PF Whiteboard

Ok, so I wasn’t “hanging out” with the him, but other day I met with Police Chief Ron Davis, of East Palo Alto.  This guy is a legend and has done great things to reach out to the community and create a more effective and transparent police department.  Anytime someone like this calls me up, I’ll meet with them because I’ll end up learning something.  In fact, instead of having him come meet at our office, I went to his; after all, I’m sure the EPA police chief is busier than I am. Here are a few takeaways from my visit:

When I arrived at the station I saw an incredible 120 ft. mural created by the Teen Mural Program - a summer program for East Palo Alto Youth. I’ve heard about this program, but admittedly never seen one of their murals. Whether we fund them or not down the road, we will evaluate them with different eyes.

Chief Davis’ primary reason for calling me was to seek funds for a gun buy-back program that was coming up.  The request was small and requiring any more from him outside of that meeting would be a waste of precious time.  He inquired with other funders and we filled whatever gap was left.

We moved from talking about the gun buy-back program to discussing issues and opportunities in the community as he sees them.  For example, he brought to my attention an effort by community leaders who are working to be part of the Promise Neighborhoods Initiative (based on the Harlem Children’s Zone) - to “improve outcomes and opportunities for children and families, at scale, in defined neighborhoods”. Considering our goals in East Palo Alto - this is something we want to be aware of and sitting across from the Chief was how I learned about it.

In summary - I came away more convinced than ever that philanthropy is about getting out of your office.  The chance to get out and see, touch, and smell, informs our decision-making, deepens our understanding of a community, and makes us aware of opportunities we may not have found otherwise.

With that, we’re going to sign off until the New Year. Now that the blog is live, we’re excited to continue and the topic ideas are growing.  Please feel free to chime in with comments or things you’d like for us to discuss here on the Whiteboard. Have a great holiday season and see you in 2011!

When evaluating a potential grantee, there are all the usual things a funder might gather.  But it’s the unusual things, or observations, that say a little more about an entrepreneur or organization that you can’t find in the business plan or financials.  When paired side by side, many organizations may look just the same - yet one gets the grant and the other does not.  In order to justify these kinds of decisions, you have to analyze the intangibles - and start figuring out what they are, or why they matter.  We’ve been accumulating a number of questions we ask ourselves when looking at a new deal, that force us to look at it from a different perspective.  Here on the PF Whiteboard we’ll talk about some of those things and we welcome your ideas as well.

The first I’ll talk about here is the “tattoo test”.  Basically, we ask ourselves - would we be willing to tattoo this organization’s logo on our arms?  What we’re really asking is - are we willing to go to bat for this group?  Are we willing to open any doors for them?  Because the truth is, they’re going to ask.  And I can tell you from experience, it’s uncomfortable to be asked to use your social currency for a group you don’t feel strongly about.  We feel its our role and duty to serve our grantees, and it’s a lot easier to do when you’re unafraid to shout their names from the rooftops.

This post is really about commitment.  As funders, we’re always trying to gauge how committed an entrepreneur is to their venture.  Maybe it’s time to think about how, as funders, we can be as committed to our grantee’s work as they are.  The photos above are of two Peery Foundation grantees who are so committed to their work, they’ve tattoo’d it onto their bodies.  At the left is Leila Janah of Samasource, who’s tattoo’d “Sama” on her wrist, which is the sanskrit word for “equal”.  At the right is Luke Dowdney of Fight for Peace, who’s inked his boxing muscles with “Luta Pela Paz”, “Fight for Peace” in portuguese.  In truth, I’m not a fan of tattoos - but I am a fan of both Leila and Luke and many of the other entrepreneurs we support who make serious sacrifices to make a big difference in the world.  If the people we support are so dedicated to their work, then I hope we can infuse our philanthropy with a similar sense of commitment.

Last night I received an angry and frustrated reply to an email I had sent earlier in the evening. The entrepreneur it was from was highly critical of the decision of the PF to not fund his organisation, and the process used to come to the decision and communicate it.

Obviously the news was not what the entrepreneur wanted to hear. Though his email seemed to indicate that his reaction was also influenced by other situations and factors outside the PF’s interaction with him, a strong reaction like this is cause to look very carefully at what we do and how we do it.

The least fun part of my job is to let people know that the PF can’t fund them. Right now, I do this, on average, at least twice a week. Particularly when we’ve met the entrepreneur in person and begun some level of due-diligence it takes me a while to write those emails - usually about 30 minutes. Last night’s was no different as I tried to figure out the right level of clarity and explanation. I’m fairly confident that my response was candid, respectful and timely given the situation.

I’ve been doing this for just over 18 months - not long at all - and I’ve definitely gotten a few things wrong along the way, but these are the key points I’ve picked up so far:

1) Timely
Being timely with a response is fair and respectful. Sometimes you just *know* when you first visit a website that we aren’t going to be a fit. Other times you *know* half way through the due diligence process that you’ve found a deal-breaker. But there’s a definite point where you know you have to say no. Though often it would be easier to leave the no until another day, generally as soon as you’re sure is when it’s good to say so.

2) Clear
Clarity prevents misunderstanding, wasted time/energy, and continued time investment. Being absolutely clear that it’s a ‘no’ might seem harsh at first, yet if it prevents organisations using time and resources to continue pursuing funding that isn’t possible then that’s got to be better for everyone. This is something I’m still figuring out and attempting to determine what clarity really looks like in individual cases…

3) Respectful
I think people appreciate knowing that even though a funder may not be a good fit, they recognise and respect the achievements or value of the work the organisation is undertaking. Both of the above points add to showing the respect due to entrepreneurs we meet. And on top of that, infusing the due-diligence process itself with a respect for the time and capacity of the entrepreneur. For example, though each foundation/funder has a unique focus and criteria, the majority of things we look for are the same or very similar, so in most cases there is no need to request specifically created documents. Requesting documents as they have already been created either for the organisation’s own use, or for another funder (that they are willing to share) and then following up with more specific questions or a phone call to fill the gaps.

I think there’s a another key point around ‘usefulness’. Some of the funders we most respect leave all entrepreneurs better than they found them because of the diligence process and feedback. Yet, quite honestly, there are times when it is not constructive to go in to or list the entire reasoning behind why we’re not a fit for an organisation. So I’m still working on that one and how it best works.

So what do you think? Am I on the right lines? What other points are key to us interacting and communicating respectfully with entrepreneurs we talk with and conduct due-diligence on? We’d love your perspective from whatever angle of the situation you look at it.

We’ve been talking about launching this blog for some time, but it’s time to quit talking and just get it going!  I’ve feared the prospect of suddenly having extra homework - but have also found the exercise of recording thoughts and learnings from our work to be incredibly useful for us. 

Last year we conducted an experiment.  As we were undergoing a strategic-planning process, we decided to open up our discussion to include other minds in the field who were on Twitter.  Truth is, I had no idea how to use Twitter, but Jessamyn showed me a few things and we decided to see how we could use it during our discussions about the direction of the Foundation.  We’re a small shop - there are just two of us running the day-to-day, so being able to include other ideas was extremely helpful - and fun!  We just began by sending out tweets that summarized what we were discussing, what questions we had, and inviting people to chime in using the hashtag #pfwhiteboard - thus creating a virtual whiteboard of ideas to aid in our planning.  We netted a number of new connections, relationships, and some fresh thinking.  We hope to do the same here, on the PF Whiteboard. 

We think of the Peery Foundation as a learning foundation.  After we all, we are a family foundation without a highly professionalized staff, but we’re thoughtful about the work we do and aim to improve every day.  Blogging on the PF Whiteboard, I believe, will probably be of greater value to us than anyone else as we’re able to put our thoughts and experiences to paper and learn from the rest of you.  We hope you’ll comment and share your opinions.  Ultimately, we really hope the content here can serve the field of philanthropy in some way. 

Aside from my ramblings, you’ll find posts from Jessamyn Lau, our Program Leader and first non-family staff member.  We’re not going to focus on specific issue areas or grantees,  but will talk more about experiences we’re having as grantmakers, insights from the field, and the problems we see and are working through.  Some of our posts may not appeal to the most sophisticated foundation professionals out there, be we do aim to add real value to most of us in the field.  We welcome any topics you’d like to see a foundation blog about.  We don’t take ourselves too seriously, so anything is on the table. 

Dave just informed me we are launching our blog. There’s a slight twinge of panic, as I think about the expectation to verbalise something different or new or interesting about what we or I do each week. But mostly I’m excited.

One of the reasons I moved to CA to work with the Peery Foundation is that I knew every day would be different. Now you’ll get to hear a little of that. From the scintillating details of how we’re customising and adopting our Salesforce platform, to the unforgettable moments when I realise I’m working with my heroes on a day to day basis.

We’ll try to always be frank and straight forward. Let us know how we do on that, and do tell us if there’s anything in particular you’d like to hear about from the perspective of a young, and still very much learning, foundation. There’s no agenda here, except to tell our story in the hope that it’s either useful, amusing or inspiring for you. Enjoy!