Let’s Open It Up to the Floor
Panels of talking heads during conferences are all well and good, especially when they are saying something of importance that we don’t know. However the audiences at Council on Foundations conferences often have knowledge and perspectives that are just as interesting as the speakers. At today’s session, “The Leadership Opportunity for Corporate Philanthropy,” three items from the floor are particularly worth noting.
One gentleman credited corporate philanthropy of years ago as having led the movement to end child labor. That is a piece of history that might be challenged by other sectors, to put it mildly, but it raised an interesting question about what the role of corporate philanthropy should be. Can corporate philanthropists lead necessary corporate policy changes? Can the foundation be a “village” within the corporation to advocate internally and perhaps externally for changes?
Could the grantmakers within the banks have exercised their influence in the financial sector to rein in behaviors related to mortgage lending that banks and regulators now acknowledge were disastrous for themselves and American society? You have to suspect that some of the professionals in those corporate foundations with experience in affordable housing and community development saw the danger signs, perhaps faster than their peers in the banks’ lending and investment areas.
Keeping that in mind, can today’s corporate grantmakers dedicated to social change and societal benefit push for solutions to the student debt crisis that so many in politics and the business world seem unable to grapple with successfully? And given the burgeoning health care and health insurance crisis, will corporate philanthropists be able to serve as the progressive village promoting necessary changes in the health and insurance industries? This is definitely something to think about.
One woman raised a concern that extends from corporate philanthropy to the entire sector. Earlier in the session, a speaker from Intel indicated that the company has virtually ceased accepting and funding unsolicited grant applications in favor of picking partners for initiatives in which the corporation is a player and collaborator. As the Foundation Center has indicated, the proportion of private foundations that no longer accept unsolicited proposals is on the rise. Nonprofits feel it, know it, and chafe at the decreasing proportion of funders willing to entertain proposals thrown over the transom.
In light of this, the woman asked what should be done to counter the image, if not the reality, of corporate philanthropy as increasingly “inaccessible.” How can corporate grantmakers engage and listen to their communities if they are actually not entertaining proposals and discussions with them? It is a question for all foundations, not just the corporate ones.
Finally, a couple of participants mentioned that internal stakeholders (the employees) are just as important to a corporation as external stakeholders. If corporate philanthropists are really going to open up their processes for a vigorous, analytical discussion of how corporate philanthropy can be more responsive, strategic, and catalytic, the grantmakers might want to ensure that the workers on the shop floors and behind the desks get a chance to weigh in. The grantmakers might learn a lot about what they can and should do with their financial and nonfinancial philanthropic resources.
Rick Cohen is a columnist for the NonProfit Quarterly.
