{"id":248895,"date":"2010-01-29T17:24:54","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T22:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00e54efc2f8088330120a82c8750970b"},"modified":"2010-01-29T17:24:54","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T22:24:54","slug":"foundations-need-to-be-more-transparent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/248895","title":{"rendered":"Foundations Need to Be More Transparent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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[<\/em>Editor’s note: The following is re-posted from the Center’s PhilanTopic<\/a> blog. <\/em>Bradford Smith is president of
\nthe Foundation Center. In his last post for PhilanTopic, where this
\npost originally appeared, he wrote about\u00a0philanthropy, morality, and politics<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

“So far as there is a justification — and I am sure there is —
\nfor the existence of these institutions, it is that they serve the
\npublic good. If they are not willing to tell what they do to serve the
\npublic good, then as far as I am concerned, they ought to be closed
\ndown.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Magnifying-glass\"<\/img><\/a>
\nThis statement — the kind that would strike fear into the hearts of
\nmany foundation leaders — did not come from Pablo Eisenberg, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy<\/a>,
\nor an overly zealous Hill staffer. Rather, those words were uttered in
\n1952 by a Republican banker, Russell Leffingwell, during his testimony
\nbefore the Cox Commission<\/a>, convened to investigate foundations for alleged support for “un-American activities.” Leffingwell, who was also chair of the Carnegie Corporation<\/a>
\nboard, had an acute sense of how philanthropy’s preference for
\nmaintaining a low profile could work against it: “…the welfare of
\nthese great constructive foundations with which I am familiar, and
\ntheir opportunity for usefulness, are constantly threatened by a
\nconfusion in the minds of the people about what is a foundation.”<\/p>\n

It was out of the Cox hearings and the Reece Commission<\/a>
\nthat followed that the Foundation Center was born in 1956 as a
\n“strategic gathering place for knowledge about foundations.” The vision
\nof our founders can be summed up in the simple words of Leffingwell,
\nwho told his Congressional skeptics: “We think that the foundation
\nshould have glass pockets.”<\/p>\n

With the launch of a new public Web portal, www.glasspockets.org<\/a>,
\nthe Foundation Center reaches back to its founding values. We believe
\nstrongly in philanthropic freedom, the kind of independence that allows
\nfoundations to be innovative, take risks, and work on long-term
\nsolutions to some of the world\u2019s most vexing problems. But the best way
\nto preserve philanthropic freedom is not to hide behind it; rather,
\nfoundations increasingly need to tell the story of what they do, why
\nthey do it, and what difference it makes.<\/p>\n

Why transparency? Foundations use private wealth to serve the public
\ngood for which they receive a tax exemption in return. While some have argued<\/a>
\nthat the tax exemption does not legally compel foundations to behave in
\nany particular way, foundations’ challenges are more perceptual than
\nlegal. No sector — government, church, business, or charitable — gets
\na free pass in the world of 24\/7 media, blogs, YouTube, Twitter,
\ncrowdsourcing, and digital everything. Why should foundations?
\nCollectively, America’s foundations control more than $500 billion in
\nassets, spend some $46 billion a year in grants and on programs, and,
\nin some localities and on some issues, are the major players. And as
\nfoundations strive to become more strategic and effective, their impact
\nand influence will grow — as will the curiosity, praise, criticism,
\nand scrutiny they attract.<\/p>\n

Glasspockets contains basic facts about the nearly 97,000
\nfoundations in the United States, illustrations of philanthropy’s
\nimpact on the issues that people care about, and information on the
\nmany ways in which foundations are striving to become more transparent.
\nSections like “What are foundations saying now<\/em>” and
\n“Foundation Transparency 2.0” show which foundations are using social
\nmedia and how. “Who has Glasspockets?” features profiles of
\nfoundations’ online transparency efforts according to the kinds of
\ninformation about governance, finances, grantmaking processes, and
\nperformance metrics they post on their Web sites. Glasspockets is
\nintended to recognize foundations who are taking the lead in becoming
\nmore transparent while encouraging others to do the same. Any
\nfoundation that is debating about whether to create a searchable grants
\ndatabase, initiate a grantee feedback mechanism, or get its feet wet
\nwith social media will, on Glasspockets, find plenty of peer
\nfoundations with whom they can consult about how to build greater
\ntransparency.<\/p>\n

The Foundation Center has been working on Glasspockets for over a year and we have learned a number of valuable lessons.<\/p>\n

We couldn’t have done it without partners.<\/strong> Glasspockets was developed in partnership with the Center for Effective Philanthropy<\/a>, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations<\/a>, the Global Philanthropy Forum<\/a>, the Communications Network<\/a>, and the One World Trust<\/a>
\nin London. Each of these organizations shared their own experiences,
\nsuggestions, cautions, and content. As organizations that, to varying
\ndegrees, are dependent on foundation funding, the delicate task of
\npositioning Glasspockets was first and foremost on everyone’s mind.
\nTheir contributions have been invaluable and changed the direction of
\nthe site at various junctures.<\/p>\n

When it comes to transparency, one size does not fit all.<\/strong>
\nMany of the tools on Glasspockets measure online transparency, but
\naccording to one Foundation Center survey only 29 percent of
\nfoundations reported having a Web site or issuing publications or
\nannual reports. Communicating what you do, extensively evaluating your
\nprojects and programs, using social media, or engaging in community
\noutreach takes people, yet in the same survey 76 percent of U.S.
\nfoundations\u00a0said they had\u00a0four or fewer staff members. In cultural
\nterms there is a long tradition in American philanthropy of not drawing
\nattention to oneself and letting good works speak for themselves. There
\nis also the very real concern of many living donors with protecting
\ntheir own privacy and the safety of their children and grandchildren. A
\nconsiderable number of foundations told us that their contribution to
\ntransparency was support for the Foundation Center, which takes data
\nfrom their tax returns and other information, adds value, and makes it
\navailable to grantseekers. Transparency, it seems, is an ideal that
\neach foundation has to approach according to its values and means.
\nHowever, one thing seems certain: as the whole notion of privacy is
\nbeing radically transformed by digital technology, choosing not to be
\ntransparent is an option whose days are numbered.<\/p>\n

Transparency vs. Accountability.<\/strong> At the outset of
\ndeveloping Glasspockets, we used these terms almost interchangeably but
\nsoon found that while most everyone agreed on the definition of transparency<\/em> there was considerably more concern about the notion of accountability<\/em>.
\nMany foundation professionals associate accountability with government
\ncontrol, particularly attempts that might go beyond the existing
\nregulatory framework to dictate what issues should be addressed and
\nwhich populations benefited from foundation dollars. We had been
\nthinking of accountability more in terms of the relationship of
\nphilanthropy to its constituencies. For example, when a foundation
\ndecides to send out a Center for Effective Philanthropy grantee
\nperception survey, that is an exercise in accountability, a strong
\nsignal that grantees are stakeholders whose opinions count. When the
\nsame foundation decides to display that report on its Web site for the
\nworld to see, that is an expression of transparency. The One World
\nTrust was especially valuable in helping us sort through this issue.
\nTheir own Global Accountability Report<\/a>
\nranks multinational corporations, multilateral government institutions,
\nand international NGOs according to four dimensions of accountability
\n— transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response
\nmechanisms — often with surprising results.<\/p>\n

Why not rate foundations?<\/strong> Everything today is rated
\nin one way or another, and most of us do not pick a restaurant, plan a
\nvacation, or figure out which appliance to buy without consulting some
\nkind of rating system, frequently of the online, consumer-based
\nvariety. So why not rate foundations? Foundations are increasingly
\nfunding organizations to analyze, evaluate, and, yes, rate nonprofits
\non the assumption that donors of all types have the right to know which
\nare the highest-performing, most efficient, and best-managed
\norganizations out there. Shouldn’t that be a two-way street? Mario Marino<\/a>
\nand others have argued that it is only a matter of time before
\nsomething like TripAdvisor comes to the foundation world.\u00a0Indeed, when
\nwe were describing our plans for Glasspockets, one foundation
\nencouraged us to jump into the deep end and devise an eBay-like user
\nrating system for foundations.<\/p>\n

In the end we decided that the best way to encourage greater
\ntransparency among foundations is not to rate them but to bring to
\nlight the wide degree of experimentation and innovation they already
\nsupport. The “Who has Glasspockets” feature, a kind of transparency
\nprofile, allows readers to compare and contrast foundations on a range
\nof criteria drawn from existing practice but does not issue scores or
\nrankings. And we have already heard from foundations interested in
\nsuggesting new criteria and discussing how they might improve their own
\nprofiles based on the examples of others.<\/p>\n

In the old days, the Foundation Center would release a print
\npublication and then move on to the next project. With the launch of
\nGlasspockets, we are just out of the starting blocks. How the site
\ndevelops, in what ways, how it is used, and whether pieces of it spin
\noff into other media are all open questions. We want it to serve as an
\nimportant knowledge resource that can fuel the movement toward greater
\ntransparency in philanthropy. We have been joined in this effort by
\nimportant partners and spokespersons such as Jim Canales<\/a>, president of the James Irvine Foundation<\/a>, and their ranks are growing.<\/p>\n

Being transparent about what we do well, what we do poorly, where we
\nexceed our expectations, and where we fall short cannot but increase
\nthe credibility of our institutions. Again, it was Leffingwell in 1952
\nwho captured the essence of our profession:<\/p>\n

\n

“I think they [foundations] are entering into the most difficult of
\nall fields. They have gotten their fingers burned, and they are going
\nright straight ahead, knowing that their fingers will be burned again
\nand again, because in these fields you cannot be sure of your results,
\nand you cannot be sure that you will avoid risk; and you know that, if
\nthe boundaries of knowledge are pushed back and back and back so that
\nour ignorance of ourselves and our fellow man and other nations is
\nsteadily reduced, there is hope for mankind….” <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Greater transparency is the best means to protect the freedom that philanthropy needs to pursue this noble mission.<\/p>\n

— Brad Smith<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Editor’s note: The following is re-posted from the Center’s PhilanTopic blog. Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. In his last post for PhilanTopic, where this post originally appeared, he wrote about\u00a0philanthropy, morality, and politics.] “So far as there is a justification — and I am sure there is — for the existence of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4245,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-248895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4245"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248895\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}