California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who took office in January with a projected $22 billion budget surplus and a host of social problems to solve, has named Kathleen Kelly Janus to a new position to bridge the work of nonprofits and state government.
Janus, the co-founder of Spark, a network of more than 10,000 millennial donors, will serve as the Democratic governor’s senior adviser on social innovation. She said her main priorities will be to coordinate efforts to ensure a full count in the 2020 census and to steer money to the most promising relief efforts following natural disasters.
Her work won’t be limited to those issues, however. Following a “listening tour” of the state this summer, Janus says she expects homelessness to be a key focus, as will identifying promising social entrepreneurs — who run nonprofits and for-profit organizations alike — and connecting them with government.
“Oftentimes there are leaders in our communities who are doing amazing work who may not have enough access to the governor’s office to be able to pick up the phone and say, ‘I’ve got this program that’s working miracles, and we think this should be scaled throughout the state,’ " says Janus, author of Social Startup Success: How the Best Nonprofits Launch, Scale Up and Make a Difference. “This is definitely a priority for me.”
Wealth Boom
Over the past two decades, the growth of technology in California has added billions of dollars of wealth to the state. But problems like poverty, homelessness, and racism remain as vexing as ever.
Nonprofit liaisons in other states have scored successes in the past by giving charities access to the policy-making process and helping government better serve people. Nonprofit experts across the country are sure to watch whether Janus will be able to steer newfound wealth in Silicon Valley and throughout the state to where it will help residents the most.
Janus says that will be a big part of her job.
“There’s a lot of pressure on people to give, but they don’t know where to start,” says Janus, who is also a lecturer at Stanford University’s Program on Social Entrepreneurship. “We can help channel donors to where the need is throughout the state, not just the obvious places.”
Census Concerns
A sizable amount of money has been set aside to make sure all Californians are counted in next year’s census, Janus says. Philanthropy has committed more than $28 million. Governor Newsom has proposed adding $54 million to the $100.3 million previously allocated state funds. Getting an accurate count of children, immigrants, people of color, the poor, and rural residents has historically posed a special challenge.
To make sure the money goes where it is needed, to support organizations that are trusted in hard-to-count communities, and to develop marketing messages that work at the neighborhood level, Janus says state officials need to identify where their efforts may overlap with philanthropy and where there are gaps in support.
Developing a plan for disaster response is a personal mission for Janus, whose childhood neighborhood in Napa was destroyed by 2017 wildfires.
“I saw firsthand how in the wake of disasters people have good intentions, but they often give misguided donations that do more harm than good,” she says.
Low Expectations?
Jan Masaoka, chief executive of the California Association of Nonprofits, doesn’t necessarily expect Janus to make a lot of headway. Janus will not have a staff, and Masaoka believes the position lacks a clear focus.
“There’s always room for someone to connect the dots and bring people and resources together,” she says. “I think we’re all hopeful, but there aren’t a lot of expectations because people don’t know her yet.”
Janus’s role as a donor and social entrepreneur has given her a “broad-gauge” understanding of the kinds of philanthropy in the state, including individual donors as well as private, community, and corporate foundations, according to James Ferris, director of the Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at the University of Southern California.
That knowledge should help her, Ferris says, but it will be difficult to gain steam combining the disparate interests of a variety of philanthropic and nonprofit organizations with state government.
“It’s not a monolithic sector,” he says. “There are areas of common interest, but the trick is whether they can find a common agenda.”
A number of nonprofit-liaison offices were created in the federal government during the Obama administration. Like Janus’s position, they often consisted of a single person but grew over the course of Obama’s two terms in office, Ferris says.
At the local level, more than a dozen states and cities have created positions in government to work directly with nonprofits. Some, like Connecticut’s nonprofit liaison, have disappeared at the conclusion of a governor’s term. And others, like Michigan’s cabinet-level Office of Foundation Liaison, have lasted over several administrations.
The benefits of such an office flow both ways, according to Stefan Toepler, director of George Mason University’s Center for Nonprofit Management, Philanthropy, and Policy.
Foundations, which face lobbying limits, are keen to have an advocate inside of government. A liaison can press for grant makers’ policy preferences and work to secure government support to take small projects and expand them throughout the state. State government looks to foundations, charities, and social entrepreneurs to test new ideas, Toepler says.
“Government can’t just play with public money, and they can’t gamble on new ideas,” he says. “They look to foundations to absorb the risk.”
The work of state and local governments and nonprofits has become more intertwined over the past decade, with philanthropy being called upon to identify areas of need, help administer state programs, or step in with grants where public dollars fall short, Toepler says.
In her new position, Toepler says, Janus will have to referee a basic culture clash. Foundations often worry that government will view them as a cash machine to take up the slack when tax dollars aren’t enough. Government officials often worry that nonprofit leaders don’t fully appreciate how government decisions are held to account by the voting public.
For a go-between to succeed, “you need to know what makes both foundations and government tick,” Toepler says.
$6.6 Billion in Grants
California foundations gave $6.6 billion to in-state recipients in 2016, according to a Foundation Center count. The state is home to 25,000 nonprofits, according to the California Association of Nonprofits. The idea of a using a single adviser to connect such a large swath of the state’s economy to government has been floated previously, in the Gray Davis and Jerry Brown administrations.
Ferris, the director of the USC philanthropy program, says the time may be ripe for such a position now, in part because philanthropy sees government as a necessary partner. Several grant-maker organizations, he notes, have joined an umbrella group, Philanthropy California, in an attempt to unify their approach to government relations.
State government and foundations also have developed a record of success that can lead to future work together, according to a report on health care in the state prepared for five grant makers: Blue Shield of California, California Health Care, California Wellness and SCAN foundations, and the California Endowment. The report cites a 60 percent reduction in the number of uninsured people and credits grant-maker assistance in implementing the Affordable Care Act.
Poverty Overlooked
A popular view of California is that it is awash with technology money and steeped in affluence, says Karthick Ramakrishnan, a trustee of the California Endowment and associate dean of UC’s Riverside’s School of Public Policy. But such a view leaves out much of the state, such as the Inland Empire, an area with a high concentration of immigrants and high levels of poverty.
Ramakrishnan, who founded of Riverside’s Center for Social Innovation, hopes that Janus is able to serve as an ambassador, connecting the wealth in Silicon Valley with the needs across the state. “For a long time, regions like ours have been talking about the need, but it’s fallen on deaf ears,” he says. “The moment is right for this position to make sure people are acting on their values and their concerns.”
