New Models for (Philanthropy) Research & Dialogue

It’s been some time since my last post, but I’ve finally been sucked back into the blogosphere – inspired after reading the Working Wikily paper and spurred on by client work and Sean’s latest column on Philanthropy’s Trifecta: Information, Wisdom, & Relationships. So let me cut to the chase: there is an incredible opportunity for better dialogue in philanthropy.

Currently, the dialogue in philanthropy is typically some variant of the following: a funder decides an issue is important, becomes an expert on a topic, and wants to share its information by publishing a report that will become a starting point for conversation, often hiring consultants to help them write the reports. But the model has its challenges. The issues that funders want to focus on are often not the issues that the field is interested in and because the process is unilateral instead of community-driven, the conversation has limited buy-in from its intended audience.

Furthermore, for the millions of $ spent on publishing foundation reports, these reports are not widely read and hide in relative obscurity. Jacob Harold, a philanthropy program officer at the Hewlett Foundation, once told me that he had a program associate look at the foundation reports he had on his bookshelf to see whether someone searching for the contents of that report would be able to find it through typical research methods. The result? Not one of the reports, despite having quality information, would have been discovered by the hypothetical researcher [disclosure: this was a few years ago and may have been indicative of the times, though I believe it still holds true today - a problem that Philanthropy Search was intended to help solve].

So here’s the trend that I’m noticing: people in the philanthropy world have a strong desire to be part of a larger conversation. In my conversations with staff members at various organizations who have asked for their web assets to be included in Philanthropy Search (including brand names like Charity Navigator, the Forum of Regional Association of Grantmakers, Alliance Magazine, and Pew Charitable Trusts), many feel that their organization’s information assets are vastly underutilized. For example, did you know that the information assets of the Pew Charitable Trusts includes the Economic Mobility project, the Cultural Data project, the Pew’s Center on the States, and at least 9 other projects? Probably not – even though the wealth of information present on these sites would really add value if part of a larger conversation. I’m also reminded of one of my favorite posts by Robert Egger where he shared his epiphany that for people under 30, “Just being asked what they think is HUGE. Never underestimate the value of turning to them and just asking… ‘Hey Man… what do you think?’ [] They are busting with new ideas – some are bold, some are fruit loops, but the need to have them truly reviewed is imperative.” [Interesting note: 21 days later, people are still having that conversation and commenting on the post].

Instead of just being pushers of content (I’ve tried following foundations on Twitter and have found them quite boring) what if foundations and their staffs became more engaged in active conversations with the community? Philanthropy has an immense opportunity staring right in front of it – new models of collaboration are just waiting to happen as social media, as Clay Shirky puts it, becomes technologically boring and socially interesting. Change can include grantees, academics, and other stakeholders of the ecosystem of change from the very beginning to build a community of involved stakeholders – with funders demonstrating leadership, community-organizing style. To frame this more concretely, here are some potential ideas:

Idea #1: Audience-Decided Content

Often times, a foundation will fund a report and try to push that report’s content to its intended audience, only to fail in reaching their intended audience because the audience doesn’t have buy-in into the process, nor has the attention span of sitting through a hundred-page report. To solve this problem, why not have the audience decide what questions it would like answered and using foundation resources to ask community questions, in the tradition of citizen-funded journalism like spot.us? Furthermore, reports as the deliverable should be carefully considered instead of selected as the default option. Perhaps it’s “deliverable isomorphism” leftover from graduate school and the institutional isomorphism of foundations, but why haven’t there been more experiments in blogging or video blogging as a way to create community dialogue? Beyond Good Intentions and Explore are great examples of video projects, though there’s room for much more innovation. Before beginning any report writing process, foundations may be better served in asking the relevant community what it is they feel would strengthen the field and using the community building process as a lever for greater involvement by all stakeholders down the road.

Idea #2: Crowdsourcing Wisdom

For structured content sharing, one of the coolest things I’ve seen in the philanthropy space that I just discovered is the Grant Manager’s Guide by the Grant Manager’s Network (ht @adincmiller). The business model: create an awesome wiki and have people pay to access the wiki. So instead of hiring a few experts or a consulting firm to write a report on Best Practices in Grants Management (which is what happened when the project first started by the Council on Foundations several years ago), the membership organization developed a wiki that would provide on-going, relevant content provided by the community. But crowdsourcing wisdom doesn’t always require the high setup costs of a wiki as was the case for the Grant Manager’s Network and the Packard Foundation’s Nitrogen Wiki project – asking experts from the community their opinion and engaging them in dialogue can be as easy as posting a blog and soliciting responses in the comments – something I did here for a paper some of us are working on for MacArthur. A nice side benefit: those people who were included in the dialogue are more likely to read the paper and pass it on than if they hadn’t been included in the conversation.

Idea #3: Transparent Processes & Open Participation

Foundations are notorious for acting like nebulous black boxes (anyone remember the Omidyar debacle?) – but some are the epitome of transparency and civic participation. Take for example the Peery Foundation, which has been live tweeting its strategic planning process on Twitter using the hashtag #PFwhiteboard. Not only are they displaying to the community the process in which they reach their decisions, but they are also inviting the community to be a part of that discussion via social media. While some foundations focus on gimmicks like trying to get the community to comment on a blog post or vote for their favorite projects, which becomes a war of email spam rather than true community participation, some like the Peery Foundation are really utilizing the full potential of social media to create meaningful opportunities for engagement. Imagine – what if entire programs, from the program associate to the program director, started blogging and engaging with their constituents, like Acumen Fund does, to explain their decision-making and share their wisdom and observations? What a wonderful world that would be.

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So the big question is why aren’t ALL foundations doing these things? As someone at the Council on Foundations conference mentioned, culture eats strategy for lunch – and in this case, existing cultures at foundations may be the reason why opportunities like these aren’t recognized or implemented. But culture can change; here are three things I might consider if I were at a foundation to ensure a healthy and innovative culture:

Action Step #1: Prioritize Communication

Such an easy step – but also one that can get waylaid if processes like logic modeling and evaluation are emphasized more. Community dialogue has to be a priority if it’s to be taken seriously; a strategic planning process might be helpful here and the newly launched Socialbrite might be a good group to talk to (ht @sinatraj).

Action Step #2: Invest in Technology

Much of these practices have been facilitated by low-cost technology and social media tools. However, decreasing costs doesn’t mean free – true investments of staff time and money are required to see success. A simple first step would be to include RSS feeds for specific programs and departments so that people can stay up to date on the latest news and updates in, let’s say, Open Educational Resources (*hint hint*).

Action Step #3: Fund Flexibly

If you’re working with consultants, be open to new ideas on how best to achieve your programmatic goals. Not everything has to be a report – maybe hiring a blogger would be better, not to mention more cost effective, in engaging your constituents and really pushing forward the field than any report you could fund. But if you’re tied down to specific funding requirements, innovation may not be an option, so keep your funding options flexible when you can.

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Ultimately, the models for research and dialogue in the philanthropic sector are awaiting a revolution – but we’re right now in a model of incremental innovation, when the arrival of a few forward-thinking leaders to the party is cause for celebration. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d like to see a philanthropic army of community organizing bloggers who share best practices and tap into the wisdom of the field where conversations about philanthropy and change are widespread, communities are engaged, and foundations are playing an active role. This is the true power of Philanthropy’s Trifecta.