Seven hundred people came together at the Association of Small Foundations 2010 biannual conference this past week to share and learn in Austin, Texas.
A high school band from Austin, Texas rocking the Association of Small Foundations
As a first-timer, I learned that small foundations can combine creativity and vision with small dollars to create tangible, results oriented social change. I was impressed. Here are a few examples I got a chance to learn about. There are many more. Apologies to those I missed.
Create a Foundation Facebook
Leveraging their prestige as a foundation, the F.C. Fox Foundation employs their web site as a virtual site visit enabling their grantees to put up a video, a profile, contact information, and a donate now button. This strategy has netted one grantee No Limits almost $50,000 in sales for their theater kit for deaf and hard of hearing kids!
Bring Citizen Voices into Legislation
Tackling an health advocacy agenda The Sunflower Foundation tipped the scales in Kansas to pass second-hand smoke legislation that had floundered in the legislature for ten years! They hired a grassroots organizer and used the power of a telephone bank to capture the stories of how smoking has impacted the lives of individual Kansans. This resulted in legislators hearing directly from constituents about how second-hand smoke had affected their lives. For the full story read here. The American Association of Political Consultants gave them an prize for using new technology in advocacy!
Inspire People to Connect Globally
A photo of a woman and her family in Austin, Texas carrying water in plastic jugs from the local river on their heads juxtaposed with women from Ethiopia, A Glimmer of Hope Foundation is making the connection for local donors about the importance of access to water. “We are social investors investing in social entrepreneurs,” CEO Philip Berber stated. I like the way he has transformed the language surrounding integrated participatory rural development and made it accessible to the next generation. Brian Cooper, the Executive Director and his team are borrowing creatively from corporate America to convince people to dig deep for basic infrastructure and microfinance.
Invest in Cost Benefit Analysis
By calculating the cost of one youth in the juvenile justice system, the Tow Foundation has helped catalyzed a movement for investment in children and youth that has paid off for marginalized youth in Connecticut. The legislature is investing more on prevention programs and seeing fewer, far fewer youth in juvenile court and in jail. Lives saved, hope restored. The best part is that Tow understands how to communicate this through their beautiful brochure the Power of Partnership, required reading for any communications director.
These are just a few examples of the innovative, cutting edge work being done with small dollars and high energy by foundation staff who joined the conversation in Austin.
I’d love to see the Council on Foundations ensure that their smaller foundation colleagues were connected with the larger, staffed independent and corporate foundations. When the news is dominated by $100 million grants, it’s reassuring to realize that dollars don’t always make the biggest difference, ideas do and some of the best ideas can be found at small foundations.
