The LAFF Society

Jeff Puryear worked in the Latin America and Caribbean Programs from 1973 to 1990.

Poverty and inequality have decreased recently in much of Latin America—the result of strong growth and innovative social programs. The United Nations estimates that the number of poor dropped by nearly 17 percent between 2002 and 2007—a significant achievement for the region’s governments.1 Inequality has also declined a bit, particularly in the region’s largest countries. Clearly, good policy can pay off…[read more]

Peter Bell was at the Ford Foundation from 1964 to 1977 in Education and Research and the Latin America and Caribbean Programs.

From The New York Times

From Alliance Magazine

February 24, 2010

David Bonbright was a program officer in the Africa Programs from 1983 to 1987.

David Bonbright

Unlike NPC, Keystone’s origins are exclusively in civil society. Collectively, the founders of Keystone in 2004 had over a hundred years of experience in non-profits and foundations, none in finance and business. We knew from experience that non-profits had poorly articulated goals and strategies and actually knew very little about their results and effectiveness, but having lived through the South African liberation movement, we also knew that social movements, though messy, work. So we sought to find how to make them work better.

At the same time we were, like others who have been critical of market-based approaches, worried about the imposition of metrics and mindsets by the rich and powerful onto the civil society sector. We believed, then and now, that who does the counting is more important in social change that what is counted. So we set out to design an approach to results measurement that was grounded in the people who were meant to benefit from the work, and came up with the idea of constituency voice, where an organization plans, assesses, learns and reports with its primary constituents. Who those constituents are will vary according to what the organization does, but it will always include the people who are meant to benefit from its work. Constituency feedback yields data about results, about performance and about relationships. Feedback can be combined with evidence from other sources to round out the picture of impact and performance.

We have worked with scores of organizations large and small over the past six years to create effective measures of constituency voice using surveys, interviews, focus groups and observational techniques. Little by little we are seeing an accumulation of good examples of constituency voice measurement practice. A group of East African foundations, for example, have used a common survey instrument to collect feedback on their performance from the 305 small community-based organizations that they fund (www.keystoneaccountability.org/resources/reports). Maybe the most complete example of constituency voice metrics is a joint project of the Gates Foundation and the Center for Effective Philanthropy, YouthTruth, which involves listening to the students in American high schools receiving Gates Foundation support.

In many ways, constituency voice in social change is analogous to customer satisfaction in consumer markets. The customer satisfaction industry grew out of a social movement, the consumer rights movement. That movement led to the consumer rights legislation promoted by the Kennedy administration and passed in 1962. Without it, there would be no customer satisfaction industry today, or at least not the one we know.

Which begs a question: does philanthropy require a social movement to move forward? If so, where will it come from? Or, to put the question as we see it: how can philanthropy move forward if charities and donors are not systematically measuring and reporting what those meant to benefit think about their work?

Towards reconciliation?

So, beginning from very different standpoints and with very different approaches, NPC and Keystone both work to explore and improve how values and evidence interact to drive non-profit and philanthropic activity. But it is critical to recognize that we mean much more by data than simple numbers, ratios or reductive proxies. We need only look at how focusing analysis of charities on cost ratios has twisted the non-profit sector to see the danger there. We are looking for more evidence about impact not because we want to build a technocratic world of mechanistic charities and giving, but because we want non-profits to be able to do full justice to their values and aims and to ensure that the people charities aim to help are, in both senses of the term, the ones who count.

from law.harvard.edu

Harvard Law School today announced the creation of the Public Service Venture Fund, which will start by awarding $1 million in grants every year to help graduating students pursue careers in public service.

The first program of its kind at a law school, the fund will offer “seed money” for start-up non-profit ventures and salary support to students who hope to pursue post-graduate work at nonprofits or government agencies in the United States and abroad.

“This new fund is inspired by our students’ passion for justice,” said Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow. “It’s an investment that will pay dividends not only for our students but also for the countless number of people whose lives they will touch during their public service careers.”

The creation of the Public Service Venture Fund is the latest step taken by the Law School to offer new forms of assistance for students who are interested in public service careers. In November, Dean Minow announced an increase in the availability of financial aid overall and a broadening of eligibility for the school’s loan relief program. She also established 12 new Holmes Fellowships for students interested in post-graduate public service work. All told, financial support for students interested in public service has increased by $2.75M this year.

To obtain support from the new fund, applicants will submit proposals explaining how the post-graduate grants will help them get started in public service. Minow said the fund will bolster the creative thinking of publicly spirited law graduates at a time when the legal profession itself is becoming more entrepreneurial.

“The new venture fund is exactly in sync with that,” said Professor David Wilkins, the faculty director of the Program on the Legal Profession and the Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School. “It’s also in sync with the values emphasized in our curriculum, and with our pro bono ethos and our strong emphasis on clinical education, all of which encourage students to think creatively about designing interesting projects and approaches to helping people.”

The new venture fund follows a three-year pilot program covering the third year of HLS tuition for graduates who commit the first five years of their careers to public service. It will offer targeted and flexible support for students who are embarking on public service careers, said Alexa Shabecoff, Harvard Law School’s assistant dean for public service.

“When jobs are especially hard to come by, the fund may provide fellowships in order to create jobs,” Shabecoff said. “It will also supplement salaries for graduates hoping to work for nonprofits that can only afford to pay for part-time positions. In this ever-shifting legal job market, we will offer our students the ability to land the job of their dreams or create it.”

A number of HLS alumni have started nonprofits straight out of law school or soon thereafter, such as Alan Khazei ’87 and Michael Brown ’88, who started City Year, and Jennifer Gordon ’92 who started the Workplace Project and won a MacArthur ‘genius’ award for her work. “The new Venture Fund honors some of our most successful and inspiring alumni even as it plants the seeds for the next generation of public service leaders and social entrepreneurs,” Minow said.

The fund is planned to start with distributions of $1 million annually and to increase as the Law School works to raise additional resources, Minow said.

The fund will be governed by a board established by the Dean. The board will include senior administrators, faculty members, and alumni from both the private and public sectors. Advisors helping as the school launches the fund include:Susan Butler Plum, director of the Skadden Fellowship Foundation; Alan Khazei ’87, founder and chief executive officer of Be The Change, Inc. and founder and former chief executive officer of City Year; Rebecca Onie ’03, founder and chief executive officer of Project HEALTH, and winner of a 2009 MacArthur ‘genius’ grant; Paul Rosenberg ’79, a partner at The Bridgespan Group in Boston; Ken Zimmerman ’88, a partner at Lowenstein Sandler PC and chair of Lowenstein Sandler Center for the Public Interest; and Alan Jenkins ’89, executive director and co-founder of the The Opportunity Agenda, and former Director of Human Rights at the Ford Foundation, where he managed over $50 million in grants annually in the United States and overseas.

Susan Butler Plum: “This project is simply admirable and inspiring. Harvard Law School sets the national standard for public interest advising and support, and this new approach will enable more graduating students to do more kinds of critically important public service work than ever before.”

Alan Khazei: “In starting City Year, we wanted to make it an ordinary occurrence that all young people would complete at least one year of public service. That program was truly born at Harvard – it’s something we thought about as undergraduates, and then we committed to making a reality after we graduated from Harvard Law School. Through this new venture fund, Harvard Law is moving forward with an idea that I think is absolutely necessary to this nation’s future success – we all need to invest as much as possible in the future of public service. I sincerely applaud Dean Minow and Harvard Law School for making this happen.”

Rebecca Onie: “The Law School’s new Public Service Venture Fund creates powerful incentives and opportunities for HLS students to become public service innovators at a time when our society needs them the most. As an alumna in the field of social entrepreneurship, I see everyday the need for a rich pipeline of new leaders who can identify our society’s most pressing challenges and develop creative, effective solutions for those problems. This Fund breaks new ground in enabling HLS graduates to be great thinkers and contributors not only in traditional legal practice, but also in pursuing multi-disciplinary, unconventional pathways to achieve social justice.”

Ken Zimmerman: “Harvard Law School is once again taking a critically important step to further the next generation of public service leaders. The challenges of public interest service, especially in these demanding times, require the highest level of skill, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Through this fund, the school is making it possible for its students to take on our society’s most significant challenges and reinforcing the school’s long-standing recognition of the importance of public service and public interest work.”

Alan Jenkins: “With this new venture fund, Harvard Law School is putting its money where its mouth is, giving talented new graduates the support they need to be imaginative and inspired new leaders.  Having co-founded a public interest organization myself, I know how difficult it can be to put good ideas into practice.  We need this fund at this critical time in our nation’s history – to help a rising generation of leaders pursue creative solutions to our society’s most dire problems.”

Ganesan Balachander served as Representative in the Ford Foundation New Delhi Office.

Carlos Perez del Castillo, Chair of the Consortium Board of the CGIAR, is pleased to announce the incoming members of the inaugural Consortium Board: Mohammed Ait-Kadi, Tom Arnold, Ganesan Balanchander, Gebisa Ejeta, Ian Goldin and Lynn Haight. These six members join Perez del Castillo and the two Vice Chairs, Carl Hausmann and Bongiwe Njobe, in providing leadership and strategic direction for the newly formed Consortium of CGIAR Centers.

“I am impressed and inspired by the wealth of experience and wisdom these individuals will bring to the Consortium,” said Perez del Castillo. “I am confident that the new Board members will bring the necessary energy, commitment and perspectives to our task of establishing the new Consortium and delivering on the mission and vision of the CGIAR.”

Ganesan Balachander is currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Bioversity International. His career interests have ranged from banking to environmental conservation. He is now starting up a Green Bank intended to have a triple bottom line: good for business, good for the environment and good for poor people. Balachander has represented the interests of South Asia at the Ford Foundation and has long experience in directing and implementing development projects with international and national NGOs.

In 2008, the CGIAR launched its Change Management Initiative to identify how best to adapt to and anticipate global changes and challenges, such as food price volatility, more extreme weather arising from climate change and the global financial crisis. This initiative culminated in the CGIAR’s decision in December 2008 to adopt a new business model that will enable the CGIAR do more and do better, as it fulfills its mandate to fight poverty and hunger while conserving the environment.

The core of the new model is a partnership between a Consortium that unites CGIAR research Centers and a new Fund, built on a common vision of mobilizing agricultural research to reduce poverty and hunger, improve human health and nutrition, and enhance sustainable management of natural resources in the developing world. Implementation of the new model will take place throughout 2010 under the leadership of the Consortium Board and Fund Council.

For more information on the Consortium and the Consortium Board:http://alliance.cgxchange.org/welcome

For more information on the CGIAR reform: http://www.cgiar.org/changemanagement/index.html

From The Sag Harbor Express

Katharine Williams Grant of Washington, D.C., died peacefully on January 17 at home. She was 85.

Born in Utica, New York, to Henry D. Williams, an attorney and New York State senator, and Mary F. Jones, she was educated at St. Timothy’s School in Catonsville, Maryland, and Radcliffe College in Boston.

In 1943, she married David Grant, and eventually settled in Englewood, N.J. They later divorced and she continued to live there, raising a son and caring for her mother. Later, she studied art at Columbia University, Italian language and culture in Perugia, Italy, and worked at the Ford Foundation in New York City.

In 1982, she moved to Jarinu, Brazil, where she managed a dairy farm that had belonged to her aunt, overseeing its herd of Holstein cattle, creation of a lake and renovations to all buildings and fields. Accompanied by her German Shepherd, Apollo, she lived there until she returned to the U.S. for health reasons.

She is survived by her son, David W. Grant, and grandson, Byron James Grant.

Mrs. Grant loved Sag Harbor, where she spent extended periods of time with her sister, Margaret Williams Ginna, of Division Street. She will be buried next to Margaret in Oakland Cemetery, after a service at Christ Episcopal Church on Sunday, February 14, at 2 p.m.

Peter Bell worked at the Foundation from 1964 to 1976 working for a decade in its Latin American program and for two years in its domestic programs in higher education and in social policy.

From the January 29, 2010 Des Moines Register

PETER D. BELL is a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations and was president of CARE. Contact: Peter_Bell@harvard.edu

The worldwide outpouring of support for Haitians from governments and ordinary citizens has been extraordinary. Rescue teams saving people pinned under collapsed buildings and medical teams performing surgery without basic supplies have been spellbinding. But this heroic phase of the emergency response is drawing to a close.

The next phase of the response has begun and is becoming increasingly well-organized. It is meant to stabilize the situation, re-establish a sense of normalcy and prevent epidemics - always a threat when people go hungry, drink polluted water and live cheek by jowl. This phase will involve the provision of water, food, sanitation, security and temporary shelter to hundreds of thousands of Haitians. In addition, tens of thousands should be put to work in temporary but paid jobs, clearing debris, building latrines, putting up tents - and returning money to the economy.

On Monday, members of the international donor community met in Montreal to begin focusing on the long-term task of rebuilding Haiti. They know what made so many Haitians so vulnerable to this disaster was extreme poverty. Haiti is poorer than Bangladesh, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In this moment of worldwide solidarity with Haiti, international political leaders - with President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the forefront - are eager to turn a disaster of unfathomable proportions into a historic opportunity. They want to help put Haiti firmly on a path toward economic, social and political development. They are signing up for a task that will take a sustained international and Haitian commitment, stretching over at least a decade.

Here are just a few of the challenges:

- Coordination of the international effort will be crucial. Both U.N. headquarters and the Haitian government literally were decimated by the quake. The United States must step into the breach, but tread lightly: giving primacy to civilian American leadership, welcoming the partnership of other contributors and progressively ceding coordination to the United Nations and to the Haitian government.

- The Haitian government and people must be masters of their own development. This is a tall order in a nation with a long tradition of the state being “owned” by those who occupy it, and of the people too often being treated as though they were there to be exploited. President Rene Preval, a quiet, self-effacing leader, will need to reach out to others, crossing lines that have long divided Haitians, welcoming the inclusion of civil society and business, reining in corruption, and building the institutional capacities of all three branches of government.

- It can be argued Haiti is a country in which everything is needed and must be done at once. Yet ambitious projects must be based on sound assessments and engagement of the presumed beneficiaries.

Despite the challenges, there is some basis for hope.

Unprecedented media coverage of the Haitian disaster, the vast outpouring of support from ordinary Americans, and the commitments of U.S. leaders for long-term support auger well. It is up to all of us to urge follow-through.

Once, much of the world considered Haiti the problem exclusively of the United States. But the world has changed. The United Nations and its peacekeepers, led by Brazil, have helped provide security. They have been joined by Chileans, Argentines and Uruguayans. Canada has provided key development support. For historic reasons, France is present. So, too, are others, including China and Israel. The World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank are important players. And the Haitian Diaspora has a significant role.

Ultimately, of course, the rebuilding of Haiti will depend on the Haitians themselves.

Even as the international community is rallying and providing crucial support, the little-covered story in Haiti has been about Haitians rescuing and helping Haitians. So, too, must they do the bulk of the work over the coming months and years. What has always been most remarkable to me about Haitians is not their poverty or the fragility of their institutions, but their faith, resilience, resourcefulness and hard work. If the United States and our partners are truly to help Haiti, we will need to respect Haitian strengths and aspirations, and build on them. They will be the foundation of the “new” Haiti.

Steven Lawry was at the Ford Foundation from 1992 to 2006 as Program Officer in Namibia, Representative in Cairo and Director in the Office of Management Services.

From hausercenter.org

Robert Schrank was with the Ford Foundation from 1970 to 1982.

From Robert Schrank’s blog http://robertschrank.blogspot.com/

I was planning to do a blog on the jobs problem but then this piece in this morning’s NY Tmes jumped up at me. So the jobs piece will have to wait.

There it is in today’s February 1, 2010 Times Conti’s Pastry shop has survived. Hooray! The article is about a section of the north Bronx known as Van Nest. My family had moved there some time around 1923. We lived on Morris Park Avenue about 3 blocks from PS 34 where I went to school. The Times article is about the lack of any banking facility in that neighborhood forcing people to go long distances to simply cash a check. Yes there are check cashing stores that charge a hefty percentage to simply cash a check. According to the article it remains a place of “houses with front porches.” Yup, that’s how I remember it.

What caught my eye was a reference to “Conti’s Pastry shop” where local Italian men were still gathering to talk over coffee and a pastry. I remember the pastry shop as a stop over on my way to PS 34. In the morning on my way to school there was a line of horse and wagons from Sheffield Farms that had been delivering milk since 3AM to many of the private homes that covered the area. Back in 1926 the milkmen were inside Conti’s having their breakfast. The horses had their feedbags on. The horses would have trouble getting at the feed down at the bottom of the bag. Their solution was to keep bucking their heads up and down hoping to catch some of the bottom feed. That was not a good solution. They would lose most of the feed as it ended up outside the bag down on the ground where the sparrows had their feast. One of the milkmen suggested that if I held the bag up for the horses to get that bottom feed there might just be a pastry in it for me.

That started my career as “the horse feeder,” that’s what the kids began to call me. In order to insure my new found position I would get to school pretty early to make sure that I would have time for my feed patrol and my pastry. Pretty soon the horses began to recognize me a block away and would start a regular chorus of stomping and braying and that sent me running to carry out my feed duty. It was the beginning of a long love affair with horses. My reward, that started out as a pastry would become the appreciation that the horses showed me. It just made me feel good to have the chance to be of help to these giant creatures who befriended a 9 year old boy.

As I read the Times piece I couldn’t help but wonder, why is it so important to us humans to have places in our lives that we can remember as part of our growing up time? Is it an assurance that there are some things in our constantly changing world that we can count on as unchanging? Yes, the neighborhood of Van Nest has changed form Italian to Latino and Asian yet, Ruggeiro’s Funeral Home is still there as is Cont’s. I’m certain that St. Domenicks Catholic church, where I went to confession with my Italian friends, who just didn’t want me to feel left out, is also still there. I used to wonder what my atheist father would have said if he knew about it?

Ernest Hemingway had a life long concern about finding places he could return to that hadn’t changed in his lifetime. A home in Cuba, a Bar in Key West and the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, It was in those mountains that he decided to go and end his life. Did he just want to be in a place that he could count on would always be as he first experienced it? Maybe thats what we humans want or need? Something, someplace that, helped define us, that we can depend on as not being washed away by the winds of time? Just knowing that Conti’s pastry shop is where it was when I was 9 years old makes me feel good. Exactly why I can’t tell you. But no matter there it is.

Dr. Gordon Perkin was with the Ford Foundation from 1966-1980 in the Population Office with Bud Harkavy as POIC. They had assignments in Thailand,Ghana,Geneva, Brazil and Mexico. Spending a total of 14 years abroad. It was an initial grant from Ford Foundation that started Path which has now grown into a $150,000,000 a year organization with nearly 1,000 employees and offices in more than twenty countries. Dr Richard Mahoney also a long time member of the Population Office staff was also a Path co-founder.

Dr. Gordon Perkin, one of the founders of PATH, has been recognized by the Government of Canada for his work to improve global health. Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaelle Jean, governor general of Canada, appointed Dr. Perkin an officer of the Order of Canada, honoring him for his “contributions to improving the health of citizens in the developing world,” notably as co-founder of PATH and as former head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global health program.

Dr. Gordon Perkin, one of the founders of PATH, has been recognized by the Government of Canada for his work to improve global health. Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaelle Jean, governor general of Canada, appointed Dr. Perkin an officer of the Order of Canada, honoring him for his “contributions to improving the health of citizens in the developing world,” notably as co-founder of PATH and as former head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s global health program.

The Order of Canada recognizes a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to community, and service to the nation. Over the last 40 years, more than 5,000 people have been appointed to the Order.

Perkin received his MD from the University of Toronto in 1959 and began his career as a family doctor in Canada. In the late 1970s, Perkin and two colleagues founded PATH in Seattle. Perkin served as president of PATH until 1999, when he left to become the director of global health at the Gates Foundation. He has had a distinguished career as a physician and a leader in the global health community, working with the World Health Organization, Ford Foundation, National Academy of Sciences, and Planned Parenthood.

We are pleased that Dr. Perkin’s outstanding contributions to global health continue to be respected and honored around the world. This recognition is richly deserved.