Building Fields for Policy Change

8/8/2019 Building Fields for Policy Change

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Lucy Bernholz and Tony Wang

BLUEPRINT RESEARCH + DESIGN, INC.

Building Fields for Policy Change

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This paper was published with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. helps grantmaking foundations, individual and family donors, and philanthropic

networks achieve their missions. We offer services in strategy and program design, organizational learning, andevaluation, and we think and write about the industry of philanthropy. Since 2004, Blueprint has provided the John D.

and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation with research, advice, and documentation of the Digital Media and Learning

Initiative. That work includes the writing and distribution of five reports on field building, written for the public, as a

means of informing the field of philanthropy and as a way to strengthen the emerging field of Digital Media and

Learning.

The MacArthur Foundations Digital Media and Learning Initiative aims to determine how digital media are changingthe way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to education and other social

institutions that must meet the needs of this and future generations. Through November 2009, the foundation has

awarded 106 grants for a total of $61.5 million to organizations and individuals in support of digital media and learn-

ing. The grants have supported research, development of innovative technologies, and new learning environments for

youth including a school based on game design principles.

research + design for philanthropyBLUEPRINT

r+d


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Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 1

INTRODUCTION

Philanthropic foundations exist as a function of

public policy. They are regulated entities, overseen

by elements of corporate, tax, and charity codes.

Public policy guidelines, ranging from interna-

tional laws to municipal codes, also shape the

issues on which foundations work, such as educa-

tion, health, the environment, human rights, or

the media. Clearly, the power of public policy to

guide philanthropic choices and directions, and

even to shape the tools that foundations use in

their work, is substantial.

However, the public policy milieu in which

philanthropy works and social goods are

produced is not simply background; it is itself a

powerful tool for achieving change. American

foundations have engaged directly in shaping

public policy or working with intermediaries,

institutions, and networks of organizations to do

so almost from the beginning. The RockefellerFoundations work in providing public health

services, training public health providers, and ulti-

mately influencing individual states and the

nation as a whole to address widespread diseases

began within a decade of its founding in 1913.2

Examples of policymaking initiatives range across

disciplines from economic research to arts educa-

tion, and from the international level to the local,

state, and national level.3

While the policymaking efforts of foundations

are well documented, the focus of this paper is on

a key characteristic that this policy work shares

with the more recent philanthropic interest in

field building. Field building and successful policy

change both require that

foundations act across

entire ecosystems of

change, where the work

of grantees mutually rein-

forces and strengthens the

impact of one another.4 The decades of success in

influencing policy domains holds useful lessons

for the more emergent interest in field building as

strategy.

Because field building and policymaking work

so well to support each other, this papers specific

focus is the intersection of these two spheres of

influence. It will detail the shared characteristics

Building Fields for Policy Change

From Americas neighborhoods to the capitals of the world, philanthropy is a major force in public policy,

flexing its financial and intellectual muscles with those who determine the rules by which society lives.

This expansive role for philanthropy naturally raises questions: How does philanthropy best engage

policymakers? In what other ways does philanthropy influence policy? To whom is philanthropy account-

able in this regard? How does public policy work fit within the larger philanthropic agenda? 1

-Kathy Postel Kretman, Director, Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership, Georgetown University

The power of public policy to

guide philanthropic choices and

directions is substantial.


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of these strategies and explain how they can be

mutually accelerating. We consider the following

key questions:

How can the resources of a foundation and a

field be used most effectively to implement

policy strategies?

What tools and best practices exist for funders

interested in analyzing and strengthening fields?

Our approach is to use examples that demon-

strate how foundation-supported field-building

efforts have advanced a policy strategy. We high-light several cases from the W. K. Kellogg

Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Robert

Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Pew

Charitable Trusts. We also draw on insights from

our work with the John D. and Catherine T.

MacArthur Foundation in their Digital Media

and Learning Initiative.

WHAT DOES FIELD BUILDING HAVE TO

DO WITH POLICY?

At its core, field building is one of many possible

philanthropic strategies, similar to (albeit more

comprehensive than) supporting academic

research, offering prizes for innovation, and build-

ing nonprofit capacity. Field building inherently

involves the consideration of an entire ecosystem

of organizations and often emphasizes work at the

intersections of organizations. As we discussed in

the first paper of this series, Building to Last:

Field Building as Philanthropic Strategy, founda-tions engage in field building for a variety of

reasons, from seeking attention and legitimacy for

a certain issue to reducing inefficiencies and

duplicative activities.5

In attempts to shape policy, field building plays

a distinctive role. Many ambitious policy-change

efforts require effective collaboration across large,

diverse groups of actors.6 Field-building strategies

can be helpful in supporting these kinds of efforts.

Elements of field building, from organizing

grassroots activity among grantees to solidifying

key stakeholders around a common policy agenda,

are useful at different points throughout the

policymaking cycle.

In our review, we identified five funder initia-

tives that exemplify the practice of field building

to advance policy change (see sidebar). These

examples provide a detailed view of how to

strengthen policy initiatives through efficient and

effective collaboration. They also illustrate a

broader theme: how funders can improve the

success of their policy strategies by considering

some of the core elements of field building. At the

end of this report, we provide an overview of the

tools, resources, and best practices in field building

and policy change.

RECOGNIZING AND ANTICIPATING POLICY

OPPORTUNITIES: Listening to the Field of

Digital Media and Learning

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur

Foundation has been a major funder of educa-

tional efforts in Chicago and across the United

States for decades. The foundation also prides

itself on using empirical evidence to support itsfunding strategies. As the foundation began to

observe, explore, and consider the changes in the

educational landscape that seemed to be driven

by digital media, it made sense that its starting

2 Building Fields for Policy Change


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EXAMPLES OF FIELD BUILDING FOR POLICY CHANGE

There are many examples of foundations building and strengthening fields to bring about policy

change. A full list of those we have found is in the Appendix. This paper will draw primarily from the

following five efforts to illustrate the principles of field building in supporting policy:

Digital Media and Learning Officially launched in 2006, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur

Foundations Digital Media and Learning Initiative has sought to understand and act on the ways

digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in

civic life.

Out-of-School Time Nonprofits Building on its long legacy of support for out-of-school time

(OST) learning opportunities, the Wallace Foundation is developing and testing ways in which

cities can plan and implement strategies that increase overall participation in high-quality OST

programs.7

Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK) An initiative of the W. K. Kellogg

Foundation, SPARK works to create a seamless transition into school for vulnerable children ages

3 to 6.8

Tobacco Control The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked on issues of tobacco

control since the early 1990s. Current efforts focus on strengthening and expanding policy

changes that have been shown to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use, including higher tobacco

prices, comprehensive clean indoor air policies, and the coverage and use of treatments to help

tobacco users stop smoking.9

Environmental Policy The Pew Environment Group, the conservation arm of the Pew Charitable

Trusts, aims to strengthen environmental policies and practices in ways that produce significant

and measurable protection for both terrestrial and marine systems worldwide10 by funding scien-

tific research and advancing policy solutions.


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place was careful research on these changes.

From this research-oriented starting point, the

foundation staff began to look for concrete

answers to several questions: How are digital

media changing the learning process? How are

digital media changing where students learn?

How do institutions of learning need to change

to be effective in a digital world? Eventually, these

three questions would come to form the basis of

the MacArthur Foundations Digital Media and

Learning Initiative, but in

the earliest days of the

work, the first question

was the driving force. The

foundation funded what

would become landmark

research at the University of Southern California

and the University of California at Berkeley to

shed light on this question of how digital media

were affecting learning.11

Even as the academic research was underway,

the rapidity of change in the digital environment

was shaping the foundations thinking. It soon

realized that the digital forces of online content,

broadband access, new types of content produc-

tion, and young peoples easy fluency with new

technologies was going to require the foundation

to move much more quickly than it might other-

wise have done.

Rather than rolling out grants and buildingpartnerships slowly and over time as research

findings came in, the foundation recognized the

need to consider the entire ecosystem of youth,

institutions, and learning environments simulta-

neously. Thus it adopted the field-building strategy,

with its ability to engage across sectors and incor-

porate research, new institutions, and new learn-

ing environments.

And that broad engagement quickly revealed

the next truth: because digital media and learning

draws from academia, commercial vendors,

schools, and nonprofit learning institutions, the

most effective philanthropic strategy would be

one that could draw on all these domains both

commercial and nonprofit to help shape policy.

Digital media and learning touches and is

touched by many policy domains, ranging

from school funding streams to intellectual prop-

erty law and from teacher credentialing require-

ments to video game rating systems and FCC

regulation of media ownership. The first step for

the foundation would be to map the many

domains and their intersections with the various

actors in the field. This work has been done by

staff within the foundation, by consultants using

network analysis tools, and by surveying grantees

about the policy challenges they face.

The foundation regularly brings groups of its

grantees together, and policy opportunities are

frequently discussed at these gatherings. The

annual grantee meeting includes a conversation

about policy barriers, changes, and concerns. The

network map of grantees which is regularly

updated includes policy frames and policyinteractions in its data.

To date, the foundations policy mapping exer-

cises have been focused as much on sharing infor-

Digital media and learning touches

and is touched by many

policy domains.


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mation with grantees, generating expertise from

within the network, and building relationships

across the field in other words, field building

as they have been on identifying policy oppor-

tunities. In this regard, the foundation is acting on

the assumption that the wisdom of its network is

greater than its own institutional knowledge.

The foundation is also learning what works

best, given the multiple policy domains and per-

spectives within the field. As noted in GrantCrafts

guide to funders and advocacy efforts:

Some grant makers fund advocacy, some are

advocates themselves. Many do both. The choice

of whether a grant maker directly promotes an

approach to public issues or funds others to do

so depends on several considerations (including)

whether the grant maker or the grantee has a

better knowledge of the substantive issues, the

public policy process, and the means of influ-

encing public decisions. (Most grant makers

said their own experience pales in comparison

with that of their grantees.)13

At this stage in building the field of digital

media and learning, the MacArthur Foundation

has integrated the issue of enabling or restricting

policy into its approach. In this way, it brings

value beyond the funds it contributes to the

network by informing and connecting grantees to

those with similar policy concerns. It is also con-

tinually learning from its network so that it can be

ready to act on policy issues when the time is

right.

The question of timing is an important one.


POLICY DOMAINS I N DIGITALMEDIA AND LEARNING

This illustrative, though certainly not exhaus-

tive, list gives a sense of the diversity of

policy domains at play in the field of digital

media and learning.

Telecommunications policies, such as net

neutrality, that regulate equitable access

to digital content on all networks

Educational policies, including K-12

curriculum and testing standards, that

determine school district priorities,

constraints, and curriculum opportunities

Copyright law and intellectual property

policies of different institutions, which

affect how content and tools can be

shared

Credentialing policies and requirements

for different professions, which help toidentify leverage points for new ways of

teaching and learning

Open-access and licensing options for

content, game development, and univer-

sity participants

Media rating systems and other con-

sumer-oriented guidelines and protec-

tions regarding appropriate media use

Broadcast, cable, and internet connectiv-ity policies that constitute barriers or

conduits to access


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Research on social movements and policy change

shows that movements have their greatest effect

in the early stages of policy debate on a given

issue, before the debate becomes too broad and

acrimonious and before cause supporters become

too outspoken.14 For example, the Equal Rights

Amendment (ERA) movement, an unsuccessful

effort to amend the U.S.

Constitution to promote

legal equality for women,

passed in 35 states until

public opinion started to

shift against the move-

ment after pro-ERA womens groups were per-

ceived as extreme. Another advantage of weaving

the policy issues into the work early on is that

alliances built around one policy issue may come

together later around others.15

Such a broad range of policy domains is both

a blessing and a curse: on one hand, there are

ample opportunities for leverage; on the other,

there are many disparate stakeholders who may or

may not share perspectives and goals.

Case Study Questions

1. Policy stakeholders can be broken down into

many categories: by age, race, class, sector, and

so on. What types of mapping categories are

most useful in your work?

2. Maps of actors are, by nature, dynamic and

evolving. What different ways are there forcommunicating with constituents in real-time

maps of policy change and policy actors?

STRENGTHENING INTERMEDIARIES:

Providing Resources for Collaboration for

Out-Of-School Time Nonprofits

The Wallace Foundations involvement in the

Out-of-School Time (OST) sector began with

the Making the Most of Out-of-School Time

initiative, a $9.3 million project funded by the

DeWitt WallaceReaders Digest Foundation in

1993. As part of the initiative, the foundation

supported organizations that provide school-age

care; that is, organized activities for children ages

5 to 14 that occur during the non-school hours

including before-school programs, summer

programs, sports leagues, (and) tutoring and men-

toring programs, among others.16 After the

DeWitt WallaceReaders Digest Fund and the

Lila WallaceReaders Digest Fund merged in

2003, the focus on out-of-school time nonprofits

continued as one of three major program areas of

the Wallace Foundation. Current activities

include demonstration projects in five cities as

well as local, state, and national policy efforts.

From the beginning, the Wallace Foundation

has recognized that OST nonprofits reside in a

complex system of public agencies, school

systems, and local communities. OST groups are

not only beholden to the interests of the children

and families they serve but must work closely

with principals and schools in sharing physical

resources and information. They are funded,

licensed, and regulated by city and state agencies

and work in the context of other nonprofits,including other OST groups that share similar

interests but also compete for the same pools of

funding.


Alliances built around one policy

issue may come together later

around others.


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Despite common ground and intersecting

activities, the OST sector continues to face

challenges in working with other groups and

advancing public policy. For example, in working

with school leadership, perceived competition for

scarce public and philanthropic resources creates

tension at the school level. Lucy Friedman, presi-

dent of the After-School Corporation succinctly

points out, If principals think theyre making a

choice between test prep delivered by teachers, or

pick-up basketball and finger-painting, is there

any question as to how educational leaders will

invest their funds?17 These issues, coupled with

staffing challenges and difficulties in communi-

cating the value of successful partnerships to

school leaders and public officials,18 have created

major hurdles for OST advocates in their

attempts to foster collaboration and bring about

policy change.

As a result, there has been a growing recogni-

tion of the need for OST nonprofits to look

beyond their own programs, to work with each

other, with schools, with health organizations, and

with other community-based and public agencies

to create an array of accessible, developmentally

appropriate, and effective after-school and sum-

mer learning choices for all children throughout

the day and year, particularly those who are eco-

nomically or otherwise disadvantaged.19 Indeed,

in their white paper commissioned by the Wallace

Foundation, Heather B. Weiss and Priscilla M. D.


TABLE 1. DEFINING A NETWORK MINDSET 20

Organization Orientation Network Orientation

Mindset Competition Collaboration

Strategy for Impact Grow the organization Grow the OST sector

Typical Behaviors Compete for scarce resources Increase the funding pie for all

Protect knowledge Share knowledge

Develop competitive advantage Develop skills of competitors

Hoard talented leadership Cultivate and disperse leadership

Act alone Act collectively

Seize credit and power Share credit and power

Structure Centralized (siloed) Decentralized (matrixed)


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Little of the Harvard Family Research Project

identified seven organizational challenges for the

OST nonprofit sector, including the need to

create and maintain internal and external

networks and to better integrate policy and advo-

cacy with direct service.21 Weiss and Little

observe that in order to shift the sector toward

more effective outcomes, organizations need to

change their orientation from an organization

orientation to a network orientation.

Adapting a framework championed in Forces

for Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits,22

Weiss and Little suggest that funders can help

the sector become more network- and policy-

oriented by funding joint grant proposals,

convening grantees, providing leadership training,

and encouraging the integration of direct service

with advocacy.23 They also point to the power of

cultivating adaptive leaders committed to advancing

a larger policy agenda24 and to capacity-building

innovation funds that reward collaboration and

partnerships.25

The Wallace Foundation has invested signifi-

cant resources in strengthening the underlying

infrastructure of the OST sector in these ways, in

large part by supporting intermediaries. The

foundation has supported groups from the De-

partment ofYouth and Community Development

in New York City to the DC Children and Youth

Investment Trust Corporation. Coordinating

entities like the Providence After-School Alliance(PASA) are also charged with planning and gath-

ering data to inform decisions by city leaders. As

the experience of some intermediaries suggest,

the intermediary structure is, in itself, an essential

step in changing public policy to aid the forma-

tion of an out-of-school time system one that

advances the interests of public and private stake-

holders including youth, parents, communities,

and schools; that accounts consistently for the

quality and effectiveness of its services; and that

makes the most of the diversity, adaptability, and

responsiveness of local provider organizations and

programs.26


1. What are the key organizational capacity issuesin your sector? How could strengthening orga-

nizational capacity enable organizations to better

influence policy?

2. What role do intermediaries play in your

sector? How could their role in affecting policy

change be expanded?

3. What do stakeholders view as the key barriers

to effective collaboration? Trust? Information?

Time? How can the resources of a foundation

be used to remove those barr iers?

HOSTING FORUMS: Aligning Efforts and

Fostering Dialogue in Linking Ready Kids to

Ready Schools

In late March 2009, more than 200 educators,

academics, community activists, and education

advocates from thirty-five states came together for

two days to develop policies to improve the align-

ment of early childhood education systems andformal schools. The forum, called Linking Ready

Kids to Ready Schools: Building Policy on State

and Community Success, was organized by the

W. K. Kellogg Foundation and cosponsored by



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HOW INTERMEDIARIES ADD VALUE TO THE OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME FIELD27

Brokering relationships. Intermediaries can draw service providers, funders, policymakers, schools, and

other stakeholders into functioning alliances around issues of common concern. Intermediaries firsthand

experience with the needs and interests of the various players gives them an advantage in building trust,

finding common ground, and working out effective solutions to problems that cut across many kinds of

organizations and levels of operation.

Convening local organizations. Because of its diversity and history of bottom-up growth, the after-school

field is highly fragmented and dispersed in most cities. By maintaining steady working alliances with large

numbers of local providers in their communities, intermediaries have the ability to draw a wide range of

organizations into collegial, collaborative networks. In so doing, intermediaries facilitate the flow of infor-

mation, methods of data collection and analysis, and common ideas and concerns.

Rationalizing and expanding services. Intermediaries can enlist support from large public and private

funders more efficiently than individual, often small, provider agencies seeking funding one-by-one. These

resources in turn make possible a significantly greater scale of service, helping to expand the work of exist-

ing providers and drawing new organizations into the field.

Increasing program quality. By raising and re-granting money from large funders, intermediaries can

develop and promote consistent accountability mechanisms for recipients of these funds. Intermediaries

thus help funders and providers manage resources for greatest results, connecting providers with high-

quality curricula and other quality improvement strategies.

Strengthening and supporting the after-school workforce.Intermediaries often provide centralized

training and professional-development opportunities for after-school workers, managers, and volunteers

across the full range of local provider agencies. The result is an expanding network of well-trained adults

delivering and managing services for young people citywide.

Research and evaluation. Gathering, analyzing, and comparing performance and outcome data can be

costly and technically demanding responsibilities that are often beyond the fiscal and technical ability of

individual providers. Intermediaries can perform these tasks efficiently and with a degree of independence

that is valuable to providers, funders, policymakers, schools, and parents.

Promoting sustainability. The precariousness of many after-school funding streams calls for concerted

attention not only to fundraising but to developing policies and systems that ensure a steadier, more

reliable, and sustainable stream of resources to the field. This is an area in which intermediaries excel,

for all the reasons described on this list of core functions.


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Using philanthropys power to convene, the

foundation, in partnership with the Education

Commission of the States, designed a series of

high-visibility Governors Forums in 2008 in

Arizona, Connecticut, Ohio, and Pennsylvania

with the mandate to advance policies across the

early learning and early grades systems at both the

state and community levels. Each forum was

designed to enable multiple stakeholders to share

their experiences and to help attendees map out

strategies for reform while also highlighting local

efforts and successes as well as the need for more

state action. Tangible outcomes from each forum

included:

1. Identification of a specific mechanism through

which the work to be accomplished will be

sustained.

2. Identification of a key group of stakeholders

and the development of a unique process for

engaging them.

3. Adoption of a different set of steps to reach thetransition policy goal.

4. Identification of an outcome that can be

accomplished within the existing state policy

and political environment. 31

By providing an opportunity for dialogue on

the state and national level, the foundation helped

participants create new realities and move

forward. For example, Ohio Governor Ted

Strickland created an Early Childhood Cabinet tounite key state agencies around the common goal

of promoting school readiness by setting and

coordinating state policy and programs that serve

children from the prenatal care stage through 6


national education associations, including the

Education Commission of the States, Voices forAmericas Children, the Childrens Leadership

Council, and the Learning First Alliance.

The forum was remarkable for bringing

together for the first time national stakeholders

focused on coordinating the efforts of early

childhood education and elementary schools. It

also was an extension of the Kellogg

Foundations longstanding field-building efforts

through SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to

Assure Ready Kids), a five-year initiative that

began in 2001 to smooth the transition to

school and to align early learning and elementary

school systems for children from ages 3 to 6 who

were vulnerable to poor achievement.28 By

funding partnerships of community leaders, service

providers, business leaders, parents, policymakers,

and preschool and K-12 educators, the founda-

tion supported grantees that worked with multi-

ple stakeholders.29

As the SPARK initiative progressed, the foun-

dation recognized that statewide policy change

would be critical to improving the link between

ready kids and ready schools. As Gregory Taylor,

vice president for programs at the Kellogg

Foundation explained, State policies can help

districts, schools, and early care and education

programs create linkages to align continuous

systems of learning. But to establish a true

continuum, they also have to create similaritiesacross systems, provide interconnected services

and reflect understanding and insight into the

work as it is implemented on the ground in

schools, districts and communities.30


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THE GOVERNORS FORUMS32

Each Governors Forum organized by the Kellogg Foundation and the Education Commission of the

States focused on early education in different ways.

Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Connecticut and Pennsylvania shaped their individual forums around

issues of transition. Connecticut utilized the meeting to first inform a broad-based constituency of

the importance and implications of assuring effective transitions from early learning environments to

the early grades. It then focused on mobilizing a small group of key stakeholders and policymakers

to explore ways to integrate the existing transition model used in the state into a larger statewide

education policy agenda. Pennsylvania introduced the Transition Policy Framework and involved its

community engagement teams and the K-12 community in a learning opportunity to understand

each component (aligned standards, teacher preparation, and community engagement and action) as

well as to provide feedback on the framework and to work together in teams to strategize ways to

implement the framework at the school and community level.

Arizona. The forum in Arizona looked at efforts to create an aligned system of education from pre-

school to graduate school, also known as P-20. Rather than create a separate committee focused on

P (preschool), the state sought to integrate the efforts of its newly created early childhood initia-

tive, First Things First, in existing subcommittees of the P-20 Council. The forum was an opportunity

for a small group from the P-20 Council, First Things First, and the K-12 community to work together

to develop a strategic plan and clearly articulate the role of First Things First as the P in P-20.

Ohio. In Ohio, the forum focused on the role of schools and school leadership. The forum kicked off

a yearlong professional development partnership with the governors office, the Ohio Association of

Elementary School Administrators (OAESA), the Ohio Department of Education, and the Partnership

for Continued Learning Council (P-16) to create a network of ready schools across the state. To that

end, the governors office awarded grants to elementary school principals to pilot a new Ready

School Resource Guide developed by the Ohio Department of Education and SPARK Ohio. The

forum was an opportunity to build support by convening a broad base of stakeholders to hear about

ready schools and their impact on learning. In addition, multisector teams from each of the pilot sites

came together for the first time at the forum. With technical assistance from a group of state and

national content experts, teams began to develop their ready schools implementation plans.


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turned its attention to policy research, approving

a two-year $5 million grant in 1992 to establish

the Tobacco Policy Research Evaluation Program

(TPREP). Through TPREP, the foundation

quickly learned valuable information, including

how the price of cigarettes affected consumption

and whether tobacco met the legal definition of a

drug, influencing its strategy for curtailing the use

of tobacco. But in order to translate this research

into action, the foundation needed a way of

engaging policymakers across the United States

with this information. It decided to support coali-

tions of tobacco-control organizations and

authorized a $10 million grant to establish the

SmokeLess States program.

A coalition, at its most basic level, is a group of

organizations with a common purpose and iden-

tity. Nonprofits and funders often join coalitions

to increase credibility, maximize resources, and

share ideas.37 In the context of policy work, they

also join forces to raise awareness about specific

issues, leverage shared resources for common

policy objectives, and coordinate their individual

efforts. With the SmokeLess States program, the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wanted to

effectively translate policy research into policy

change by awarding grants to coalitions of non-

governmental organizations that would educate

the public and policymakers about the tobacco

problem and potential ways to address it.38

Working with the American MedicalAssociation the organization chosen to manage

the coalitions operations, including administration

of grants and technical assistance to grantees the

foundation provided two-year capacity-building


years of age.33 In Pennsylvania, the Office of Child

Development and Early Learning is strengthening

the states infrastructure to support the link

between preschool learning and the early

grades.34 And at the national level, the U.S. House

of Representatives passed legislation in

September 2009 creating the Early Learning

Challenge Fund, an $8 billion initiative to raise

the quality of early learning and care programs.35

A similar bill has been proposed in the Senate.


1. Policy change involves multiple stakeholders. In

order to change policy in your field, which

stakeholders need to be involved?

2. Continuing the conversation after an event can

be challenging. In order to facilitate discussion

and create the next steps, what support can

foundations provide?

FUNDING COALITIONS: Sharing

Knowledge and Coordinating Activity in

Tobacco Control

Successful policy efforts result in the passage of

new laws or the revision of existing ones. This is

what happened in New Jersey when cigarette

taxes were raised three times in six years as part of

an effort to reduce smoking. In fact, from 1994 to

2004, tobacco control laws were passed in more

than thirty states due in part to the leadership of

the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has

contributed more than $420 million to reducetobacco use in the United States since 1991.36

When the foundation decided to focus on

tobacco control as one of its key priorities, it first


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FIVE LESSONS FROM THE SMOKELESS STATES PROGRAM

The program officers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who oversaw the SmokeLess States

program offered some reflections on what they would have done differently in managing the

program:39

1. Diversify Funding Sources: The program relied on three voluntary health organizations the

American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and American Lung Association to provide

financial support, especially for any lobbying activities that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as

a private foundation, was legally unable to support. However, in the economic downturn of 2000

2001, the ability of the organizations to support the coalitions declined dramatically. More local

fundraising and greater technical assistance from the foundation for fundraising might have helped

stabilize the financial footing of some coalitions.

2. Diversify Coalition Members: Although many state coalitions believed the effort to include other

stakeholders was too resource- and time-intensive, greater diversification of organizations for the

purpose of more widely representing state populations is, in the program officers view, critical if the

work is to continue.

3. Identify Clear Benchmarks to Measure Progress:Benchmarks allowed grantees and coalition

organizers to work together to make adjustments along the way. Although measuring coalition per-

formance against benchmarks met with strong opposition, especially among those who had not been

previously monitored in such a manner, utilizing benchmarks and offering technical support to help

coalitions meet them improved the performance of the coalitions.

4. Encourage Advocacy Grantmaking: Advocacy, an important and highly effective grantmaking tool,

is underutilized. It requires astute legal assistance and strong leadership, but more could be done by

the foundation to encourage its adoption internally and within the field.

5. Recognize Grantees: The foundation celebrated state coalition achievements annually in the state

that had experienced the greatest policy victory in the previous year. In hindsight, celebrating

achievements more than once a year might have proven beneficial.


16/26

grants and four-year implementation grants to an

initial set of nineteen state coalitions. Each coali-

tion worked on state policy issues while having

access to the national programs resources. In

Wisconsin, for example, one of the focal points of

the coalitions effort was on garnering public sup-

port for raising excise taxes. Taxes were raised

from 49 cents to 59 cents per pack in 199740 and

then to 77 cents in 2001.41 Each coalition retained

individual autonomy and set up its own policy

priorities, media campaigns, and coalition struc-

tures while bringing together local organizations

that shared an interest in tobacco prevention,

including state agencies, nonprofit groups, and

businesses, as well as individuals. The success of

these programs clearly demonstrates how funders

can utilize coalitions to enable organizations to

work toward a common policy agenda.


1. Policy change takes a long time and can require

multiple strategies. The Robert Wood Johnson

Foundations successful work with coalitions in

the states built on decades of earlier work. What

is a realistic time frame for change in the policies

that matter in your work?

2. Coalitions require significant participation by

member organizations. How can a foundations

resources be used to ensure sufficient participa-

tion?

3. Coalitions often are implemented as part of a

multi-site strategy. What is the most effective way

to share information and resources among

different sites?

BECOMING A PUBLIC CHARITY: Operating

Programs, Matching Grants, and Lobbying

for the Environment

In January 2004, the Pew Charitable Trusts, then

one of the nations ten largest private foundations,

became a public charity. While some critics of the

move raised concerns over whether it was in the

public interest,42 Pew officials said the conversion

from a private foundation to a public charity

would enable it to better pursue its philanthropic

goals. It will give us greater flexibility in our

operations, as well as economies of scale that we

could not achieve as a private foundation, said

Rebecca W. Rimel, the president and chief exec-

utive of Pew.43

The fundamental distinction between a grant-

making institution operated as a private founda-

tion and one operated as a public charity is a legal

one. Grantmakers organized as either can still

make grants to individuals and organizations,

convene the community around specific issues,

and support advocacy efforts, but the regulations

about those activities differ depending on the

organizational form. Essentially, a public charity

which is viewed as having greater public



17/26

accountability by virtue of its form also has

greater freedom to operate than a private founda-

tion. For example, while private foundations are

barred from lobbying, either directly or indirect-

ly through their grantees, public charities can

engage in and fund lobbying activities within cer-

tain restrictions. Public charities also are allowed

to raise funds from individuals, enjoy special tax

benefits, and can operate programs within the

organization. As long as a grantmaking institution

meets the public support test an IRS standard

requiring public charities to receive a certain per-

centage of their total support from public sources

it can be organized as a public charity. 44 The

distinction on the facing page is outlined in the

chart.45

Since becoming a public charity, Pew has been

able to take advantage of its status in order to

pursue a variety of initiatives in ways that would

not have been possible as a private foundation. In

the months after its reclassification, Pew combined

seven policy-research groups, including the Pew

Research Center for the People and the Press and

the Pew Internet & American Life Project, into

the Pew Research Center. In the past, Pew funded

each group separately through intermediaries like

the Tides Foundation and Georgetown University,

but as a public charity, Pew can directly manage the

centers and move them to a single location.46

Additionally, Pew can now attract philanthropic

support from other donors; at the latest count,

Pew had more than 250 donors representing over$300 million in capital.47

The impact of Pews conversion to a public

charity on its policy objectives is most clearly

illustrated by the Pew Environment Group, the

conservation arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Although the Pew Environment Group has been

promoting marine conservation, wilderness

protection, and solutions to global warming for

more than fifteen years, its strategies for policy

change have expanded since 2004.

For example, the Pew Environment Group, in

partnership with the Philanthropic Services and

Government Relations division of the Pew

Charitable Trusts, has

helped design, implement,

and manage the Lenfest

Ocean Program, a project

custom-designed for the

Lenfest Foundation that

supports marine research to inform policy deci-

sions. As a private foundation, Pew could have

worked in partnership with the Lenfest

Foundation. As a public charity, Pew manages the

foundations money directly, shares the expertise

of the trusts staff, and operates the program for

the Lenfest Foundation in a more focused way.

Key milestones of the program so far include the

passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of a

bill tightening a fins-attached shark fishing

policy (the Lenfest Ocean Program was the only

nongovernmental organization asked to provide

congressional testimony on the subject) and a ban

by the state of Oregon on the commercial harvest

of bull kelp, an effort for which the Lenfest

program provided critical research. 48

As a public charity, Pew addresses the policy

process more freely, with initiatives like the Pew

Campaign for Responsible Mining, which seeks


A public charity has greater

freedom to operate than a private

foundation.


18/26

to change the way in which federal lands are used

by mining companies, and the Pew Campaign for

Fuel Efficiency, which works for more stringent

fuel efficiency standards for the nations cars and

trucks. Furthermore, with the ability to maintain

campaigns directly, Pew can now consider mergers

and acquisitions in addition to traditional invest-

ments in nonprofits. The Pew Environment

Group, when considering how to increase its

personnel and staff capacities in the areas of com-

munication and media, government affairs, and

field operations, weighed two options: to hire the

people it needed individually or to bring under

its umbrella an organization that could fill those

same needs. Having funded and worked with the

National Environmental Trust (NET) since 1994,

the Pew Environment Group absorbed the orga-

nizations staff and operations in January 2008.

Given that NET contained the human infra-

structure that we needed, that it had effectively

served as a campaign arm of Pew for many years,

that by design it had worked primarily in the

areas in which our work was focused and that we

had had a close and extremely productive work-

ing relationship for more than a decade, this

became a relatively easy choice. Quite simply,

incorporating NET into the Pew Environment

Group was far more practical, cost-effective and

efficient than re-creating it internally, said Joshua

S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew

Environment Group. 49


1. Few private foundations are in a position to

convert into a public charity;50 however, all

foundations are in a position to manage rela-

tionships with stakeholders differently. What

could be different about the way relationships

and partnerships are managed in your work?

2. What knowledge or expertise does your organ-

ization have that could enable others to be

more effective in their giving?

TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, AND BEST

PRACTICES FOR FIELD BUILDING IN

EFFECTING POLICY CHANGE

Each of the preceding examples shares one com-

mon factor: the policy efforts are led by multiple

organizations, often coming from very different

perspectives. The foundations were deliberately

involved in field-level efforts to create change.

These strategies involve strengthening teamwork,

building partnerships, and including entire ecosys-

tems in the planning process. Understanding

change through a network-centric view is essen-

tial to leveraging limited philanthropic dollars.

The tools for understanding and evaluating

networks are undergoing an innovation

explosion. As both the conceptual and digital

tools for networks become more widely available,

funders will be more able to incorporate

network-centered principles into their work,

from strategic planning and developing theories

of change to grantmaking and evaluation. In this

section, we provide some thoughts on howfunders can use network tools to understand the

fields in which they operate and frame their

field-building choices in the context of policy

change.



19/26

Mapping The Field

Identifying the relevant stakeholders for a partic-

ular issue is a critical step that, if done incorrectly,

can prove disastrous to a policy effort. As the

opponents of Proposition 8, the amendment to

Californias constitution to define marriage as

being only between one man and one woman,

reflect on what was considered a shocking loss in

the November 2008 election, many observers

have come to see the failure as fundamentally one

of missed alliances and poor outreach.51 Knowing

who the stakeholders are, knowing the opposi-

tion, and understanding where allies can be found

is essential to success. What was needed was

better analysis of the networks of supporters and

opponents, and a strategy to reach across the divide.

There are many different methods for mapping

networks, from low-tech qualitative methods like

Net-Map, an interview-based mapping tool that

helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and

An example of a Net-Map, a tool developed by

Eva Shiffer 52

improve situations in which many different actors

influence outcomes,53 to high-tech quantitative

methods that measure variables like network

reach, betweenness, and closeness.54 NodeXL,55 a

free Excel 2007 plug-in, is a good tool for map-

ping networks. It can track which funders and

organizations operate in a particular arena, as well

as patterns of information flow, communication,

and trust within a network.

For insight on how to analyze networks and

apply that knowledge to philanthropy, the

Monitor Institute maintains an active blog on its

Working Wikily website, and in July 2009 it pub-

lished Working Wikily 2.0,56 a report that exam-

ines how networks are altering the landscape of

social change. Other valuable resources include

the David and Lucile Packard Foundations

resources from its Philanthropy and Networks

Exploration initiative57 and the Barr Foundations

resources on networks.58

Strengthening Advocacy Capacity and

Network Capacity

Not all nonprofits have the capacity to engage in

policy advocacy. Spending time on policy requires

staff time to devote to policy issues, resources for

engaging constituents, the ability to develop

policy solutions, and the connections to drive

policy change. Nonetheless, funders can help

grantee organizations overcome these challenges

and others by strengthening their policy capacity.

Understanding a nonprofits advocacy capacity

helps funders understand whether an organiza-

tion is ready to take on the responsibilities of

advocacy and what is the best way to support the



20/26

organization to build its capacity. The California

Endowment and TCC Group recently published

a framework for determining advocacy capacity. It

uses the traditional guidelines for nonprofit

capacity assessment to measure leadership, adap-

tive, management, and technical capacity in order

to better determine how funders can improve an

organizations ability to create policy change. For

example, looking at lead-

ership capacity, the

authors state that advocacy

leaders must have the

ability to understand how

and when to motivate

employees and outside stakeholders throughout

the advocacy process and demonstrate an

authentic personal and organizational commit-

ment to advocacy.59 Similarly, the Alliance for

Justice has an online Advocacy Capacity

Assessment Tool that helps organizations identify

key ways to strengthen their advocacy capacity.60

While these tools focus on capacity for advo-

cacy and touch on the importance of nonprofits

working with other groups, they do not focus

on the field or the network as a whole.

Understanding of the dynamics of networks and

fields is still an emerging endeavor; however, the

Irvine Foundation has funded a few reports on

the topic, including one by the Bridgespan Group

on The Strong Field Framework,61 which

provides a way for funders to understand the cur-

rent capacities of a field by measuring the dimen-sions of shared identity, standards of practice,

knowledge base, leadership and grassroots

support, and funding and supporting policy.

Another report, by TCC Group, focuses on long-

term capacity-building initiatives, in which a

foundation directs support to a cohort of organi-

zations over a defined time period to address spe-

cific capacity-building needs.62 In the future, we

expect many more funders and practitioners to

develop and share their insights on techniques for

strengthening the capacity of networks.

Supporting Intermediaries

Supporting a field doesnt always require interme-

diaries. The TCC report on long-term capacity

building outlines some pros and cons of support-

ing intermediaries that need to be carefully

weighed. Intermediaries can help funders monitor

and support grantees and centralize communica-

tion regarding an initiative. However, while inter-

mediaries provide additional human resources

and help funders with lean staffs save time and

money, they also increase a funders management

oversight responsibilities and costs.63 The

Foundation Center, as part of its Practice Matters

series, has produced an extensive report called

Toward More Effective Use of Intermediaries

that focuses exclusively on the use, misuse, and

better use of intermediary organizations and

draws on the insights of more than seventy inter-

views with funders, intermediaries, grantees, and

consultants. Shaping the Future of After-School,

which we cited in our case study on the Wallace

Foundations Out-of-School Time efforts, pro-

vides an additional in-depth look at the role of

intermediaries in supporting the OST field.64

Building Coalitions

The Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest

has identified six tips to keep in mind when

building a coalition:65


Understanding of the dynamics of

networks and fields is still an

emerging endeavor.


21/26

Identify Purpose Identify the purpose before

you join or create an alliance with others.

Include All Stakeholders Make sure all rele-

vant stakeholders of the issue are represented.

Be sure to think beyond the usual suspects.

Understand Limits Understand the general

limits and capacity of the member organiza-

tions and distribute responsibilities equitably.

Create Bylaws Create formal or informal

bylaws to govern proceedings and decision-

making.

Communicate Encourage open communi-

cation and healthy conflict. Make sure members

can disagree without seeming to be obstruc-

tionist.

Allocate Resources Allocate resources for

administrative tasks needed to run the coalition.

The Atlantic Philanthropies report entitled

Investing in Change: Why Supporting Advocacy

Makes Sense for Foundations66 and the Robert

Wood Johnson Foundations report Engaging

Coalitions to Improve Health and Health Care67

also provide helpful context for understanding

the lessons from philanthropy and coalition-

building.

Convening Stakeholders

Although we focused on the use of forums in the

context of the Kellogg Foundations Linking

Ready Kids to Ready Schools initiative, there aremany ways to convene and connect stakeholders.

These include conferences, briefings, panel

discussions, working groups, and regular retreats.

Each type of event has its strengths and weak-

nesses; conferences help large groups of people

share knowledge en masse, increase network

connections, and develop a sense of the overall

field while retreats are effective for developing

strong connections within smaller groups.

Conveners are experimenting with a variety of

different types of engagement, from audience

participation through the use of social media68 to

new structures of information dissemination and

interaction.69 For instance, the Social Capital

Markets conference in San Francisco last year

used a blog to communicate with conference

attendees and posted Twitter tweets, blog posts,

videos, and other announcements from those

who attended.

Leveraging Digital Tools and Information

One of the great opportunities for funders work-

ing to build coalitions and share knowledge is

presented by digital media. Often, the knowledge

of what others in the field are doing, the current

state of a policy proposal, or the work of related

entities is information that funders have access to

and that their partners in the field readily need.

All of the convening tips above can be enhanced

by the appropriate use of digital communications

technology.

The operative word, however, is appropriate.

Just because social networking technologies are

prevalent and free doesnt mean everyone is using

them or wants to use them. It also doesnt mean

that everything that can be shared electronicallyshould be. There are now many guidebooks and

best-practice tools for using digital media to build

movements and coalitions, strengthen communities,

and create new ideas or propagate those that exist.



22/26


23/26

NOTES

1 Highlights of the Waldemar A. Nielsen Issue Forums inPhilanthropy: The Role of Philanthropy in Shaping Public

Policy (Washington, DC: Georgetown Public Policy

Institute, 20082009), http://cpnl.georgetown.edu

/doc_pool/Nielsen%20Issue%20Forums%20in%20

Philanthropy%20Highlights%20Report.pdf.

2 Karen Saucier Lundy and Sharyn Janes, Community HealthNursing: Caring for the Publics Health, 2nd ed.. (Sudbury, MA:

Jones and Bartlett, 2009).

3Joel L. Fleishman, J. Scott Kohler, and Steven Schindler,Casebook for the Foundation: A Great American Secret(New

York: PublicAffairs: 2007), 3032.

4 There have been several recent reports on the role of fieldbuilding and networks, including Building to Last: Field

Building as Philanthropic Strategy (San Francisco:

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc., 2010), The Strong

Field Framework (San Francisco: Bridgespan Group, June

2009), and Working Wikily 2.0 (San Francisco: Monitor

Institute, July 2009).

5 Building to Last: Field Building as Philanthropic Strategy(San Francisco: Blueprint Research + Design, Inc., 2010).

6 In a recent monograph on the topic of scaling nonprofitinnovation, Nancy Roob of the Edna McConnell Clark

Foundation and Jeffrey Bradach of the Bridgespan Group

suggest that funders, when trying to scale a program, should

support fewer organizations with larger sums of money and

ensure that funding is given to those organizations that

have real evidence they deliver on their promise. Nancy

Roob and Jeffrey L. Bradach, Scaling What Works:

Implications for Philanthropists, Policymakers, and Nonprofit

Leaders, (San Francisco: Bridgespan Group, April 2009),

http://www.bridgespan.org/uploadedFiles/Homepage/

Articles/Scaling%20What%20Works%20-%20EMCF-

Bridgespan%20April2009.pdf.

7 Out-of-School Time Learning Grants & Programs,Wallace Foundation website, http://www.wallacefounda-

tion.org/GrantsPrograms/FocusAreasPrograms/Out-Of-

SchoolLearning/Pages/default.aspx.

8 SPARK: Overview, W. K. Kellogg Foundation website,http://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=75&CID=168&N

ID=61&LanguageID=0.

9 Tobacco: Overview and Strategy, Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation website, http://www.rwjf.org/pr/topic.jsp?

topicid=1030&p=os.

10 Pew Environment Group, Pew Charitable Trusts publi-cation, 7.

11 Mimi Ito et al., Hanging Out, Messing Around and GeekingOut: Living and Learning with New Media. (Cambridge, MA:

MIT Press, forthcoming.) White paper online at http://

digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report.

12 The wiki phenomenon is based on a belief that expertopinions are often flawed compared to the collective opin-

ion of many. The key to tapping the wisdom of the crowd is

diversity, independence, and decentralization. See James

Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds (New York: Doubleday,2004), 22.

13 Advocacy Funding: The Philanthropy of ChangingMinds, Grantcraft website, http://www.grantcraft.org

/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=734

14 Meredith Alexander Kunz, Professor Sarah SouleExplains Effective Social Movements, Stanford Business

Magazinewebsite (Autumn 2009), http://www.gsb.

stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0909/kn-effective-social-

movements.html?cmpid=main.

15 Ibid.

16 Robert Halpern, Julie Spielberger, and Sylvan Robb,Making the Most of Out-of-School Time (Wallace

Foundation: New York, December 1998), 4,

http://www.wallacefoundation.org/SiteCollectionDocumen

ts/WF/Knowledge%20Center/Attachments/PDF/Making%

20the%20Most%20of%20Out-of-School%20Time.pdf.

17 Lucy N. Friedman, A View from the Field: HelpingCommunity Organizations Meet Capacity Challenges

(New York: Wallace Foundation, March 2008), 17, http://

www.wallacefoundation.org/wallace/whitepaper_friedman.pdf.

18 Ibid., 610.

19 Heather B. Weiss and Pr iscilla M.D. Little, StrengtheningOut-of-School Time Nonprofits: The Role of Foundations

in Building Organizational Capacity (New York: Wallace

Foundation, May 2008), 2, http://www.wallacefoundation.org/

wallace/whitepaper_weiss.pdf.



24/26

20 Ibid., 15..

21Ibid., 8.

22 Heather McLeod-Grant and Leslie Crutchfield, Forces forGood: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits

(San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2007), 109.

.23 Ibid., 21.

24 Ibid., 20.

25 Ibid., 24.

26 Shaping the Future of After-School: The essential role ofintermediaries in br inging quality after-school systems to

scale, Collaborative for Building After-School Systems(September 2007), 2, http://www.afterschoolsystems.org

/files/1675_file_cbass_shape_future_2007.pdf.

27 Ibid., 3.

28 Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids, KelloggFoundation website (March 2009), 1, http://www.

wkkf.org/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupport/View

Doc.aspx?LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&ItemID=

5000608&fld=PDFFile.

29 Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools: A Report onPolicy Insights from the Governors Forum Series,

Communications Consortium Media Center (2009), 45,http://www.wkkf.org/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupp

ort/ViewDoc.aspx?LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&

ItemID=5000607&fld=PDFFile.

30 Ibid., 5.

31 Linking early learning and the early grades to assure thatchildren are ready for school and schools are ready for chil-

dren a SPARK Legacy (Battle Creek: W.K. Kellogg

Foundation, August 2008), 20, http://www.wkkf.org

/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupport/ViewDoc.aspx?

LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&ItemID=5000542

&fld=PDFFile.

32 Adapted from Linking early learning and the early gradesto assure that children are ready for school and schools are

ready for children a SPARK Legacy, 2021.

33 Ibid., 26..

34 Ibid., 27.

35Sam Dillon, Initiative Focuses on Early Learning

Programs, New York Times, September 19, 2009, http:

//www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/education/20child.html.

36 Karen K. Gerlach and Michelle A. Larkin, TheSmokeLess States Program, in Steven L. Isaacs and David

C. Colby, eds., To Improve Health and Health Care: The Robert

Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology, vol. 8 (San Francisco,

Jossey-Bass, 2005), 1, http://www.rwjf.org/files/publica-

tions/books/2005/chapter_02.pdf.

37 Working in Coalitions, (Washington, DC: Center forLobbying in the Public Interest, 2007), 1, http://www.

wkkf.org/advocacyhandbook/docs/07_coalitions.pdf.

38 SmokeLess States Program, 3.

39 SmokeLess States Program,1011.

40 SmokeLess States National Tobacco Prevention andControl Program: Major Accomplishments and Highlights

by State (19942000) http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom

/SLSAccomplishments00.pdf.

41 SmokeLess States National Tobacco Prevention andControl Program: Major Accomplishments and Highlights

by State (20012004) http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom

/SLSAccomplishments04.pdf.

42 Pablo Eisenberg, Pew's Shift to Charity Status GoesAgainst What Is Best for the Public, Chronicle of Philanthropy,

(December 11, 2003), http://philanthropy.com/premium

/articles/v16/i05/05003801.htm.

43 Stephanie Strom, Pew Charitable Trusts Will BecomePublic Charity, New York Times, (November 7, 2003),

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/07/us/pew-charitable-

trusts-will-become-public-charity.html.

44 Gene Takagi, Public Support Tests Public Char ities,Nonprofit Law Blog website (January 12, 2006),

http://www.nonprofitlawblog.com/home/2006/01/public

_support_.html.

45Jeff Trexler, Q & A: Why are hospitals grouped withschools as public charities? uncivilsociety.org website

(December 2, 2007), http://uncivilsociety.org/2007/12

/q-a-why-are-hospitals-grouped.html.



25/26

46 Debra E. Blum, Pew Combines Policy-ResearchGroups, Chronicle of Philanthropy (April 27, 2004), http://

philanthropy.com/free/update/2004/04/2004042701.htm.

47 Susan A. Magill on Philanthropic Services at Pew, PewCharitable Trusts website, http://www.pewtrusts.org

/expert_qa_detail.aspx?id=48580.

48 Pew Prospectus 2009, (Washington, DC: PewCharitable Trusts, 2009), 37, http://www.pewtrusts.org/

uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Static_Pages/About_

Us/PEW%20Prospectus%2020092.pdf.

49 Deep Green, Pew Charitable Trusts website, http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=38586.

50Two examples of other private foundations converting to

public charities are the Rockefeller Family Fund and the

Independence Community Foundation (which will be

renamed the Brooklyn Community Foundation). See Debra

E. Blum, Big Change Afoot at Pew Trusts, The Chronicle of

Philanthropy, November 6, 2003, http://philanthropy.com

/free/update/2003/11/2003110601.htm, and Diane

Cardwell, A Brooklyn of Wealth and Needs Gets a Major

Charity All Its Own New York Times, September 28, 2009,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/nyregion/29

brooklyn.html.

51 Prop. 8s battle lessons, Los Angeles Times, November 11,2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials

/la-ed-marriage11-2008nov11,0,3352846.story.

52 Massimo Menichinelli, Net-map toolbox, a social net-work analysis tool for Community/Locality Systems proj-

ects, Open Peer-to-Peer Design website, http://www.

openp2pdesign.org/blog/archives/739.

53 Eva Schiffer, About, Net-Map Toolbox website,http://netmap.ifpriblog.org/about.

54 Valdis Krebs, Social Network Analysis, A Brief Intro-duction, Orgnet website, http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html.

55 Marc Smith, NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery andExploration for Excel, NodeXL website, http://www.code-plex.com/NodeXL.

56 Diana Scearce, Gabriel Kasper, and Heather McLeodGrant, Working Wikily 2.0 (San Francisco: Monitor

Institute, 2009), http://www.monitor institute.com/

documents/WorkingWikily2.0hires.pdf.

57Philanthropy and Networks Exploration Links:

Resources, The David & Lucile Packard Foundation web-

site, http://www.packard.org/genericDetails.aspx?RootCat

ID=3&CategoryID=162&ItemID=3744&isFromModule=1.

58 Resources: Networks, Barr Foundation website,http://www.barrfoundation.org/resources/resources_list.htm

?attrib_id=9534.

59Jared Raynor, Peter York, and Shao-Chee Sim, WhatMakes an Effective Advocacy Organization? A Framework

for Determining Advocacy Capacity (San Francisco: TCC

Group, January 2009), 14, http://www.calendow.org

/uploadedFiles/Publications/Policy/General/Effective

Advocacy_FINAL.pdf.

60 Build Capacity & Measure Advocacy Efforts, Alliancefor Justice website, http://www.advocacyevaluation.org

/?source=web_pf.

61 The Strong Field Framework (San Francisco: TheBridgespan Group, 2009), http://www.irvine.org/images

/stories/pdf/pubs/strongfieldframework.pdf.

62 Paul M. Connolly, Deeper Capacity Building for GreaterImpact (San Francisco: TCC Group, April 2007), 2,

http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/philanthropy/LTCB

_Paper_2007.pdf.

63 Ibid., 10.

64 Shaping the Future of After-School (New York:Collaborative for Building Afters-School Systems,

September 2007), http://www.afterschoolsystems.org/files

/1675_file_cbass_shape_future_2007.pdf.

65 Working in Coalitions (Washington, DC: Center forLobbying in the Public Interest, 2007), 2,

http://www.clpi.org/images/pdf/07_coalitions.pdf.

66 Why Supporting Advocacy Makes Sense forFoundations (New York: The Atlantic Philanthropies, May

2008), http://atlanticphilanthropies.org/content/down-load/5238/79869/file/ATLP_advocacy_report.pdf.

67 Laura C. Leviton and Elaine F. Cassidy, EngagingCoalitions to Improve Health and Health Care, in Steven

L. Isaacs and David C. Colby, eds., To Improve Health and



26/26

Health Care: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology,

vol. 10 (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2005), http://www.rwjf.

org/files/research/anthology2007chapter10.pdf.

68 SOCAP September 1st Daily Update, Social CapitalMarkets website, http://www.socialcapitalmarkets.net

/index.php?/component/option,com_wordpress/Itemid,64

/p,550.

69 2009 IS/CMF Conference: Engaging Session FormatsIndependent Sector website, http://www.independent

sector.org/AnnualConference/2009/formats.html.

70 Good resources on these tools and their use in sharinginformation and building community can be found through

NTEN (www.nten.org), from Beth Kanter, (www.beth.

typepad.com), and from the online forums at TechSoupGlobal (www.techsoup.org). Each of these sources can also

point you to issue- or technology-specific expertise.

71 Phil Malone, An Evaluation of Private FoundationCopyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities

(Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society,

August 2009), http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications

/2009/Open_Content_Licensing_for_Foundations

72 National Institutes of Health Public Access, NationalInstitutes of Health website, http://publicaccess.nih.gov.

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Building Fields for Policy Change