As the first president of the Community Foundation of South Jersey, Sidney Hargro took the start-up from less than $1 million in assets to $21 million in seven years — but the growth extracted a personal cost. Taking over in 2009 as the economy was mired in a recession, Hargro worked long hours and skipped planned vacations.
What Hargro needed, he says, was grant money that freed him up from the relentless chase for donations and allowed him some time to envision how the foundation could be more effective in the region. And he needed someone who knew something about building nonprofit organizations to discuss new ideas and approaches.
Now as the first executive director of the LeadersTrust, a long-running program that the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund in January spun off as a separate nonprofit, Hargro has the chance to offer nonprofit leaders the kind of support he says he really needed during his career.
The pandemic, Hargro says, has stretched many nonprofit leaders near the breaking point, making it even more crucial that foundations support their ability to “take a moment,and sit back and think about the vision and strategy of their organization.”
LeadersTrust originated as the Flexible Leadership Awards program at the Haas Jr. Fund that made more than $30 million in grants since 2004.
Through it, nonprofits were given multi-year grants of up to $100,000. They could use the money to make their organizations stronger in whatever way mattered most, such as to devise strategies, develop communications plans, strengthen their human resources departments and talent-search efforts, refine the management of their projects, and learn from others in their area of expertise. Executive directors of participating nonprofits were paired with consultants who serve as a one-on-one coaches.
Over the past few years, in what became a precursor to the new, separate nonprofit, Haas Jr. began offering the program to other grant makers, including the Grove, Heising-Simons, Irvine, and Packard foundations.
Here’s how it works: Participating foundations provide grants to LeadersTrust and pick one of their own grantees to take part in the program. LeadersTrust uses some of the grant money to pay for a personal coach for the grantee’s leaders. The money also goes toward whatever strategic effort, training, or research the grantee decides to engage in as a result of the partnership and toward educating other grant makers and nonprofits about the experience.
The coaches provided by LeadersTrust are experts in organizational development and often have a specialty in a program area, such as climate change, or in diversity, equity, and inclusion training.
Now, by creating a stand-alone nonprofit, Haas Jr. hopes to attract other grant makers , who will pick nonprofits among their own grantees to work with the LeadersTrust’s network of 26 leadership coaches. One new fund, the Collaborative for Gender & Reproductive Equity, has joined since the effort was spun off.
Leaders Are ‘On Their Own’
Hargro, who went on from the community foundation to lead Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia for four years, believes that nonprofits that want to develop leadership skills among its staff members are largely “on their own” to navigate a smattering of local nonprofit association and college training programs. What sets the LeadersTrust apart, he says, is that it will also include grants that give executives a chance to take a breather from raising money, so they can make leadership and strategy development a bigger priority.
Hargro hopes more foundations take part, particularly if they aim to make strides toward social justice. It isn’t possible to secure racial-equity victories, mitigate climate change, and achieve gender equality through philanthropic support of small projects, he says. Instead, more focus should be placed on personnel — on helping leaders build durable organizations that can advance important causes.
Says Hargro: “We’re here to signal to the sector that transformative change requires deep investment in leaders.”
Experienced Leaders Need Help, Too
The California Immigrant Policy Center received about $300,000 in Flexible Leadership Awards, the LeadersTrust precursor at the Haas Jr. fund. Most of that came after Cynthia Buiza took over as executive director of the statewide organization in 2016.
With help from the Haas Jr. Fund, the center emerged from a loose coalition of groups to a stand-alone nonprofit with statewide reach. The center grew from 12 employees to 26 under Buiza, and its annual budget nearly tripled to about $4 million.
Buiza is not a nonprofit neophyte. She has a long list of credentials and a lot of work experience, including a master’s degree from Tufts University’s Fletcher School and stints in senior positions at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Open Society Institute-Burma Education Project in Thailand, and the Jesuit Refugee Service.
But leadership development isn’t just for newly minted leaders, Buiza says. That’s because nonprofit leaders typically are “anchored in crisis.” The mad rush to respond to crises doesn’t provide the luxury of longer-term planning and tending to the stability of their organizations, Buiza says.
The grants were helpful, Buiza says, after Donald Trump came into office and enacted a hard-line set of immigration policies that the center opposed. The new political reality prompted her to focus on building coalitions and communications strategies that would be forceful in lobbying campaigns in Sacramento and local governments statewide.
One new approach the center tested is called “deep canvassing.” A deep canvas is fashioned like a survey that attempts to sway voters’ convictions on an issue by engaging them in conversation and prompting them to identify with people who may be hurt by a policy, like stringent deportation policies, for instance.
In July, California adopted a new policy that allows undocumented residents access to state health care benefits. That victory, suggests Buiza, wouldn’t have been possible without the strategic changes the center made. But those changes were only part of what was needed, she says.
Throughout the Trump presidency, the center was plagued by burnout. People weren’t staying on the job or were frequently absent. Seemingly easy decisions were met with pushback and attitude.
A seasoned nonprofit professional, Buiza nonetheless felt frustrated.
“The job dehumanizes you,” she says.
Talking with friends about work problems and the struggle to keep her staff motivated didn’t help. In consultant Robin Katcher, she says, she had someone’s shoulder to cry on when things got tough who understood the challenges of leadership.
With Katcher as a sounding board, the center instituted a flexible work schedule, allowed for more time off, planned stress-relieving lunches for employees to forget about policy and play games with one another.
Buiza’s message to the staff: “Nothing is off-limits right now as far as you’re holding yourself together.”
