Two In-Depth Case Studies - Introduction

TWO IN-DEPTH CASE STUDIES

INTRODUCTION

Over the past decade, CO's growing strength, sophistication and impact has attracted new interest and attention among grantmakers. This section describes how two foundations - one national, one local - made major commitments to CO.

Use their experiences to explore how CO strategies fit within and support your broader funding goals and objectives (a series of mini-case studies are sprinkled throughout the Toolbox to emphasize and illustrate key points made in the text).

These in-depth case studies were developed through on-site and telephone interviews with key foundation staff and trustees. In one, interviews were also conducted with selected grantees. Both draw extensively on public and internal documents such as annual reports, grantmaking guidelines, staff memos and positions papers.

The foundations studied are:

• The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, a large national foundation with more than $2.4 billion in assets in 1998 and grant allocations of $88.2 million the same year. The foundation has domestic and international funding interests that include civil society, the environment, community education, and economic opportunity and development.
• The Hyams Foundation, Inc., a private family foundation, funding in the greater Boston area with assets totaling $160.6 billion in 2000 and grant allocations of $4.4 million in 1999.

While each differs in size, style and approach, they share a number of common practices and themes.

• Strong Institutional Commitments to CO Funding. Each has made a deep and profound commitment to CO. Both launched a highly interactive and strategic planning process to develop a new mission statement and set of program priorities. The results were a clear institutional commitment to CO as a primary strategy to advance broader foundation objectives.
• Dedicated Staff with CO Knowledge and Background. Both hired staff with broad CO knowledge and experience to develop new grantmaking programs and priorities. These staff members actively sought to increase internal understanding and support of CO by synthesizing the research, convening formal and informal meetings, writing position papers, and bringing in the voices and experience of CO practitioners and technical assistance providers.
• Pragmatic but Persistent Efforts. In developing a CO grantmaking portfolio, staff members placed CO firmly within the foundation's own funding traditions and institutional context. Pragmatic but persistent efforts were made to relate CO to previous grantmaking initiatives, often by explaining concretely how organizing strategies helped the foundation to build on past efforts, extend its impact, and embody its institutional values.
• Continuous Staff Dialogue and Board-Staff Interaction. Team-building, first at the staff and then at the trustee level, was critical in developing a broad-based consensus on the role and importance of CO for advancing the foundation's broader institutional goals and objectives. Critical opportunities were identified for staff and trustee site visits. There, they continued to learn about the local, state and national CO work and the impact of CO groups and networks. Discussion often focused on the simple justice inherent in organizing marginalized constituencies to gain their rightful place at public and private negotiating tables.
• Attention to Broader Trends and Contexts. Broader social, political and economic trends were identified and used to bolster arguments in favor of CO. For example, devolutionary trends that shifted decision-making power and authority from the federal to state governments was used as an opportunity to bring underrepresented constituencies to state and local negotiating tables, and even to coalesce groups around new national objectives.
• Commitment to Program Review and Impact Evaluations. CO impacts are documented by incorporating evaluation into grantmaking programs. At the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, staff have awarded grants to assist CO groups to assess the quality and impact of their own organizing efforts. The Foundation developed general and specific benchmarks by which to gauge progress in building national CO infrastructure. The Hyams Foundation also took seriously the need to assess progress, document impact, and distill lessons from its multi-year efforts supporting CO. It commissioned an independent evaluation of its first major CO funding initiative, which helped staff and trustees to distill and apply lessons learned to other areas of its grantmaking activity.