million more per year in grants to high-performing nonprofits.
I needed a moment to pick my jaw up off the floor after I read that one.
The trend in philanthropy for the past decade has been for foundations to exercise ever increasing control over how they achieve their missions. Often that has meant narrower and more complicated theories of change, with nonprofits functioning as contractors carrying out a plan hatched by the funders. In not a small number of cases, foundations decided to cut out the middle man and simply began running their own programs.
That’s why it was so refreshing to see the announcement from the folks at Casey. There’s something special about the partnership between grantmakers and grantseekers when there is a robust mixing of different ideas about how to achieve common goals. A skillful funder challenges and brings out the best in its grantees. Funders don’t have all the answers, and neither do the recipients of their largesse. The dynamic tension in a good partnership often results in better outcomes.
Kudos to the leaders of the Annie E. Casey Foundation for making this important decision. The winner in this scenario will be the families and communities that the foundation and its grantees seek to serve.
Aaron Dorfman is executive director of NCRP.Labels: Annie E. Casey Foundation, foundation-nonprofit partnership, grantmaking, systemic change
By Aaron Dorfman
When I returned to the office last week after a fabulous and much-needed vacation, I began working my way through the hundreds of email messages that had piled up while I was away. While catching up on the philanthropy news, one story caught my attention because of its “man bites dog” quality.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation announced late last month that it intends to cease running its own service programs and instead give out $20 million more per year in grants to high-performing nonprofits.
I needed a moment to pick my jaw up off the floor after I read that one.
The trend in philanthropy for the past decade has been for foundations to exercise ever increasing control over how they achieve their missions. Often that has meant narrower and more complicated theories of change, with nonprofits functioning as contractors carrying out a plan hatched by the funders. In not a small number of cases, foundations decided to cut out the middle man and simply began running their own programs.
That’s why it was so refreshing to see the announcement from the folks at Casey. There’s something special about the partnership between grantmakers and grantseekers when there is a robust mixing of different ideas about how to achieve common goals. A skillful funder challenges and brings out the best in its grantees. Funders don’t have all the answers, and neither do the recipients of their largesse. The dynamic tension in a good partnership often results in better outcomes.
Kudos to the leaders of the Annie E. Casey Foundation for making this important decision. The winner in this scenario will be the families and communities that the foundation and its grantees seek to serve.
Aaron Dorfman is executive director of NCRP.
Labels: Annie E. Casey Foundation, foundation-nonprofit partnership, grantmaking, systemic change
posted by National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy at
2:07 PM
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