PF Whiteboard

Last week, I was lucky to attend FSG’s and the Aspen’s Institute’s Collective Impact Forum conference in San Francisco. I learned achieving large-scale change through collective impact has five major components:

1) Common Agenda
2) Shared Measurement
3) Mutually Reinforcing Activities
4) Continuous Communication
5) Backbone Support

In one of the whole group sessions, someone shouted out a sixth major component: collective funding! The crowd seemed to unanimously agree. I wonder what this looks like.

I then learned a bit more about the functions of a backbone organization:

1)  Guide the vision and strategy
2)  Support aligned activities
3)  Establish shared measurable practices
4)  Build public will
5)  Advance policy
6)  Mobilize funding

I noted that funding was part of the core functions of a backbone organization, not necessarily to secure funding for the backbone, but for the collective initiative. After hearing directly from some backbone organizations, I tried to think about our role in all of this.  What are backbone organizations’ experiences trying to establish collective funding? Is it on the part of the backbone organization or the individual funders to establish funding/get involved? If a backbone organization doesn’t currently exist, what role does a funder have, if at all?

For more about FSG’s collective impact approach, visit:
FSG’s Approach

We’re still small, but at 4 people you feel like a team—a real team. With our new found identify, we just created the first version of our Team Manual. We reviewed policies and procedures materials created by other foundations and learned a lot about the topics and policies we might want to cover. We went with a lite version, which, I’m excited to say, is exactly two sides of paper. It started out as a multi-page document and after the realisation that it just wasn’t very PF to detail every possibility and scenario, we got it down to 2 sides. That covers hours, scheduling, holidays, time off, maternity leave, paternity leave, sabbaticals, benefits, performance reviews, compensation, reimbursements, and travel.

Here’s the beginning paragraph: “At the PF we only work with people we trust—that goes for grantees and team members. Our team members are expected to collaborate with each other and the community voraciously, but are also given autonomy within their roles and in managing their performance. There are areas of team support where we need to articulate what people can expect or plan on. That’s what this manual is for. We implement these policies with reasonable flexibility and expect our team to use them with good judgement.”

Good judgement. What does that mean?

We want our team to know the parameters we work within, and then have freedom to figure out how to use the space between to be at their best. Unexpected situations that will arise and we will navigate those in a timely manner, with trust and flexibility of all involved. Of course, that’s only possible when everyone values and exercises trust, autonomy, and good judgement—which is easier said than done. So, in the meantime that’s what we’ll spend our time building and practicing.

In the few months I’ve been at Peery, I’ve been meeting with community leaders throughout East Palo Alto. Particularly, I have learned a lot from the hard-working principals of Ravenswood City School District (RCSD). Given my own experience as a site administrator in Ravenswood, coupled with my recent conversations, I know that each of them wishes they could clone themselves – there’s just not enough of them to go around. They are needed everywhere, all the time.  Principals rely on their own heroes – masterful, committed teachers that give, and give, and give.
Dave and I were recently brainstorming ways to support principals and their heroes in the day-to-day work they give so much to. Schools sites already have established Site Leadership Teams (SLTs), where principals and teacher leaders come together to problem-solve and act upon the schools’ goals and needs. We want to support an existing structure. We hope to empower the team to act by giving them access to funds that already align with the work in which they are tasked.
Knowing how precious their time is, and how resources are either limited or restricted, we wanted to create a process that was simple with a quick turnaround. How can we support every leadership team without asking for too much of their time?  How can the grant making process be as painless as possible, and support the people that are doing such great work at the schools?
After talking through several ideas with Dave, we decided to tackle this question: Can we create a process of grant making through conversation? Within a week, I crafted an RFP and sent it out to all Ravenswood principals. The process essentially entails a 15-minute conversation with the SLT, no PowerPoint, no handouts. We’re not sure how it will be received, but are looking for feedback. Does the process seem easier than it actually is? Is the process rigorous enough?

We’re pulling the trigger on creating an app/platform that will enable us to get rolling feedback and ratings on our performance, from our grantees. Advocate Creative will be building us a platform that is simple to use, quick to complete and 100% anonymous. Our hope is once we have it in place our grantees (and others) can rate us on 3 characteristics on a rolling basis—as often as they interact with us if they wish. It’ll be right there in a link in our email signatures, and something we can direct people to after calls/meetings too.

Twice a year the results will be delivered in aggregate. We won’t know when each rating comes in or who rated us how. We won’t have access to the rolling results—it will only be delivered to us twice a year, without the ability to slice and dice the data by dates/months.

The characteristics we’ll be rated on (out of 5 stars) have been chosen by a group of social entrepreneurs. We asked them, ‘what would you want to rate funders on?’. They responded, in almost complete harmony: 1) Responsive, clear, and transparent communication, 2) Friendly, helpful, and happy to hear from me/work with me, 3) Challenging, knowledgeable, and valuable collaborator. There will be an optional short text box for additional feedback.

If you’re a grant seeker, would you rate us on this sort of thing after a call or meeting? If you had a good experience? If you had a bad experience? If not, why not?

(A post from our new Local Portfolio Director, Avani Patel)

The terms equality and equity, in the context of education and social issues, are used interchangeably often. But there may be a way to think about the terms differently, perhaps to better guide the process of grant making. Equality stems from the word equal, as in the same. You cut the pie equally, so that everyone gets the same amount. Equity starts with the premise that things are not equal, so the way in which resources are allocated should also not be equal. In other words, equity suggests to serve in a way that allocates resources based on need, whereas equality means everyone gets the same, arguably not closing any gap that may exist. Through this lens than, how can we tailor limited resources in a way that can serve a broader audience, in the hopes to one day achieve equality?

Let’s think about these terms in a practical sense. Consider two 15-year-old girls at the same high school. Resources are both scarce and restricted. Each girl took the same class quiz out of 10 points. Girl A scored 3, and girl B scored 7. If we provided equal academic services for girl A and girl B, the gap in achievement would presumably not close. Instead, we could provide an equitable amount of services (providing services where there is most need) then girl A could likely benefit from an individual tutor 3 days a week, whereas girl B could benefit from small group instruction in the classroom 2 days a week.  Although this example looks at equity in a quantifiable sense (amount of days, ratio of instructor to student), it is also important to consider the quality of services being provided (strength or quality of instructor).

Perhaps the example above can be applied to philanthropy. Should we consciously think of the difference between equality and equity when grant-making? How do we give the direct support Girl A needs, while at the same time, support Girl B to accelerate and achieve at higher levels? How can we strike a balance with grant making?