Two perspectives, one organization: practicing philanthropy in a community foundation

Posted on August 17, 2018 by Abby Rolland

By Sarah Nathan, Ph.D.

Professional philanthropy has been my career’s work: first as a frontline fundraiser and now as an educator. My daily work at The Fund Raising School allows me to interact and learn from a great diversity of nonprofit organizations. We see individuals from start-ups and very small, grassroots nonprofits as well as the large, legacy institutions in our classrooms.

Part of my role here is to translate the bounty of research produced at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy for our practitioner audience. I couldn’t do that part of my job without having one foot in practice.

About the same time I began my role at The Fund Raising School, my family and I moved to Johnson County, Indiana. While I was thrilled about moving home to Indiana after a stint in New England, I was less sure about moving south of Indianapolis.

I had no personal or professional network there. But the house was purchased and I had no choice but to embrace Johnson County as my new home. I set out to create a network and quickly found myself in the office of the Johnson County Community Foundation. What a fortuitous meeting.

At that initial meeting with the foundation’s VP for Development, Kim Minton, we hatched an idea for a Giving Day in the county. About two years later, that giving day became a reality.

Over those two years, I worked closely with Kim and the board’s development committee, creating a strategy for the day. From offering a sounding board to writing talking points—all while sharing my enthusiasm for this community—I provided additional perspective on how to make the day successful.

It was such a joy on June 21 to watch the dollars come in. We often say we’re “in the joy delivery business” and I felt that in abundance on giving day – through my own gifts of money and time, but also in seeing that joy in the face of others.

Like many volunteers, I do so for many reasons: to improve a place that I love, to use my skills, to gain new ones, and because it’s joyful. Plus, it gives me good stories to share in class that bring our principles and techniques of fundraising to life.

By Abby Rolland

I’ve been working part-time at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy for a year, mostly managing and writing for the school’s blog. In addition to my hours at the school and beginning the graduate certificate in January, I served as a substitute teacher during the academic year.

However, I wanted to find a position this summer where I could grow my skills and learn more about the philanthropic sector. With help from Sarah Nathan, I applied for an internship with the Johnson County Community Foundation (JCCF) located in Franklin, Indiana, about 25 minutes south of Indianapolis.

Community foundations are interesting and frankly, incredible engines. Indiana is unique because we have a community foundation in every county. These foundations were established by a Lilly Endowment initiative to serve their local communities. No matter how small in population the county is, each and every one has a community foundation.

Originated in 1991, the Johnson County Community Foundation is located in a beautifully restored turn of the century mansion. JCCF has five full-time staff members and it’s been compelling to see the amount of work completed by those five. The organization hosts over 300 endowment funds, which are entities set up by individuals or corporations designed to support a local agency, scholarship program, or issue area. Every year, JCCF gives out grants to local nonprofit organizations and scholarships from its funds to graduating high school seniors and current college students.

The foundation also undertakes its own programming to support its operations, other community organizations, and county-wide initiatives. Every year, it hosts events like Give Back Gals, a women’s golf challenge, Color the County, which adds community-painted public art throughout the county, and Monte Carlo, a popular fundraising event.

This year, JCCF hosted its first-ever Giving Day, a 24-hour event supporting seven Johnson County nonprofits. JCCF provided $70,000 to help start endowments for seven participating nonprofits, while the nonprofits raised money to support current operations and their endowments. After a day of fun events, lots of food, and community building, the event raised over $205,000 in total to help support these nonprofits in the short and long term. It was an incredible outpouring of support for these nonprofits, the foundation, and the community as a whole.

It’s been quite a summer. I’ve learned and increased practical skills at the foundation – how to help build a social media campaign for both JCCF and the Giving Day nonprofits. How to use the database here to input information about donors, build profiles, and write acknowledgements. How to research best practices (thanks to The Fund Raising School!) in building annual sustainability. How to evaluate an event and build an effective survey to capture qualitative and quantitative data. How a nonprofit’s growing awareness of best practices in social media can raise its connections to its supporters and others. How to use knowledge gained from the courses at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy to analyze how this one foundation/nonprofit utilizes its knowledge to help the community.

And there’s the intangible learning as well. How much work and effort goes into planning, executing, and then evaluating a large event, especially one that’s never been done before! How five staff members can power an involved, active, and influential foundation that focuses on what makes a community great and leverages that knowledge to create an even better one. How important it is to use the knowledge you’ve learned and implement it into a cause that you care about.

So it’s been quite a summer for me. I consider it having the best of both worlds – one foot in learning and writing about philanthropy, and one foot putting that knowledge into practice in the setting of a foundation. I’m thankful for my experiences, and I know that this summer of learning will only help me as a flowering philanthropist.

Getting to know our faculty: Pamala Wiepking

Posted on August 15, 2018 by Abby Rolland

Pamala Wiepking at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy entrance

Meet Pamala Wiepking, Ph.D., the newly-appointed Visiting Stead Family Chair in International Philanthropy and visiting associate professor in philanthropy studies. She also sits on the advisory board for the Global Philanthropy Indices.

Educational experience: M.A. Sociology – Utrecht University, Netherlands; Ph.D. Philanthropic Studies – Vrije University – Amsterdam, Netherlands

Previous experience: Assistant Professor – Erasmus University Rotterdam, Assistant Professor – Vrije University Amsterdam, Adjunct Fellow – Queensland University of Technology

Research interests/areas of study: Global and cross cultural philanthropy, donor motivations, fundraising

Introduction to the study of philanthropy: “When I was completing my master’s degree in quantitative sociology at Utrecht University, I met René Bekkers, who was working at this department of philanthropic studies at Vrije University – Amsterdam. That department was led by Theo Schuyt.

“I applied for a position there and began working on the ‘Giving in the Netherlands’ project, which is comparable to Giving USA. I also coordinated an executive education program for people working in the Dutch philanthropic sector.

“After several years, Theo Schuyt recommended that I earn a Ph.D. in philanthropic studies because I was very research-oriented and driven. So I started that, and at the same time, began working on a literature review with Bekkers that included all of the interdisciplinary content published on philanthropic studies we could find. What was really rewarding, is that people explained to us that the review helped them better understand the many disciplines studying philanthropy.”

Wiepking completed her Ph.D. in 2008, then began working another large project that crisscrossed the globe.

Background behind The Palgrave Handbook on Global Philanthropy: In 2009, Wiepking received a grant to design and launch her own research project focused on cross-cultural philanthropy. She began researching data on individual giving, collaborating with the people who collected this data based on their respective countries. With the help of many volunteers, including Sohyun Park from Korea and Zbignev Gricevic from Germany, they also made the data sets comparable in order to learn what actually influences charitable behavior.

“I wanted to understand how people across the world define and view philanthropy, especially what it is in a country’s context, e.g. the culture, history, laws and regulations, fiscal incentives, structuring of nonprofit organizations, etc., that encourages or deters individual giving.

“I also planned to edit a book featuring people from all over the world who explained philanthropy in their own countries. When I attended a Women’s Philanthropy Institute event in 2011, I met Femida Handy, a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. After speaking with her, she excitedly agreed to help me on this project, and has become a valuable mentor to me ever since.”

Completion of book: Wiepking and Handy worked over several years with multiple scholars and practitioners to write and edit chapters on philanthropy around the world. “It required a great deal of energy and effort, but we were able to publish the book, titled The Palgrave Handbook on Global Philanthropy, in 2015.

“The book won the Virginia Hodgkinson Research Award (given to the best book on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector that informs policy and practice) at the ARNOVA conference in 2016. I’m very proud of the work we and all the authors did.”

Other activities: Wiepking co-founded the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), which hosts a bi-yearly conference and a meeting of all the European centers on philanthropy. She also began the Center for Global Generosity, which seeks to question how and why different people living in different cultures vary in the level and nature of generosity they display, and how generosity behavior can be promoted across different cultural contexts.

Classes she will teach: Principles and Practices of Fundraising (graduate), Philanthropy in Global Context (undergraduate), study abroad course

Why Lilly Family School of Philanthropy? “This school is the top school in the world to study philanthropy, and has fantastic faculty that have a wide range of perspectives on philanthropy. I’m excited to work here and in Europe to conduct research, teach classes, and broaden the school’s international network.”

What makes the students special: “There are many wonderful students you can work with here, while helping them develop their own perspectives on philanthropy and the impact they want to make in the world. I’m excited to find out what their aspirations are and how I can contribute.”

Goals for research/classes here: “I want to know how someone across the world thinks about and understands philanthropy, and how it can be best studied. Philanthropy means something different in every country and in every culture, and including voices from different cultures, disciplines, and perspectives is important.”

Fun fact/free time: Wiepking has two young children who are living in the United States with her for the next five months. “We enjoy taking family trips to the zoo, museums, and other places. It will be interesting living in a different culture for six months, but we see it as an adventure. My hope is that they will learn and grow from this experience. Their first step: learning that very few people speak Dutch here!”

Final thought: “This is my dream job. It involves a lot of our changes, but I believe that together with the students and faculty of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy I will be able to have an impact on the world, and create more generous societies, where people care for each other.”

Certificate in Fund Raising Management: invest in yourself, invest in your organization

Posted on August 13, 2018 by Abby Rolland

On a visit to the Indiana Medical History Museum (IMHM) as a graduate student in museum studies, Sarah Halter fell in love with the museum and with the 1890s building.

She served as an intern at the museum, and worked her way up over the years to become the executive director in 2014. Over the past four years, Halter has transformed the museum, growing its annual budget by 30 percent and nearly doubling the museum’s visitation.

While she learned information about museum administration, collections management, and grant writing during her master’s degree program, Halter did not have experience fundraising until she stepped into her current role. Cue The Fund Raising School.

“I had heard about The Fund Raising School before I became the executive director from a colleague, who mentioned that she had taken one of the courses and loved the experience,” she said. “She encouraged me to do it, but at the time, I wasn’t fundraising in that role. It wasn’t until I became the executive director that I realized I needed education and training in fundraising.”

So, she started with the course Fundraising for Small Nonprofits.

“It was a good first step to see whether the more intensive courses would be worth the investment, because I had to make a case to my board in order to take these courses,” Halter said.

“I loved the course. I saw a lot of value in it. And my board was very excited when I came back with a lot of new knowledge and resources.”

Halter and her board believed that the more intensive courses would provide important resources and information in order for the museum to grow. She and a board member decided to attend Principles and Techniques of Fundraising, the first course in the Certificate in Fund Raising Management.

“The course was amazing. It was so eye-opening; we had never had a professional fundraising staff before and hadn’t taken fundraising very seriously. However, I think that course changed the mindset of the board,” Halter explained.

“We all recognized that the museum had this incredible potential, but no one had been pushing for it. When the board member and I came back from the first course and presented what we had learned, everyone was really excited and could begin to imagine what we could do.”

Around that time, multiple structural issues with the historic Old Pathology Building that houses the museum began to arise or make themselves more known.

“First, we had all of this horrible water intrusion, which caused literal waterfalls in the building every time it rained,” Halter said. “It was doing all of this damage to the building. To fix the roof’s masonry, the first estimate given to my predecessor was around $500,000, which was almost six times our annual budget at that time. Few thought it was possible to raise that amount of money.

“When I became the executive director, we hired an architectural firm to conduct an assessment of the building to figure out what else needed to be fixed. That estimate was around $2 million.

“It was quite a shock but we realized that the damage was getting worse, so if we didn’t do something, we would lose this incredibly unique, historic building and we couldn’t let that happen.”

So, Halter and her board launched head-first into a capital campaign. At the same time, she was working through more of The Fund Raising School courses. Along with several successful grants and her applied knowledge from the courses, Halter and her board began to see success in the campaign.

“After I returned from these courses, we began thinking about major gifts, strategic capital campaigns, bequests, planned giving, etc. After every course, we felt more confident in our abilities,” she said.

At one point, the museum reached 50 percent of its goal for the campaign.

“Nobody ever thought we could fix the roof, much less raise one million dollars. We decided to hire a consultant because we had had so much success. The launch of this campaign and the knowledge I was learning from the courses was what really changed minds,” Halter said.

In addition to the success of the capital campaign and the growth in the budget and visitation, the museum has become more visible in the community and partnered with other organizations such as the Indy Public Library, the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, the Candles Holocaust Museum, Preserve Greater Indy, and Marian University, among others.

“We’re reaching out to new people and recruiting more donors. The average gift size has increased, and visitation has increased every year since 2014. We’re making a lot of progress,” Halter said.

And she continually sees the benefit in The Fund Raising School courses and the completion of the Certificate in Fund Raising Management.

“I’m able to keep up with the best practices and new ideas and research. I’m also able to learn from other classmates in the courses. I’m amazed at the really interesting things other nonprofit professionals are doing,” she said. “I also have access to all of the experts that the school has. If there are policies that we need to implement, I can ask the experts at The Fund Raising School for advice or previous examples on how to implement those policies.”

Halter doesn’t feel like she’s finished either.

“I’d like to take more courses. I believe that you have to make it a priority to attend. If you do, it’s not only an investment in yourself as a professional, it’s an investment for your organization as well,” she explained. “These courses have helped my board and me grow confident in the work we’re doing. We’re less likely to dismiss ideas that five years ago would have seemed too big or too unmanageable.”

And so the IMHM, Halter, and her board, who have already grown the museum to what was previously thought impossible, continue to dream big.

“We’d like to build a more traditional museum, where we can display more of the huge collection of artifacts we have and feature changing exhibits. We’re also imagining ways we can use our grounds that embrace the hospital’s history,” Halter said.

“We’re writing new policies that didn’t exist before and updating older ones. We’re hoping to expand our staff and increase the growing number of public programs and partnerships that we already have.

“We also want to expand our donor base and build relationships with people who are already supporting us. We’re working to learn more about our visitors; who they are, why we’re important to them, and what capabilities they think we have.

“We have a lot of potential. I’ve been able to use the information from The Fund Raising School to have conversations and act on them about the growth of the museum and all that it can be.”

Aligning theory and practice: Talking about community philanthropy in Hong Kong

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Abby Rolland

Members of a practitioner panel on community philanthropy and community foundations during the 2018 ARNOVA Asia Conference. (From Left to Right: Professor Mark Sidel, Dana R.H Doan, Mr. Philo Alto, Ms. Mandy Cheung, and Dr. Terence Yuen – Moderator)

By Dana R.H. Doan

Prior to starting the Ph.D. program at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy last fall, I recall feeling anxious about leaving Vietnam and the nonprofit sector to start my academic journey.

One year later, and my first summer back in Vietnam was filled with a stimulating mix of readings, research, and engagement with practice. One of the high points of my summer was an opportunity to join a practitioner panel on community philanthropy and community foundations at the 2018 ARNOVA-Asia Conference and to engage with representatives of private foundations based in Hong Kong in a roundtable discussion on recent trends in community philanthropy and its relevance to the Hong Kong context.

The private event was organized by RS Group and ZeShan Foundation, who invited me and two other guests to share our community philanthropy research and experience, each in different parts of the world. I was delighted that my mentor, Dr. Mark Sidel, Doyle-Bascom Professor of Law and Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin and former Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Visiting Chair on Community Foundations at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (2016-2017), was one of the invited speakers. And it was a pleasure to meet and learn from Dr. Terence Yuen, Founder and Executive Director of the Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts who had served as Allocations Manager for the Community Chest of Hong Kong from 1997 to 2000.

Dana Doan presenting, alongside Dr. Mark Sidel, Mr. Philo Alto (Moderator), and Dr. Terence Yuen, during a roundtable discussion with representatives of private foundations based in Hong Kong.

At the roundtable and panel discussions, my role was to frame the discussion by presenting an operational definition of community philanthropy, which I previously crafted for the Learning2Give website as part of a final project for my Fall 2017 course on “Nonprofits & the Voluntary Sector” (PHST-P521). I also shared my experiences guiding the development of a community philanthropy organization based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (LIN Center for Community Development), and how that organization monitored and evaluated its efforts.

Dr. Sidel and Dr. Yuen provided the broad international context and the local Hong Kong context, respectively. First, Professor Sidel, an international expert on community philanthropy and former foundation representative, shared his experience and impressions about recent trends and developments in community philanthropy and community foundations in different parts of the world.

Next, Dr. Yuen offered a bit of Hong Kong history and context, having conducted in-depth research on past efforts and the potential for informal and organized community philanthropy in Hong Kong.

During the ARNOVA panel, we also benefited from learning about the experiences of the HER Fund, represented by Ms. Mandy Cheung, which operates the only community fund in Hong Kong focused on gender issues. Additional context and moderation was contributed by Mr. Philo Alto, CEO of Asia Value Advisors, which is a consulting firm to donor institutions in Hong Kong.

As a doctoral student interested in community philanthropy and as the co-founder of a community philanthropy organization in Ho Chi Minh City, I appreciated engaging with both researchers and practitioners in discussions on theories and practices.

The theories and concepts are invaluable to guiding practitioner decisions; meanwhile, the practitioners’ experiences are essential to proving or improving upon those theories. As an aspiring pracademic, the interplay between theory and practice during these two discussions was encouraging.

And while I believe we came away from these discussions with an understanding that there is no ideal form nor blueprint for developing community philanthropy, we were all—as researchers, funders, and practitioners—able to identify shared values, or principles, which can guide our respective efforts to study and support community philanthropy initiatives in different parts of the world.[1]

[1] For an elaboration of community philanthropy values and applied examples, please refer to Pond & Hodgson, “How Community Philanthropy Shifts Power: What Donors Can Do to Help Make That Happen” (GrantCraft, April 2018).

Capacity building in the philanthropic sector

Posted on August 7, 2018 by Abby Rolland

With a dual master’s degree in business administration and international agricultural economics and a professional background in nonprofit management, organizational effectiveness, human resources, and educational technology, Mickey Levitan has been marinating an idea to address major challenges facing promising nonprofits for the past 30 years. He first encountered these challenges as a country director for Save the Children in Thailand.

“In the ensuing years serving on nonprofit boards, I saw these problems persist and grew to understand how widespread they are,” he said.

When he sold the educational technology company he founded in 2015, Levitan was ready to move beyond the idea stage. Notwithstanding many years of experience and pondering possible solutions, he was cautious about moving too quickly to launch a program.

“Too many efforts start without tapping accumulated wisdom, stumbling over problems that have already been solved,” Levitan said. “So I committed to a research period that brought me to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.”

Conducting research

Serving as a visiting fellow and adjunct faculty member at the school, Levitan recently concluded his research.

“My study focused on middle stage nonprofits (approximately $2-$10 million in annual revenue) that are seeing evidence that their programs get better results than similarly targeted programs, have a strong leadership team that would like to extend the reach of those programs, and have a board that’s supportive of growth,” he said.

“The first barrier they run into is financial. To support growth, they have to invest in financial services, back office operations, technology, research, etc. It’s difficult to find money to do that.

“In addition, nonprofit leaders, no matter how talented they are, have to do things they’ve never done before, e.g. build a strategic board, oversee the doubling of back office operations, lead a research function, etc. When they need outside resources for those projects, it’s hit or miss.

“For too many successful nonprofits, not being able to finance organizational investments or tap the right outside expertise keeps them from reaching a fuller potential.”

Levitan gathered stories and feedback in hundreds of interviews around the country. He spoke with people with firsthand experience leading, supporting, and studying middle stage nonprofits—nonprofit leaders, grant makers, intermediary organizations, service providers, and academics.

“I was able to see what is working, assess where gaps exist, and collect input on possible responses,” he said.

Building a pilot program

As part of the research phase, Levitan ran a pilot program to evaluate ideas for capacity building support that included 12 nonprofits in Indiana.

“We tested a process for developing a roster of highly recommended external resources—people, systems, and tools—based on actual experience of peer organizations. As the pilot unfolded, we shared peer recommendations and experience with participating organizations that had new initiatives for which they had not yet identified needed outside resources. This enabled them to get up to speed quicker,” Levitan explained.

“We also helped frame upcoming initiatives. We’ll see if access to the right external resources and help with framing increased the likelihood of success.”

According to Levitan, participants found the pilot program valuable and expressed strong support for building such a service in Indiana. He was surprised to learn that the links between people doing similar work in local nonprofits were not well developed.

“We held lunches so peers could meet each other, share success stories that others might find of use, and tap expertise in the room to help with new challenges,” Levitan said. “Exchanges through emails and conversations continued after the lunches.”

Future of the project

Building on learning from his landscape scan of capacity building and the pilot, Levitan is now to developing a business plan for a program that helps promising nonprofits get past the challenges he has targeted. And his goal? “If successful, the program will help more organizations with standout results to develop the financial and adaptive capacity required to sustainably extend the benefits of their programs.”

Benefits of working with the school

Working at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy has helped Levitan in multiple ways.

“When starting something from scratch, a major challenge is intellectual isolation,” he said. “Experienced professors and administrators at the school have been terrific sounding boards for ideas about program design. They have suggested programs to research and things to read. They have offered valuable critiques of things I have written. Alumni have kindly participated in research and provided introductions to helpful colleagues. The guest speakers have been great.

“I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with top leaders in the philanthropic sector that I might not have been able to meet otherwise. Lifeblood for an early stage enterprise is feedback and networking. The vibrant Lilly Family School of Philanthropy community has been immeasurably helpful with both.”

Levitan has also appreciated opportunities to pitch in, teaching a community service seminar last fall, helping with other classes, sharing some of his organizational effectiveness expertise, serving as a mentor for students, and participating in career development activities.

“Robert Frost talked about learning by presence—learning in the presence of great people, great events, great activities,” Levitan said. “I have learned much in the presence of the community here.”

Levitan capped his research with a paper titled Nonprofit Capacity Building: Fortify the Core that shares insights from his landscape scan and lays groundwork for the program he is developing.