PROMOTING PHILANTHROPY

What prompted us in 2002 to designate “Promoting Philanthropy” as a new field of philanthropy was a new charity: Harbinger Partners (today: Common Impact — [link]). Catalogue charities are generally chosen for their strong track records of accomplishment, demonstrating excellence. We only present start-up charities (some donors like them, and this is donor education), which are too young to have track records, when they have what appears to be a great and promising idea. Harbinger was founded in 2000 “to harness the transformative power of technology for philanthropy, and to promote greater understanding in the corporate sector of how philanthropy actually works.” In collaboration with corporate partners in information technology, today Common Impact recruits corporate volunteers to help competitively selected charities wanting technological upgrades; they also encourage personal and institutional relationships that would “build and nurture a space for legitimately fluid cross-sector interactions, based on service, technology, and mutual respect.” They have flourished. In only four years since 2002 they have quintupled — their budget to $1.2 million; charities served annually to 30, with a cumulative total of 83; staff to 10; and volunteers even more — from nine to 150. They have merged with another charity and broadened their services to include marketing and human resources. Their success has been so conspicuous as to attract foundation support, locally and nationally. Now, as they keep climbing to new levels of activity and accomplishment, you can share in their success!

Community Foundations (CFs) [link] ordinarily do not think of themselves as in a field called “promoting philanthropy.” The IRS’ National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) classifies them as engaged in “community development,” which is reasonable from the IRS perspective. But community development is often, perhaps even normally, understood to focus on human services, not necessarily including Nature (the environment) or Culture, which are basic fields in philanthropy and routine interests for CFs. We generally follow donors’ perspectives and interests, and we believe it would broaden and strengthen CFs’ appeal to donors if they positioned themselves as promoting all of philanthropy in their communities. Of all kinds of philanthropic institutions, CFs are closest to this mission. They help donors by promoting cost-effectiveness of contributions, and illuminating philanthropic ideas and opportunities; they help charities to increase productivity and effectiveness, providing technical training and bringing new ideas to their attention.

Community foundations have the opportunity, uniquely in most communities, to stand at the interface between philanthropy as a whole and the public, promoting their increased and improved interactions. As the leading promoters of philanthropy in their regions, they reach out to all citizens on behalf of all of philanthropy, raising consciousness of its values for everyone. As we have said in past issues, CFs are means, not ends, in community philanthropy; donors should give “through, not to” CFs; and if anyone is interested in becoming more deeply involved in philanthropy, probably their best first call would be to their nearest community foundation.

The Catalogue does not evaluate CFs as we do charities, through a competitive selection process. We promote them all, even-handedly, as more or less official representatives of philanthropy in their communities. In 1997, all 10 members of the Community Foundation Roundtable of Massachusetts participated in launching the Catalogue — distributing our request for proposals and receiving and providing first-round review of the resulting 480 proposals. A couple more who wished to be included raised their hands and were listed in the next several years, and four new ones were created — Essex County, North Central Massachusetts, Nantucket, and Greater Plymouth County. The Catalogue has been privileged to participate in various ways in the births of all the new ones. Now there are 16 CFs in Massachusetts. We interpret this growth as evidence that communities think highly of them as beneficial institutions, which indicates demand for more and better philanthropy.

Existing CFs have also experienced phenomenal growth. From 1997 to 2006, the Berkshire-Taconic CF multiplied their endowment from over $6 million to $66 million; the Cape Cod Foundation endowment increased seventeenfold — from $2.1 million to over $34 million; the CF of Southeastern Massachusetts grew thirty-fivefold — from $400,000 to $14 million; the Greater Lowell CF (a newborn introduced by the Catalogue in 1997) has flourished, raising its endowment to over $11 million today; the Essex County CF, created in 1998, has raised its endowment to $10 million; the Greater Worcester CF increased from $62 million to $108 million; the CF of Western Massachusetts grew from $56 million to $80 million; The Boston Foundation grew from $503 million to $700 million.

Another illustration of the emergence of this field is Boston Cares ([link]), which we listed in our first edition (1997) as Human Services/Children and Youth. Founded in 1991, they have dramatically grown in this last decade — more than tripling in budget and staff size, but also broadening and deepening their program, from simply recruiting volunteers and promoting volunteering in all fields, to promoting civic engagement of all kinds, even political advocacy. This growth is evidence not only of their success, but of the growth of volunteering itself as a part of lifestyle, and a way of philanthropy, especially among younger adults. This translates directly into increased productivity for 130 charities and schools this year, contributed by over 5,000 volunteers of all ages, some of them from 60 corporate partners, providing 32,000 hours of skilled help at no cost to the beneficiary institutions. The volunteers unanimously testify that their quality of life has been improved as well. A more specialized example of the emergence of promoting philanthropy in a particular field is the Arts and Business Council (Cat’02 — [link]), founded in 2000 to bring corporate management skills and technical expertise, especially in marketing, to small arts organizations. The A&BC recruits and trains corporate volunteers to become helpful board members and consultants, sensitive to the characteristic differences between the business and philanthropic sectors, especially in the arts. It also trains executive directors and trustees of arts organizations in board development, fundraising, marketing, and other areas of institutional development in which corporate volunteers can be especially helpful.

Promoting philanthropy is a field that will continue to grow and involve ever larger numbers of people and institutions. Already, philanthropy is beginning to show signs of becoming a popular movement.