hell yes! Is that clear enough?! 😊 And a big reason those orthodoxies stick for so long is because there is NOTHING external that forces the change. In this philanthropic sector, we have to impose excellence upon ourselves
Same thing for limited-life foundations. Long history. Agree too many default to perpetuity. Perhaps folks should read about Julius Rosenwald?
Maybe we need to understand history a little better (so we know whether in fact something is an “orthodoxy” or not) and learn from it. Foundations (and their consultants) should consider all the tools that might be deployed to achieve their goals, but they should do it in a context of understanding of what others have done—and learned—rather than thinking they are the first when they usually are not.
Oh, and re investing practices—many of the large foundations are doing impact investing, as our recent report makes clear, though usually the dollars involved are relatively small.
I agree Phil. There are of course many great lessons from the history of philanthropy that we all should pay attention to, in these areas and beyond. Your post on “not-so-new” new concepts was a good one.
But we aren’t claiming that these examples are something new, merely that they are cases of funders actively challenging some of the more deep-seated “defaults” of the field (that many of us don’t even think to question).
The organizations that we cite aren’t the first to do these things (thus question #2 that we suggest posing when trying to challenge orthodoxies - about whether you can find others who are already doing things differently). But they are good illustrations of the fact that there is real value in thinking about whether or not our old assumptions still make sense today.
Unfortunately, just because an orthodoxy has been flipped by others before doesn’t necessarily make it less of an orthodoxy for the rest of the field.
I appreciate your reply, Gabriel. But I think the practices you describe are, in fact, much less rare than you portray them to be, historically and today. That’s the point I am making.
Phil and Gabriel - in your thread, it could be useful to distinguish between challenging orthodoxies and adopting new practices, which are not necessarily flip sides of each other. There’s an idea of “competing commitments’” https://hbr.org/2001/11/the-real-reason-people-wont-change in change management theory that describes the tension people experience when they want to try a new set of behaviors (new practices), but are unable to because they’re not even aware of competing commitments to other behaviors that get in the way (orthodoxies). Katherine Fulton reminded us of Peter Drucker’s work on purposeful abandonment “Planned, purposeful abandonment of the old and of the unrewarding is a prerequisite to successful pursuit of the new and highly promising.”, which we’ve found quite helpful
Thanks for weighing in. I think I am not smart enough for all this. ....
I read the teaser for the piece on the SSIR site, which asks, “Are traditional assumptions about how we ‘do’ philanthropy preventing us from finding new and better ways of working?” So then I read the piece and its examples of “new and better ways of working” and thought two things: 1) some of the examples (policy, spend-down) don’t represent anything especially new; and 2) these practices also aren’t that rare today either—in other words, they are not in tension with the “defaults” in philanthropy. (It’s harder for me to think of a very large foundation that doesn’t seek to influence policy than one that does. See for example RWJF on health; Hewlett and Packard on climate; Gill and Haas Jr. on marriage equality; and a long, long list on education – often to the consternation of those who don’t agree about what the right policy might be.)
So all this suggests, to me, anyway, that “orthodoxies” aren’t preventing folks from doing the things described (or they wouldn’t be doing them). On impact investing, for example, we see more than 40 percent of large foundations saying, in response to a recent CEP survey, that they do this—although the dollars remain small. (And, of course, questions about the impact of impact investing remain.)
I agree that not challenging orthodoxies is problematic. I just don’t think the examples cited are on target…because I think they don’t actually make the point.
And I would suggest that something that is also problematic is chasing fads. Or failing to learn from those who are doing—or have tried—things before us. Or casting about from one “new” thing, to the other.
I agree with Phil on most of the above. But I do think there are orthodoxies, many of which are more mundane, but may have more damaging or limiting effects on the field. Let’s use the example grantmaking, which is certainly more ingrained in US philanthropy than in any other country, with the whole apparati that accompanies it - RFPs, scoring rubrics, grant amounts and time limits set by budgets rather than events, progress and learning, etc. My colleagues Paula Johnson, Colleen Kelly and I just finished a study of high net worth giving in Latin America and I came away with a different view of foundation operating programs than I had before. There is a lot of advantage to operating programs, particularly if a foundation is very place-based and dedicated to an issue long term. The primary problem we and others observed is that this practice creates an environment in which it is difficult for nonprofits to grow and thrive. I think it is worthwhile, as the authors suggest, to look at these types of practices and ask why we do them.
An aside on the artillery example: This illustration appears at the beginning of a chapter entitled “Gunfire at Sea” in an old war book from the 50’s (sorry I cannot cite it right now). I learned to teach this chapter from my good friend Dutch Leonard to explore the elements of the discivery and implementation of innovations in organizations. It is worth reading, and perhaps can shed some interesting light on this discussion. It is the story of a (now famous) malcontent in the Navy who fought the ordnance department of the Navy to implement a system of firing from a ship that actually took into account the pitch and roll of the vessel. The lessons we tried to pull out were 1) someone willing to go against the standard practice 2) having a standard practice to compare it to 3) authority who both notices the innovation and 4) is willing to acknowledge that the transgression is actually progress.
I’m a fan of everyone that has commented so far! 😊 I do think there is some semantics in here between orthodoxies and practices. Chris’ example of all the processes we’ve developed around “grant making” is a good example (and SVP isn’t “above the crowd” on this). Think about it - the timing and process is made to fit the grant MAKER in just about every possible way, with not nearly enough regard to what is needed real-time out in communities, in the market. The funding streams respond to what the funder wants, not nearly well enough to what our communities and beneficiaries need. I’m reminded of how Milken approached funding prostate cancer research - he’s done it (at least initially) very responsively and fast and the impact on the rates of prostate cancer are significant.
Whether we call them orthodoxies or practices or whatever, we need to make a major shift to a funder world that is far more responsive to communities (outside-in) instead of what and how we like it as funders (inside-out)
Such thoughtful comments. I would only add that fundamentally, I don’t think there’s much of anything new under the sun here, though I very much appreciate the encouragement to try at least to look anew at long-held beliefs and practices. I have found through the years that philanthropy tends to latch on to new buzz words as if it’s “discovered” something. My latest favorite is impact investing. Isn’t that what effective giving has always been about? And the whole rubric/measurement hysteria is no real improvement upon the one thing I think actually drives good philanthropy and why so much of it isn’t good, viz., the ability to ask good, probing, meaningful questions. You can’t know if you’re arriving at a solution worth arriving at if you haven’t even posed questions worth asking. And that is shockingly common in philanthropy. Instead, you get a kind of Lemming behavior, in which lots of foundations latch on to the same thing, but without necessarily kicking the tires and looking closely under the hood of what they’re investing in. Maybe that’s why so much seems—at least to me—to be some version of plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. And then of course there’s the fundamental conservatism at the root of (even) liberal philanthropy, i.e., the risk avoidance, the strict payout formulas, and the commitment to perpetuating the foundations’ existence above all.
Gabriel, this is provocative and timely! Take legalizing drugs as an another example of a philanthropic orthodoxy. In the 80’s a few foundations commissioned a highly reputable firm to examine the drug problem in our country. The major recommendation, among others, was to legalize drugs. The idea of foundations taking this stand was unthinkable, so it was unceremoniously shelved. I wonder if they would reconsider today, now that marriage equality and the ACA are no longer unthinkable?
I appreciate your reply, Gabriel. But I think the practices you describe are, in fact, much less rare than you portray them to be, historically and today. That’s the point I am making.
COMMENTS
BY Paul Shoemaker
ON June 18, 2015 03:10 PM
hell yes! Is that clear enough?! 😊 And a big reason those orthodoxies stick for so long is because there is NOTHING external that forces the change. In this philanthropic sector, we have to impose excellence upon ourselves
BY Phil Buchanan
ON June 19, 2015 07:02 AM
I am all for challenging orthodoxies.
But there is a long history of foundation involvement in policy—nothing remotely new or particularly rare about this, as I pointed out here. http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/?s=7+things+that+are+not+so+new&x=6&y=6
Same thing for limited-life foundations. Long history. Agree too many default to perpetuity. Perhaps folks should read about Julius Rosenwald?
Maybe we need to understand history a little better (so we know whether in fact something is an “orthodoxy” or not) and learn from it. Foundations (and their consultants) should consider all the tools that might be deployed to achieve their goals, but they should do it in a context of understanding of what others have done—and learned—rather than thinking they are the first when they usually are not.
Oh, and re investing practices—many of the large foundations are doing impact investing, as our recent report makes clear, though usually the dollars involved are relatively small.
http://www.effectivephilanthropy.org/portfolio-items/investing-and-social-impact-practices-of-private-foundations/
Phil Buchanan
President, The Center for Effective Philanthropy
BY Gabriel Kasper
ON June 19, 2015 10:40 AM
I agree Phil. There are of course many great lessons from the history of philanthropy that we all should pay attention to, in these areas and beyond. Your post on “not-so-new” new concepts was a good one.
But we aren’t claiming that these examples are something new, merely that they are cases of funders actively challenging some of the more deep-seated “defaults” of the field (that many of us don’t even think to question).
The organizations that we cite aren’t the first to do these things (thus question #2 that we suggest posing when trying to challenge orthodoxies - about whether you can find others who are already doing things differently). But they are good illustrations of the fact that there is real value in thinking about whether or not our old assumptions still make sense today.
Unfortunately, just because an orthodoxy has been flipped by others before doesn’t necessarily make it less of an orthodoxy for the rest of the field.
BY Phil Buchanan
ON June 19, 2015 04:50 PM
I appreciate your reply, Gabriel. But I think the practices you describe are, in fact, much less rare than you portray them to be, historically and today. That’s the point I am making.
BY Zia Khan
ON June 21, 2015 06:28 PM
Phil and Gabriel - in your thread, it could be useful to distinguish between challenging orthodoxies and adopting new practices, which are not necessarily flip sides of each other. There’s an idea of “competing commitments’” https://hbr.org/2001/11/the-real-reason-people-wont-change in change management theory that describes the tension people experience when they want to try a new set of behaviors (new practices), but are unable to because they’re not even aware of competing commitments to other behaviors that get in the way (orthodoxies). Katherine Fulton reminded us of Peter Drucker’s work on purposeful abandonment “Planned, purposeful abandonment of the old and of the unrewarding is a prerequisite to successful pursuit of the new and highly promising.”, which we’ve found quite helpful
BY Phil Buchanan
ON June 21, 2015 07:11 PM
Zia,
Thanks for weighing in. I think I am not smart enough for all this. ....
I read the teaser for the piece on the SSIR site, which asks, “Are traditional assumptions about how we ‘do’ philanthropy preventing us from finding new and better ways of working?” So then I read the piece and its examples of “new and better ways of working” and thought two things: 1) some of the examples (policy, spend-down) don’t represent anything especially new; and 2) these practices also aren’t that rare today either—in other words, they are not in tension with the “defaults” in philanthropy. (It’s harder for me to think of a very large foundation that doesn’t seek to influence policy than one that does. See for example RWJF on health; Hewlett and Packard on climate; Gill and Haas Jr. on marriage equality; and a long, long list on education – often to the consternation of those who don’t agree about what the right policy might be.)
So all this suggests, to me, anyway, that “orthodoxies” aren’t preventing folks from doing the things described (or they wouldn’t be doing them). On impact investing, for example, we see more than 40 percent of large foundations saying, in response to a recent CEP survey, that they do this—although the dollars remain small. (And, of course, questions about the impact of impact investing remain.)
I agree that not challenging orthodoxies is problematic. I just don’t think the examples cited are on target…because I think they don’t actually make the point.
And I would suggest that something that is also problematic is chasing fads. Or failing to learn from those who are doing—or have tried—things before us. Or casting about from one “new” thing, to the other.
That’s all I am saying.
Phil Buchanan
BY Christine Letts
ON June 23, 2015 12:30 PM
I agree with Phil on most of the above. But I do think there are orthodoxies, many of which are more mundane, but may have more damaging or limiting effects on the field. Let’s use the example grantmaking, which is certainly more ingrained in US philanthropy than in any other country, with the whole apparati that accompanies it - RFPs, scoring rubrics, grant amounts and time limits set by budgets rather than events, progress and learning, etc. My colleagues Paula Johnson, Colleen Kelly and I just finished a study of high net worth giving in Latin America and I came away with a different view of foundation operating programs than I had before. There is a lot of advantage to operating programs, particularly if a foundation is very place-based and dedicated to an issue long term. The primary problem we and others observed is that this practice creates an environment in which it is difficult for nonprofits to grow and thrive. I think it is worthwhile, as the authors suggest, to look at these types of practices and ask why we do them.
An aside on the artillery example: This illustration appears at the beginning of a chapter entitled “Gunfire at Sea” in an old war book from the 50’s (sorry I cannot cite it right now). I learned to teach this chapter from my good friend Dutch Leonard to explore the elements of the discivery and implementation of innovations in organizations. It is worth reading, and perhaps can shed some interesting light on this discussion. It is the story of a (now famous) malcontent in the Navy who fought the ordnance department of the Navy to implement a system of firing from a ship that actually took into account the pitch and roll of the vessel. The lessons we tried to pull out were 1) someone willing to go against the standard practice 2) having a standard practice to compare it to 3) authority who both notices the innovation and 4) is willing to acknowledge that the transgression is actually progress.
Chris Letts
BY Paul Shoemaker
ON June 23, 2015 09:56 PM
I’m a fan of everyone that has commented so far! 😊 I do think there is some semantics in here between orthodoxies and practices. Chris’ example of all the processes we’ve developed around “grant making” is a good example (and SVP isn’t “above the crowd” on this). Think about it - the timing and process is made to fit the grant MAKER in just about every possible way, with not nearly enough regard to what is needed real-time out in communities, in the market. The funding streams respond to what the funder wants, not nearly well enough to what our communities and beneficiaries need. I’m reminded of how Milken approached funding prostate cancer research - he’s done it (at least initially) very responsively and fast and the impact on the rates of prostate cancer are significant.
Whether we call them orthodoxies or practices or whatever, we need to make a major shift to a funder world that is far more responsive to communities (outside-in) instead of what and how we like it as funders (inside-out)
BY N Mogilnik
ON June 24, 2015 02:59 PM
Such thoughtful comments. I would only add that fundamentally, I don’t think there’s much of anything new under the sun here, though I very much appreciate the encouragement to try at least to look anew at long-held beliefs and practices. I have found through the years that philanthropy tends to latch on to new buzz words as if it’s “discovered” something. My latest favorite is impact investing. Isn’t that what effective giving has always been about? And the whole rubric/measurement hysteria is no real improvement upon the one thing I think actually drives good philanthropy and why so much of it isn’t good, viz., the ability to ask good, probing, meaningful questions. You can’t know if you’re arriving at a solution worth arriving at if you haven’t even posed questions worth asking. And that is shockingly common in philanthropy. Instead, you get a kind of Lemming behavior, in which lots of foundations latch on to the same thing, but without necessarily kicking the tires and looking closely under the hood of what they’re investing in. Maybe that’s why so much seems—at least to me—to be some version of plus ca change, plus ca meme chose. And then of course there’s the fundamental conservatism at the root of (even) liberal philanthropy, i.e., the risk avoidance, the strict payout formulas, and the commitment to perpetuating the foundations’ existence above all.
BY Diana
ON June 29, 2015 05:06 PM
Gabriel, this is provocative and timely! Take legalizing drugs as an another example of a philanthropic orthodoxy. In the 80’s a few foundations commissioned a highly reputable firm to examine the drug problem in our country. The major recommendation, among others, was to legalize drugs. The idea of foundations taking this stand was unthinkable, so it was unceremoniously shelved. I wonder if they would reconsider today, now that marriage equality and the ACA are no longer unthinkable?
BY manabadi
ON December 20, 2018 09:35 PM
I appreciate your reply, Gabriel. But I think the practices you describe are, in fact, much less rare than you portray them to be, historically and today. That’s the point I am making.