Foundations Can’t Live in a Vacuum

Philanthropy is often perceived as the all knowing, all deciding sector that can really change the world through strategic decision making and private funding. Foundations have high expectations of grantees including measurable outcomes and the desire for a realistic sustainability plan. However, I am not sure foundations do a good enough job of really surveying the landscape and understanding the depth and breadth of the nonprofit community and, more specifically, the organizations they fund.

Do we really know what other funders are doing for an organization that we fund and do those funds compliment what we are funding or does it work in contrast to what we are funding? It is a deeper question than most foundations won’t necessarily want to tackle, but I believe it is an important one. As an investor in the nonprofit world, we must do everything within our power to protect our investment, clearly understand the pathology of the organization we are invested in and measure our success to insure our investment is providing the return that we expect and deserve.

Long gone are the days when foundations could put money out in the community with the hope that something good happened. With the tough economy and dwindling resources, we are forced to be more focused and intentional with our grants and decision making. This has never been more apparent to me than now as we work on the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina’s Strategic Plan for the future. It requires us to maximize and leverage our funds, have a knowledge based approach to decision making and information sharing and it requires us to do a smaller number of things well. It did not have to be that way ten years ago but it has to be that way today.

Part of the equation is to have our own plan and strategies in place to insure that we know where we are going, but we must also understand the plan and strategies of our nonprofit partners. Where are they going? Do they have the resources to get there? Do they have the infrastructure to take them there? Are we on the same page as other funders or are the investments totally different and possibly contributing to the nonprofit’s organizational schizophrenia?

Our recent hiring of a full time senior research and evaluation director should tell you a lot about where we are headed. Success and failure are measured all the time. It is measured in the classroom, board room, ball fields and in our own personal performance evaluations. We, as a Foundation, are going to measure it more and understand it better. But, we should not live in a vacuum. We must also understand our nonprofit partners and know where they are going and who is helping them get there. If not, we are merely exacerbating the problem and enabling organizational ambiguity. This is not the time for anyone to be doing that.


Tom Keith is the president of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina