March 26, 2009

Center for Women’s Global Leadership Gets New Executive Director

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 6:14 pm

From The Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University

March 26, 2009

The Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) is pleased to announce the hiring of Radhika Balakrishnan as its new executive director. She will begin her duties on September 1, 2009, and will join the faculty as a full Professor in the Rutgers Department of Women’s and Gender Studies as her academic affiliation.

Dr. Balakrishnan comes to CWGL from Marymount Manhattan College, where she is a professor of Economics and International Studies. She has a Ph.D. in Economics from Rutgers University. Previously, she was a program officer in the Asia Regional Program of the Ford Foundation. She is currently the Board Chair of the U.S. Human Rights Network and the treasurer for the board of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City. She is a prominent figure in the areas of women/gender, human rights, and development.

Her publications include: Rethinking Macro Economic Strategies from a Human Rights Perspective with Diane Elson and Raj Patel, 2009; Why MES with Human Rights: Integrating Macro Economic Strategies with Human Rights, 2005; The Hidden Assembly Line: Gender Dynamics of Subcontracted Work in a Global Economy, 2001; and Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World’s Religions, co-edited with Patricia Jung and Mary Hunt, 2000. She is currently working on a project applying human rights norms to evaluate and construct macro economic policy in the U.S. and Mexico.

Citing her attraction to CWGL’s work, Radhika stated, “My interests have always been to combine academic research with policy advocacy on women’s rights issues with a focus on economics. For me research serves as a means to develop the capacity of activists around the world to respond to various challenges and to create new linkages and contexts for collaboration between disparate groups of change agents, seeding new dialogues and partnerships.”

As Radhika begins her tenure at CWGL, founder and current executive director, Charlotte Bunch will begin her transition to a new role as Senior Scholar to the Global Center. In addition, Charlotte remains a Professor on the Rutgers faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies, and will continue her work in the global women’s movement.

Charlotte commented, “I am excited about Radhika’s coming leadership at CWGL, and believe that her activism and scholarship will provide an important evolution of the work we have done over the past twenty years. I will be working with her and the staff to ensure a smooth transition and to continue CWGL’s vital role in the women’s human rights movement.”

CWGL was founded at Rutgers University in 1989 to develop and facilitate women’s leadership for women’s human rights and social justice worldwide. It has several affiliations within Rutgers including as a unit of the 8-member Institute for Women’s Leadership consortium and as part of the School of Arts and Sciences International Programs.

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My Fears and Hopes for Philanthropy

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 1:09 pm

From

PhilanTopic (the PND Blog)

Posted: 25 Mar 2009 07:40 AM PDT

(Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about the shape of philanthropy to come.)

Recently I was asked to address a group of trustees concerning the outlook for foundation spending and my “hopes and fears” for philanthropy. In an environment where opening a newspaper, logging on to the Internet, or turning on a television provokes panic over the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, it seemed more appropriate to begin with the currency of the day — fear — before turning to something we seemed to have lost so quickly after the elections — hope.

My fears for philanthropy are threefold. The first is that philanthropy will pull into its shell, shun new commitments, and go into “life-support mode” like space travelers on a voyage to a far-away planet: the vital signs are still there, but they are barely audible. The temptation to do so are many. Foundation assets, with very few exceptions, have been devastated by the collapse of the financial markets. On the management side, nonprofits and foundations alike have already made all the easy budget reductions and are now cutting into bone. On the grant side, foundation press releases are filled with phrases like “we will honor current grant commitments” or, somewhat more encouraging, “we do not foresee significant retrenchment.”

My second fear is that if philanthropy does not take seriously the pressures to address inequality, injustice, and discrimination — all of which were insufficiently addressed during the boom and will be aggravated in the bust — then philanthropy may come to be seen as part of the problem rather than part of the solution. If, as a sector, we allow that to happen, we will long for the days when we had the luxury to engage in heated debates about the principle of “philanthropic freedom.”

The last item in the fear column is an outgrowth of the second. To the extent that philanthropy is seen as unresponsive and irrelevant to the needs of the day, the public policy cornerstone upon which it rests — a tax exemption in exchange for charitable giving — could be endangered. In an era of fiscal restraint and increasing pressure on public spending, far more will be expected of foundations at the same time that tax exemptions will be subjected to additional scrutiny. No sector will get the benefit of the doubt, and foundations, as an expression of private wealth for public good, will need to prove that they can be transparent, accountable, and relevant to the issues and causes about which people care the most.

Fortunately, when I am able to shake off the doom and gloom, my hopes prevail. First among those is that philanthropy will rise to the challenge by giving until it hurts — and then some. This will mean increasing payout, as many foundations have already announced, by (in most cases) digging deeper into assets. For foundations that plan to exist in perpetuity, this will mark the contraction phase of the accordion. As one foundation executive told me the other day, “We are increasing our spending to respond to the crisis and have resigned ourselves to being a smaller foundation thereafter for years to come.”

My second hope is that philanthropy will take a hard look at its own business models. While there is a lot of talk about the inevitability of many nonprofits having to close their doors, downsize, right-size, or merge, little has been said in this regard about foundations. As endowed institutions, foundations do not compete in the marketplace the same way as nonprofits do, and they tend to be more isolated from such pressures. Foundations with living donors can be as fiercely independent as the highly successful entrepreneurs that created them, but a crisis like this one can challenge even the most deeply held assumptions. Foundations that have never made program-related investments are considering staff-sharing arrangements with those that have the expertise. There is the occasional rumor of a merger. Some foundations may even begin to shift to a spend-down model, or, if they are limited-life foundations, may decide to spend down more quickly with the help of the financial markets. These trends would be offset at least partially by the creation of new foundations.

Third, with business against the ropes and big government back in Washington, if not the world, there is an opportunity for philanthropy to forge intelligent partnerships to make real progress on some of the deepest challenges we face. The “intelligent” part will come from philanthropy engaging in a way that makes maximum use of its comparative advantage as an independent source of flexible, risk-taking, and long-term social investment. Although $45.6 billion (the Foundation Center’s preliminary estimate of giving by American foundations in 2008) may pale in comparison to the massive amounts being poured into bailouts and stimulus packages, its flexibility makes it golden.

My biggest hope is that philanthropy will see this as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to re-invent itself. As tempting as it is to blame someone else for the mess in which we find ourselves, we all share responsibility. As the president of Atlantic Philanthropies, Gara LaMarche, remarked in an October 2008 speech, “We have largely failed to articulate a broad and inclusive social vision that works toward the world as we would like it to be, not simply in the wretched state in which we find it. We have often lost the gifts of collaboration and common purpose with others who share our greater values.” Like one who recovers from a life-threatening illness — and we will recover — our challenge will be to hold on to the perspective this crisis has given us about what is truly important in life and our work.

We have been presented with the challenge of a generation, if not a century, and we have the immense privilege to work in a field where our job is to leave the world a far better place than we found it. Are we the ones we’ve been waiting for? I certainly hope so.

– Bradford Smith

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March 22, 2009

Former FF Staffer Retires

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 10:20 am

From BlackPoliticsontheWeb.com

Tuskegee University President Announces Retirement

March 21, 2009 ·

After 28 years of exemplary service and extraordinary accomplishments, Dr. Benjamin F. Payton, the fifth President of Tuskegee University, informed the Board of Trustees today of his intent to retire from the Tuskegee University presidency, June 30, 2010. The Board of Trustees accepted Dr. Payton’s letter of retirement with much reluctance but great appreciation and thanks for the outstanding work he has done at Tuskegee. Dr. Payton had made it clear that he would only continue through the achievement of such major objectives as the University’s third decennial reaffirmation of accreditation under his leadership by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, as well as certain specialized accreditations of professional programs, such as architecture, veterinary medicine, nursing, teacher education, and engineering, as well as the completion of major renovation and new construction plans.

Speaking for the entire Board of Trustees, Dr. Andrew F. Brimmer, Chairman of the Board, observed that Dr. Payton’s “transformative and clear sense of what Tuskegee University could and should become, and his solid leadership, including his enormous fundraising capacities, have enabled him to achieve all of these goals by mid-March 2009.

“He has led the University through some very tough times - to its current status of financial stability, academic excellence and even distinction in athletics,” Dr. Brimmer said.

Other trustees at the University gave strikingly similar assessments of Dr. Payton’s tenure at Tuskegee. Dr. Bernard Anderson, First Vice Chair and Chair of the Educational Policies Committee, recounted that, “President Benjamin Payton’s retirement caps an extraordinary era of leadership at Tuskegee University. He led Tuskegee to unprecedented heights of academic excellence, service, and national distinction in higher education. The African-American community, and the nation at large, owes him a deep debt of gratitude.”

Steve Canter, Second Vice Chair and Chair of the Finance Committee of the Board, stated that, “The academic vitality and financial strength of Tuskegee University today are directly attributable to Dr. Payton’s visionary and tireless leadership over the last 28 years. He has led Tuskegee University with wisdom, grace and respect from students, alumni, faculty, administration, and the Tuskegee University community.”

Sheron Rose, a state-appointed trustee and graduate of the institution, said that, “Since 1981 as an undergraduate student, I have had the privilege of watching the leadership of Dr. Benjamin Payton across the width and breadth of this country. He has always taken the opportunity to make sure that the world is informed, based on the pure facts, about the many, many contributions of this University to the world. One of my favorite examples of his leadership has been his insistence that students understand the expectations of them that come with being a Tuskegee University student and/or graduate.”

The following comments came from the Tuskegee University campus community: the oldest, still active member of the Tuskegee University faculty, Professor Frank Toland, from the Department of History and Political Science, said, “There’s no question that he’s been a great president. It’s amazing the success that Tuskegee has had in choosing good presidents. All of our five presidents have been change agents and executors. Dr. Payton is in line with the great presidents Tuskegee has had. He’s been a deliberative builder and a change agent. He has also sought to preserve and expand the unsurpassed legacies of Tuskegee.” The Chair of the Department of English asserts that Dr. Payton’s presidency has been marked by expansive vision, bold initiatives, and a commitment to Tuskegee’s continued growth and development. His long tenure at the University has reflected Booker T. Washington’s legacy of creative resourcefulness and robust leadership; and Student Government Association President Erick Harris was clear in his comment that, “having a University President that cares about the students is critical. Dr. Payton cares about what is going on in the lives of all his students. Being a leader is something that’s not a job for him, it is a way of life. He is constantly working to advance Tuskegee University in some form or fashion.”

In his 28-year tenure, Dr. Payton has guided the University successfully through three, 10-year cycle, institution-wide, University accreditations by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS); completed major capital fund campaigns, beginning with the institution’s centennial campaign (100th Year), which had a goal of $20 million, but had only raised $9 million when Dr. Payton arrived in August 1981. He quickly geared up an augmented fundraising team which completed the campaign at $15 million more than the original goal. The larger campaigns led by Dr. Payton included the completion of a $150 million Capital Campaign, which raised $169 million, and a $60 million Legacy Campaign, which raised in excess of $74 million.

“Dr. Payton took on some tough actions at the outset of his presidency,” said Dr. Brimmer, “actions which needed to be taken if the University were going to move to the new and stronger level envisaged by him.” These included changing the name of the school from Tuskegee Institute to Tuskegee University, closing the hospital that was draining the University of funds and distorting its mission; restructuring the academic programs into five colleges and reorganizing all programs; developing/constructing the Tuskegee University Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center; launching the University’s first Ph.D. programs (Material Science and Engineering and Integrative Biosciences); establishing/constructing the new $30 million Tuskegee University National Center for Bioethics in Research and Health Care; constructing 500-bed apartments for student on-campus living; building the new academic, research and training facility for the School of Veterinary Medicine; reconstructing and renovating the entire campus, including the historic buildings, new parking, roadways, library, science building, and enclosing the entire campus with beautiful brick and cast-iron fences and gates, including dramatic new sets of campus entrances and exits; and constructing a new $15 million facility for the College of Business and Information Science. During his tenure, more than $350 million have been invested in campus construction and infrastructure, and the University’s endowment grew from under $15 million to over $102 million, by July 2007.

Dr. Payton, a native of Orangeburg, S.C., holds earned degrees from South Carolina State University (B.A.), Harvard University (B.D.), Columbia University (M.A.) and Yale University (Ph.D.). He came to Tuskegee University from the Ford Foundation in New York City, where he served as Senior Program Officer in Higher Education and Research for nine years. Dr. Payton has served on many corporate boards such as ITT Corporation, Sonat Corporation, AmSouth Bank (now Regions) and Praxair Inc., among others in the business world. He has also served on the boards of many volunteer organizations, including serving as Chairman of the Advisory Council of the Association of Governing Boards for Colleges and Universities; Chairman of the Lowndes County Public School Science and Math Program sponsored by the General Electric Corporation; and currently serves as Chairman of the Presidents of the United Negro College Fund, and Chair of the Council of Presidents of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC). In recognition of his leadership, intellectual and scholarly achievements, he is the recipient of nine honorary doctorates and many other honors.

Founded in 1881 by Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee University is home to approximately 3,000 students from more than 30 countries. The campus, a National Historic Site, is spread across 450 acres of land that reach out to encompass another 4,500 acres of forest and experiment/research station facilities and spaces.

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March 20, 2009

Why Grantmaking on Media Policy Still Matters (Part 1 of 2)

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 6:13 pm

From Grantmakers in Film and Electronic Media

By Becky Lentz, Assistant Professor, McGill University

Noteworthy U.S. journalist and media reform advocate Bill Moyers has claimed that “speech is the oxygen of democracy.” Assuming he’s right, then by analogy our communications infrastructure serves as its vital respiratory system. Yet, too few realize the importance of the media policies that govern how speech flows into and out of our democratic body politic in relation to how our democracy functions.

Media policy advocates for the public interest have won many significant victories in the past several years:defeating the FCC’s media consolidation ruling of 2003, opening up new radio-frequency spectrum for wireless devices in 2008, and winning $7.2 billion in early 2009 for broadband build-out to underserved communities. But how do these victories matter to “Joe Six-Pack” and the well being of our democracy?

In this first of two articles I’ll examine the “why” of grantmaking on media policy; the focus of the second installment will be on “how” to invest strategically in this dynamic and important sector. As I will detail, there are many points of entry for funders with interest in supporting this public interest work, regardless of how much they can commit financially.

Like environmental protection laws and regulations, media policy involves safeguarding our broadcasting and telecommunications environment. It guarantees nondiscriminatory and affordable access to the means to speak and be heard. In today’s increasingly globalized media and communications environment, keeping democracy’s respiratory system for speech accessible requires diligent attention to how media policy issues are addressed – by corporations, the Office of the President, the Congress, the FCC and other regulatory agencies, as well as the courts. This is necessary because, increasingly, electronic communication networks form the backbone of many other essential public and private services such as education, health care, trade, economic development, national security, and finance. Yet, despite its significance, the dynamic field of public interest-oriented individuals and organizations involved in media policy work in the U.S. continues to receive less public and funder attention than its counterparts in these equally important issue sectors.

Media policy is no less important than, for instance, environmental policy. Unlike environmentalism, however, media policy issues are difficult to describe in ways that instantly engage hearts, minds, and imaginations. Consider asking a friend or family member what environmentalists do and you’re likely to get a straightforward answer regardless of whether that person agrees with activists’ tactics or priorities: environmentalists work to protect scarce, essential, and therefore valuable public resources; the quality of our air, water, and land depend on it. Pose the same question about media policy advocates, and the question will probably inspire a puzzled response, if you get one at all.

Unlike environmental and food or drug industry regulation, it is more difficult to “see” the impact of good or bad media policy. We “get” visually and viscerally how poor regulation results in polluted water or air, contaminated food, and dangerous medicines. However, the impacts of a deregulated media environment can be harder to see, much like it has been difficult to see until recently the effects of lax regulation in the financial services industry.

Due in part to this challenge of communicating about media policy, much of the communication about its issues – like media diversity, digital TV, electronic privacy, concentrated media ownership, copyright, Internet governance, or broadband access – has too often lacked a compelling, cohesive, and engaging narrative that sparks political passions. As a high-level representative from a prominent private foundation once suggested, media policy is a “second bounce” issue: something subordinate to more front-line concerns. Established policy areas such as education, health care, the environment, economic development, and human rights occupy a policy foreground, whereas media policy concerns operate in the background – except when their effects come to light in controversies around news, public affairs, or entertainment content.

Take for example the January 2002 chemical spill in Minot, North Dakota that ignited national outrage about radio industry consolidation. According to Eric Klinenberg, author of Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, “a train derailed . . . leaking thousands of gallons of toxic chemicals into the air. One person died and hundreds were treated for immediate health problems. The city’s six non-religious commercial radio stations – all owned by Clear Channel – never aired warnings for local residents.”[1]

Unfortunately, this type of controversy rouses the public’s interest in media regulation only momentarily, in the same way that an episodic salmonella outbreak might stir consumers to take note for a week or so. Add to this the fact that consumer protection in the U.S. focuses primarily on products, not services like broadcasting. Consumer concerns about obscenity or indecency in the media, perceived bias in news coverage, contested children’s programming, or the filtering of online content by Internet service providers cannot be addressed by simply recalling a product from vendors’ store shelves.

Even so, I would suggest that all of these issues are merely symptoms of underlying structural concerns regarding the respiratory system for the oxygen of democracy: speech. Addressing them requires legislating, regulating, or adjudicating the structure of our media and communications system, as opposed to controlling the content flowing through it. This is because media policy in the U.S. is situated within the legal framework of the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

To be sure, there is a lively ongoing debate in this country about the role of government in our society, including the benefits and drawbacks of regulation itself. Despite this, I suspect few would dispute that there is a valuable regulatory role for government. The food and drug industries are strong examples.

With the regulation of speech itself prohibited, the focus moves to the structure of the industries that produce, distribute, exhibit, and facilitate the exchange of information using electronic communication resources - the public airwaves, in the case of radio and television broadcasting, along with cable and telephone networks.

Thus, funders interested in helping to sustain a democratic infrastructure for speech, information, and knowledge exchange should consider supporting that which contributes to keeping industry, elected officials, and media regulators on their toes: a healthy sector of organizations that can advocate for the public’s interests on a variety of media policy issues.

By “healthy sector,” I mean the following:

A robust number of enduring, diverse, and collaborating organizations with the collective capacity to move hearts, minds, and imaginations about media policy issues;

Sustainable forms of financial support for these organizations’ activities;

The ability of these organizations to attract and retain high quality organizational leaders, skilled staff, board members, and volunteers;

A diverse number of committed, prominent, and respected spokespersons for the sector; and

Public recognition of their achievements, which includes press coverage and even scholarly attention.

As already discussed, media policy work includes attention to a variety of interrelated concerns that include, but are not limited to, the following:

Decision-making about communications via radio and television broadcasting, cable and satellite TV, telephones, and the Internet;

Laws affecting electronic access to content – copyright, patents, and trademarks – known as “intellectual property”; and

Access to government information laws, and privacy rights.

Some funders have chosen to focus on media content concerns such as media representations of minorities, documentary filmmaking, or protecting children from dangerous online content. Others support efforts that target industry structure and behavior with the aim of reducing media ownership concentration, for example. Still others invest in specific issues like electronic privacy, or focus on improving the professional feeder system for journalists going into industry jobs and their expertise in media policy issues.[2]

Additionally, “sector-oriented” funders have identified dynamics within the policy advocacy sector itself to increase its capacity for collective action over the long term. This has required deliberate attention to strategies such as linking grassroots organizing with national advocacy campaigns, investing in leadership development, communications and fund-raising training, and even non-profit management assistance.

Given the increasingly scarce resources available during these uncertain financial times, how should funders focus their investments in the coming months and years? Should they concentrate on what many have forecast as the end of journalism? Or should they target their limited resources toward building and sustaining a parallel system of “independent” content producers and distributors with the aim of shoring up what is referred to as “public service media”?[3]

Strategies for how to invest strategically in this sector are the topic for the second part of this essay. In the meantime, GFEM members should congratulate themselves for the contributions that they have already made to this dynamic field of policy work. They are pioneers guiding others toward this crucial intersection of technology, politics, economics, and culture. At stake is the well being and future of the respiratory system for the oxygen of democracy – with enormous political and economic implications for U.S. society and our increasingly interconnected world.

Becky Lentz is Assistant Professor in Media and Public Policy at McGill University’s Department of Art History and Communication Studies in Montreal, Quebec, and formerly the Ford Foundation Program Officer for Electronic Media Policy 2001-2007.

Footnotes:

[1] Quoted from Democracy Now’s January 2007 article “EXCLUSIVE…911 Calls in North Dakota Town Reveal Dangers of Media Consolidation.”

[2] One of the largest investors in journalism education is the Knight Foundation. In 2007 it made a $2.5 million grant to Yale Law School to start the Knight Law and Media Policy Program.

[3] Among the most ambitious efforts in this area is Ford’s $50 million investment.

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FF Staff Member Appointed by President Obama

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 6:43 am

From the Bipartisan Alliance, March 19, 2009

Grist board member appointed to Obama administration, by Kate Sheppard

Mar 18, 2009

On Wednesday, the Obama administration officially announced that Grist board member and Ford Foundation program officer Michelle DePass has been nominated to serve as the assistant administrator for international affairs at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Michelle currently manages the Ford Foundation’s initiative on Environmental Justice and Healthy Communities, concentrating on the intersections of environmental and social justice both in the United States and internationally. She has taught federal environmental law and policy at the City University of New York, and developed a workforce development training program for disadvantaged youth on Superfund waste sites. She also served as executive director of the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and co-organized the Northeast Environmental Justice Network.

She previously served as the assistant to the city manager of San Jose, Calif., on environmental policy matters and was an Environmental Compliance Manager for the City of San Jose. She was a William Kunstler Racial Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, and later worked as a senior policy adviser to the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

This is big news for Michelle. Congratulations!

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March 17, 2009

Breakthrough - Mallika Dutt

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 8:13 am

From the University of Michigan, School of Social Work

Posted: March 16, 2009

The School of Social Work hosted a presentation by Mallika Dutt, founder and executive director of Breakthrough: Building Human Rights Culture. Breakthrough’s work is aimed at transforming public attitudes and advancing equality, justice, and dignity using the human rights framework.

When: Monday, March 16, 2009, 5-7 p.m.

Where: SSWB, either the Educational Conference Center (ECC) or one of the classrooms – there will be a sign on the door of ECC in case of location change.

(1080 S. University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106, Southwest corner of South University and East University)

About Breakthrough: Breakthrough is an innovative, high impact international human rights organization using the power of popular culture, media, and education to transform public attitudes and advance equality, justice, and dignity. They currently work in India and the United States, the world’s two largest democracies, on several issues including women’s rights, sexuality and HIV/AIDS, racial justice, and immigrant rights. They use creative tools to build a culture of human rights. These rights make up the daily fabric of our lives, of how we tend to live individually and as a community. The rights to life, food, shelter, freedom of expression, freedom from violence, and religious freedom – human rights to which we are all entitled. The United Nations has codified many human rights in documents called conventions and treaties, which are ratified by member countries that promise to adhere by their rules.

Breakthrough works to transform attitudes towards women so that they can realize their full potential. Please visit their website www.breakthrough.tv for more detail.

Mallika Dutt, founder and executive director of Breakthrough:

Mallika has authored several articles and essays including the widely referenced “With Liberty and Justice for All: Women’s Human Rights in the United States.” She was also the co-author of the globally utilized manual, “Local Action Global Change: Learning About the Human Rights of Women and Girls,” which has been translated into more than ten languages.

Mallika is a member of the NY State Bar. She has a J.D. from NYU Law School and a master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University. Prior to founding Breakthrough, Dutt was the Program Officer for the Human Rights & Social Justice Program at the Ford Foundation’s New Delhi office. Mallika has also served as the Associate Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University and as the Director of the Norman Foundation.

Mallika is a founder of Sakhi for South Asian Women and has served on several boards and committees, including the Human Rights Watch Women’s Rights Project and Asia Watch, the Sister Fund, Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Lt. Governor Committee on Public Police Relations, and the U.S. NGO Coordinating Committee for the UN World Conference Against Racism. She is currently on the Board of WITNESS.

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March 11, 2009

Terry Keenan Obituary

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 11:42 am

Terrance Keenan, who began his long and outstanding career in philanthropy in the Ford Foundation’s Office of Reports in the 1950s and 1960s, died in Yardley, Bucks County, Pennsylvania on February 25. The following obituary appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Terrance Keenan, 85, health care foundation executive

By Sally A. Downey

Inquirer Staff Writer
Terrance Keenan, 85, of Newtown, Bucks County, who as an executive and
consultant with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton
distributed more than 900 grants to health-care institutions and
providers, died of heart failure Feb. 25 at Manor Care in Yardley.

“Terry Keenan set the standard for creativity, caring, and vision in
philanthropy. He never lost sight of the people he was trying to
help,” foundation president Risa Lavizzo-Mourey said.

In 1972, Mr. Keenan became vice president of the foundation, which had
recently received a $1 billion bequest from Robert Wood Johnson, then
chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson. The gift made the
foundation the second-largest philanthropy in the nation, behind the
Ford Foundation. It is now third, behind the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation and Ford. From the beginning, the Johnson organization
focused on a single area: health care.

Under Mr. Keenan’s direction, the foundation brought health care to
rural areas and blighted urban neighborhoods, established programs to
prepare minority students to enter the health professions, and
provided funding to educate more general practitioners.

He was a champion of nurses, said his wife, Joette Lehan Keenan. Mr.
Keenan initiated programs to create specialized clinical training for
nurses, restructure nursing care at hospitals, create clinics led by
nurse practitioners, expand the role of nurses in emergency care in
rural areas, promote nurse-staffed school clinics, and train and
promote nurses to executive leadership in health organizations.

Mr. Keenan was a pioneer in partnerships between health and
faith-based organizations to improve and expand care for the
chronically ill.

In his 1992 monograph on philanthropy, “The Promise at Hand: Prospects
for Foundation Leadership in the 1990s,” Mr. Keenan wrote: “A great
foundation is informed and animated by moral purpose, walks humbly, is
deliberate, accountable, and self-renewing.” In 1993, Grantmakers in
Health established the annual Terrance Keenan Leadership Award.

After retiring as vice president for special projects, Mr. Keenan
consulted for the foundation and was in his office as recently as six
weeks ago, his wife said.

Mr. Keenan grew up in Bucks County and graduated from New Hope
Solebury High School. During World War II, he was a Navy flight
navigator in the Pacific.

After his discharge, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale
University and then taught at Jefferson Preparatory School in St.
Louis.

In 1955, he moved to New York and worked for Merrill Lynch, where he
helped write a biography of the firm’s founder, Charles Merrill. He
began his career in philanthropy in 1956 when he joined the Ford
Foundation. From 1965 until 1972, he was secretary to the board of the
Commonwealth Fund in New York.

Mr. Keenan, whose father, Peter J., was a well-known modernist
painter, was a wonderful watercolorist, his wife said. He enjoyed the
company of his cats and dachshunds, drives through the Bucks County
countryside, and long weekends in Cape May.

In addition to his wife of 30 years, Mr. Keenan is survived by a
sister, Sheila Keeler, and nieces and nephews.

A graveside service will be held at 2 p.m. tomorrow at St. Martin of
Tours Cemetery, 1 Riverstone Circle, New Hope.

Memorial donations may be made to the Make-a-Wish Foundation, One
Valley Square, 512 Township Line Rd., Blue Bell, Pa. 19422.

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March 3, 2009

Might and Right: The Shape of Philanthropy to Come

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 4:31 pm

PhilanTopic (the PND Blog)

Might and Right: The Shape of Philanthropy to Come

Posted: 03 Mar 2009 07:29 AM PST

(Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about the nonprofit equivalent of “too big to fail.”)

An interesting fact leapt out at me from a 224-page document I downloaded today: when taking into account the twenty-seven EU member states, European philanthropy is mightier than American philanthropy by a considerable margin. According to theFeasibility Study on a European Foundation Statute:

Allowing for all data uncertainty and validity problems, we estimate that the European foundation sector has assets of between EUR 350 billion and EUR 1.0 trillion (!) and annual expenditures of between EUR 83 billion and EUR 150 billion. By contrast, US foundations have assets of approx. EUR 300 billion and expenditures of EUR 29 billion.

The study arose out of efforts by the European Commission, theEuropean Foundation Centre, and others to cut through the maze of foundation tax laws that impede foundations in Europe from engaging in cross-border activities. These barriers exact a cost of somewhere in the neighborhood of EUR 100 million per year that could be avoided by allowing foundations to constitute themselves as European foundations as opposed to being registered in a single country.

Many will find the report to be a tough slog, but having lived and worked in Europe for the past three years I found it fascinating. I will admit to being a big fan of the European Union — a remarkable achievement after centuries of conflict, ethnic cleansing, and two horrific world wars in the 20th century. Philanthropy in Europe is quite different than in the United States; it favors operating programs over grants, engages directly with governments and the EU while relying less on advocacy, and, as the report tells us, is simply bigger.

At the other end of spectrum lies the Dalit Foundation in India. During fiscal year 2007-08, the foundation’s grants and fellowship budget totaled only $340,000 and the average grant size was $5,300. But what the Dalit Foundation lacks in resources, it more than makes up for in courage and ambition.

Dalits, sometimes called “untouchables,” fall beneath the communities that are included in India’s four main caste groups. They comprise a population of 160 million and, despite caste bias having been outlawed in l950, suffer daily discrimination and are relegated to degrading occupations such as “manual scavenging” —- being lowered into latrines to clean them out by hand.

The Dalit Foundation grew out of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and represents the philanthropic arm of a social movement. Having made significant gains on the political front, the movement recognized the need to invest resources in proving that Dalits are no different than any other Indian, when given a chance. Their small projects are emblematic of the larger struggle: arming men who say “no” to manual scavenging with new job skills, a theatre group that helps Dalits out of alcohol and drug dependency, a leadership program that equips youth with “education about perspectives that are relevant to Dalit liberation, research and intensive participation in grassroots-level activities.”

American philanthropy has provided critical support to the European Foundation Centre over the years as well as a number of European foundations, particularly in EU accession countries. But now that European philanthropy is more than its equal, how will U.S. philanthropy react? The Dalit Foundation received critical endowment support from the Ford Foundation. Yet many American foundations tend to see such efforts as “intermediaries” that add an extra layer of administrative cost in delivering grants to the poor, rather than an exercise in contributing to social justice by building viable indigenous philanthropies.

The might of the European foundations and the right of the Dalit Foundation show us the shape of philanthropy to come.

– Bradford Smith

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Two new books

Filed under: Members' Blog — Treasurer @ 11:43 am

Abe Lowenthal reports on two books to be published in March.

On March 10, Stanford University Press will publish Lowenthal’s Global California: Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge, addressing how the citizens of a state with the dimensions and power of a nation are affected by international trends, and what they can do to identify and promote their own interests in a rapidly changing world. For more information or to order the book, go to Stanford University Press (sup.org) and click “Policy Books.”

On March 30, Brookings Institution Press will publish The Obama Administration and the Americas: Agenda for Change, co-edited by Lowenthal, Theodore Piccone and Laurence Whitehead. This volume, comprised of essay by leading U.S., Latin American and European scholars and practitioners, assesses the problems and opportunities in U.S.-Latin American relations. It provides advice to the new U.S. Administration on how to improve the prospects for enhanced cooperation on shared concerns, and focuses on the hard cases likely to press themselves onto the U.S. agenda: Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico and Venezuela.

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