NFG Reports

Grantee Partners Launch
The Southern Partners Fund
Interviews By Pat Taylor

The Southern Partners Fund (SPF) was launched this year after four years of planning. It is a new public foundation created by grantee partners of the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation (BAMM). The 14-year-old BAMM has pledged its entire $5 million asset base to SPF’s endowment on a dollar-for-dollar matching basis. SPF is in the process of hiring its first executive director and will be opening an office in Atlanta shortly. Barbara Meyer, founder and president of BAMM, and Leroy Johnson, chair of the seven-member SPF’s Board of Trustees, offer their perspectives on this unique new institution.

Barbara Meyer, founder and President of the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation, offers her perspective on this unique new institution, the SPF. This interview was conducted on April 14, 1999.

Pat Taylor: Can you tell us a little about yourself and how you get involved in grantmaking?

Barbara Meyer: When I was in my early 30s I was with the United Farm Workers Union for several years and through my work with them, like many others, got politicized. That’s where I learned the difference between justice and charity. I’ll always be grateful for that experience. In the early 1960s, when my father died, he left his money, shares of UPS stock, to my mother and myself. The stock grew by leaps and bounds. Eventually there was enough to start a foundation. There was more money than my two girls needed. Now my daughters are grown and I have 8 grandchildren. It was a wonderful privilege to be able to start a foundation.

PT: When you started the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation, why did you decide to focus on funding grassroots community organizations in the South?

BM: I wanted to focus on what I had learned with the United Farm Workers Union – that change happens from the grassroots up and must be directed by grassroots people. Policy work is important too but it needs strong connections to the grassroots. I learned how important it is to listen to people in communities who are experiencing the problems – because they are the real experts. It is the grassroots leaders in communities who have a vested interest in that community and who understand the power dynamics of that community.

I thought I wanted the focus of the foundation to be on farmworkers. Then, early on, we decided to extend our funding to rural communities. We’ve always had a Southern focus at the foundation, supporting grassroots community organizations and their leaders in 11 states. The Southern Partners Fund is going to continue the same Southern and rural focus.

PT: Many of your grantees have talked about the way the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation believed in them and funded them long before they were able to get other funding. How were you able to identify and get in on the ground floor with fledgling community leaders and organizations?

BM: From my experiences with the United Farm Workers, I knew that it was important to have people from the same race and class background as the groups we fund on the board to guide our decision-making. We established a policy that the family members would always be in the minority on the board. With a five-member board, two could be family members. My younger daughter was on the board for awhile. My cousin from Massachusetts is on the board now. We’ve always had people from communities guiding us – people of color and women have always been in the majority on the board.

Hubert Sapp, formerly the Director of the Highlander Center in Tennessee and now with Hartford Fund for Public Giving was one of our first board members. Gardenia White, a South Carolina community person, was an early board member. Janet Perkins, former Director of the Women’s Project in Little Rock, Arkansas, was board chair for several years and is now a full time staff person at BAMM.

As word spread about our funding, people quickly found us. When we first got started and were limiting our funding to farmworker groups, William King of JONAH [whose organization was not involved with farmworkers and is described in the article about rural organizing on page 1] wrote to commend us on our decision, encouraging us to keep the farmworker focus because farmworkers needed funding so badly.

That’s the kind of goodness that we’ve encountered in dealing with rural community grassroots leaders. Later when the board expanded its focus from farmworkers to rural communities, we began funding JONAH and continued supporting them for many years. William King has become a dear friend, someone I know I can always call on, and a founding member of the Southern Partners Fund.

BAMM had the luxury of being small, so we could take the time to visit every community organization we were considering funding. What that sometimes means in rural areas is a one-hour airplane ride and a four-hour car drive! We’ve taken the time to get to know people. We’ve learned that the process of taking time to make connections and build relationships is necessary to build trust.

Getting to know about local rural organizations happened because the Foundation was willing to listen to community leaders, and recognized their wisdom. We also had wonderful models in the Funding Exchange and the Fund for Southern Communities, both of which have grassroots community leaders on their boards. I sat on the Fund for Southern Community’s grantmaking board many years ago and saw how it worked. The competence, insight, and grants analysis of those grassroots community organizers was impressive. They really knew what was going on.

PT: No foundation that we can think of has ever decided to place all decision-making and assets in the hands of community leaders. What made you first start thinking about transferring the foundation’s assets over to some of your grantees?

BM: By 1994 I had been telling the board for quite awhile that I was tired, and ready for more of a personal life. There was no one else in the family who wanted to work on foundation matters 50-60 hours/week. Our mission was funding rural community organizations striving for social and economic justice in 11 southeastern states. We began to look at what would be the most effective strategy to continue to carry out that mission. It was then that our board chair, Hubert Sapp, asked, “Why not turn the foundation over to the people we recognize as the real experts, our grantee partners?” I loved the idea immediately.

In October of 1994, on the foundation’s tenth anniversary, the board invited 18 grantee partners to come together to give us input on future directions for the foundation. It was difficult to choose from about 250 grantees. We made our decisions on the basis of experience, skills, geography, diversity, and commitment to social change. We were looking for people who were good team players and who had heart.

When the meeting first started, people told us they were surprised to be invited to advise us about the future of the foundation. About half way through the meeting, I said that what we really wanted to see was if they would be willing to consider forming a new entity to which we would turn over our assets. They were shocked!

I remember that Scott Douglas [Birmingham Area Ministries] said that if people were going to invest the time and energy it would take to learn about philanthropy, we needed to double the foundation’s assets; the South had dire needs and the amount of foundation funding that went to progressive social change in the rural south was dismal. That was something we hadn’t thought of. But the founding members envisioned an endowment campaign from the very first. The board responded with a decision to turn over its $5,000,000 assets on a dollar for dollar matching basis until the new entity reached its $10,000,000 endowment goal.

At that first meeting, the Foundation asked grantee partners only if they would attend one more meeting. At the next meeting, we asked if they would commit to a series of meetings over a year, at the end of which we would ask them for a decision.

It’s been a four-year process. The board invited Jane Sapp, the director of the Center for Culture and Community Development, to serve as our cultural facilitator. She used people’s culture as the tool to help people get connected and to appreciate the personal strengths and resources each person brought to the table. It worked very well. Because we took the time to really build trust, most decisions were easy. Jane helped grantee partners to see that they had to maintain their values and vision if they wanted to, in the words of a song they often sang, “build a building that would stand the test of time.”

BM: It has been wonderful. The founding members are so great. Sure it is hard to let go. Sometimes I’ve had to sit on my hands. But you have to let go. The BAMM will continue to exist until the endowment goal is reached. Our guess is that it will take between four and five years. But I am really looking forward to my responsibilities decreasing over those years

For the last two years, the Southern Partners Fund board and its predecessor steering committee has fully participated in our grants decision-making process.

Their long track records, experience, and knowledge of their communities have been a valuable contribution. It’s been interesting and important for SPF members to experience being funders. They have come to see how difficult making grants decisions can be. I am pleased to say that my responsibilities will end when the transition is complete. I’ll definitely remain a friend/supporter and ally, but I will not be part of the governing structure.

PT: It’s unlikely that many other foundations will be following completely in your footsteps. But, are there other ways that funders can involve community voices to ensure responsive grantmaking?

BM: This model has worked for us. It’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase the competence and talents of grassroots community leaders. But it’s not the only way. The first thing that foundations need to do is listen to what grantees have to say and to think about how to incorporate their comments and ideas. Democracy has a legitimate place in philanthropy and SPF is a good example of democratic decision-making.

Funders should think about grantee representation on their boards or setting up grantee advisory committees. You can also hold grantee meetings. Something is missing if foundations interested in social change aren’t getting input from folks in communities. It’s also important that networks of funders figure out ways to have significant input in their grantmaking strategy sessions from grantees that are accountable to communities. Neighborhood Funders Group is very good about this.

Foundations can also partner with the Southern Partners Fund. We’re in the midst of planning their endowment campaign to raise assets and operating expenses. They are applying to foundations and have already received commitments for two-thirds of their operating budget for FY 1999. They still need to raise $118,000.

Three years ago I learned about a family donor living in Florida that might be interested in what the BAMM was doing. I visited him and told him the story of how we were transitioning into a new entity that was being created…and would be operated by…our grantees. I invited him to attend a meeting of the grantee partners in February of 1998. He and his family came, stayed for the whole morning and for lunch. They were so impressed with what was happening. They loved it. Shortly afterward I called them to see if they wanted more information. He told me that the family had decided to contribute $500,000 to Southern Partners Fund. I started to cry, right there on the phone. Here was someone else who shared my dream. Their gift provided a major impetus for us to go on. It confirmed my belief that decisions are made based on meeting people, making connections.

Southern Partners
Fund’s Mission

We are a foundation created to serve Southern communities and organization seeking social, economic, and environmental justice by providing them with financial resources, technical assistance and training, and access to systems of information and power.

Leroy Johnson is Co-Director of Southern Echo and Chair of the seven-member Southern Partners Fund’s Board of Trustees. Johnson is also involved in community leadership and sustainable community development issues through the World Council of Churches. This interview was conducted on March 31, 1999.

Pat Taylor: What was your relationship to the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation (BAMM) in the early 1990s?

Leroy Johnson: My initial relationship was through the Rural Organizing Cultural Center, a kind of training unit, back in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, Southern Echo was a grantee of BAMM, so our relationship is as a very early grantee. I’ve been with Southern Echo since its founding in 1989.

PT: What was your reaction when you were approached with the idea of grantees taking over the operations of the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation?

LJ: I think the initial reaction was one of disbelief. Why change something that was working? This was a question, not because of turning it over to grantees, but because the community saw the BAMM as listening to communities. It was one of the very unique foundations – it would take risks that no one else would. So, we asked ourselves, “What is this really all about?” Once we realized they were serious about turning everything over to the grantees, we had to ask ourselves if we were ready to look at a lateral transfer. We realized we would be willing to do this only if we were talking about at least increasing our capacity and increasing the resources available for grassroots groups, which is how we ended up with the idea of doubling the asset base of BAMM. Once that became a part of the mix in terms of the discussion, I think the whole tenor changed. The question is, how do we get where we want to go and how do we build the resources to do that? At Southern Echo we talk about an African proverb that says, “Knowledge comes from the tearing down and taking apart, and wisdom comes from building up.” So for us, it was a question of how we could look at the collective wisdom and how we could get invested in, how we could have ownership. Ownership came from the idea that we would be willing and able to grow the resources.

PT: The very idea of community leaders assuming control of an existing foundation’s assets to start a new foundation is exciting and groundbreaking. But, the reality must also present some challenges. How would you describe these and what are your plans to address them?

LJ: The biggest challenge is finding resources to fund the match so that communities can invest as peers. Getting the skills and understanding to raise money at higher levels. The folks who were involved initially were executive directors of local organizations. They had been about raising funds for their local organizations. We laid out a strategic plan to gain skills and eventually a higher level of resource development. This turned out to benefit not just the foundation, but the local organizations too.

The first obstacle we faced was how to build relationships of trust, so that folks could know each other. [During our first meetings] there were a lot of people in the room who nobody knew. They all basically were working in the same sweat mines, but didn’t know each other. So there was a question of building trust and understanding of each other in ways that eventually not only improved our ability to work with one another but also improved our ability to work at the local level. Building trust was a major obstacle. How do you stay in a room with folks you don’t know and make decisions about a lot of resources and raise a lot of additional resources to go with those? So that was the first thing. We used the idea of the culture of local communities, the culture of struggling communities, how similar they are, and also the differences, and how you talk about those differences in the initial phase to help hold all of us in the room. We used Jane Sapp to work with us around these issues.

It was difficult to not talk about your own organization and your work, but to talk about the region and the issues it faces, how we could make the kind of impact we want on those issues and problems, and why it was important to build those resources. I think that Jane did it masterfully. We talked about how we as organizers, most of us being organizers, spent most of our work trying to draw our communities together, drawing folks who have never been part of the process but the object of the process into the mixture. So, here we were, moving this and changing that, remembering what we did locally in a way that helped us to speak more regionally. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, but it was a thing that got done. We wanted to hold on to the whole idea of broadening the base and being inclusive of community folk who had never been part of the process. So here we were, having to take our own antidote to the local community people struggling for social change. It was work that we all took very, very seriously.

At one point Jane asked us to look around the room and think about what spices different folks represented, and which flavors each of us would be and which needed to be added, understanding that we had to bring all of these things to the table to get the stew to taste the way we wanted it to. As the process went on, we became in reality a family of folk about how to do this together. By the end we believed that we had the ability to stay together. There was this idea that the whole is greater than the sums of the parts. That’s part of how this whole thing has grown.

LJ: We created by-laws and policies and procedures as SPF was coming into being. To be a member, you must be elected by the existing membership. We have a process set up so that we will have up to 99 members by the end of 3 years. Right now we have 17 members. There will be nominees from each of SPF’s three regions selected at regional meetings this summer. They will make up 80 percent of the membership. The first region is from Virginia down to North Carolina; the second includes Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina; the third is the Deep South and Kentucky. [Southern Partners Fund serves 11 Southern states.] There will also be at-large national and international members. They will be 20 percent of the membership. These are organizations that have been doing community organizing in rural communities across the country and internationally and share the same beliefs and understanding. At one time BAMM gave grants internationally and we had met these grantees and had relationships with them. And there was this whole idea of not leaving folks out. For donors and individuals who fund this type of work and wanted to see it from the inside out, we thought it would be important to include them.

PT: How will you ensure that Southern Partners Fund, over time, will continue to be responsive to community needs and strengths?

LJ: The beauty of what we are doing is that we’re not that far from the community – ever. Each of us is continuing to work in our local comminutes. To decide who to bring to the initial meetings and who to bring to meetings after that, in terms of building this original group of 17 members, we looked for people who were accountable to a community base, who could then bring that ability of accountability and add it to the Southern Partners Fund. That’s how we carried through and really validated accountability at this new level. We also have folks buy into the definitions and change it until everyone agrees to them. We all think, talk, and then work to put community interest above self-interest. We want to hold ourselves to a degree of accountability so that the interest of community will be paramount. This work is fulfilling and also draining, because it requires a lot of everybody. We’ve been talking about that with each other.

LJ: I think it is. It’s something that we can change to get things moving. I’m not saying it’s the only model or that it’s the model that’s right for everybody. We view it as important for our organizations and communities that we know them personally.

PT: Our very best wishes in this exciting endeavor. Is there anything that you’d like to add?

LJ: It’s an exciting opportunity to validate success stories and uplift rural communities in an area of the country where there’s a scarcity of philanthropic dollars. The Southeastern region is really undeserved. There’s always this idea of an urban focus. There’s gentrification in rural communities too. We need to build leadership that’s necessary for growth and stability. We have an opportunity to uplift a constituency that’s usually the object of scorn. This is one answer to building a strong nation. It’s an opportunity to really build from the ground up.

Southern Partners Fund’s Purpose

Develop and nurture grassroots community-based leaders and organizers. Build the capacity of their organizations. Strengthen rural comminutes and people. Develop equitable peer relationships, which support real transformation toward a just society.