While running a program to help low-income students get mentors, Marie-Frances Rivera grew fascinated by how foundations decide whether to keep charitable endeavors like hers afloat.
Now she has an insider’s view after participating in a yearlong effort to help minorities in the nonprofit world learn how foundations work.
Ms. Rivera, who spent the past year at the Hyams Foundation, in Boston, says the experience persuaded her she would like to work full time as a grant maker.
Ms. Rivera worked at Hyams through a program run by the Proteus Fund, a grant maker in Amherst, Mass., that supports democracy, human-rights, and peace causes.
Proteus took over operation of the fellowship program two years ago; it was created in 2006 by Associated Grant Makers out of concern that too few minorities hold leadership jobs at foundations.
It was also intended to debunk the myth that grant makers couldn’t find minority candidates to fill open positions, says Tammy Dowley-Blackman, who directs the program for the Proteus Fund.
A survey released in March by the Council on Foundations reinforced the concern. Three in four full-time foundation employees are white, as are nine of every 10 foundation chief executives, the survey found.
Pat Brandes, executive director of the Barr Foundation, which has supported the program to groom minority grant makers since its creation, says she has long been troubled by the lack of diversity in the grant-making world.
“If you go to a philanthropy conference today, you can see that we still don’t have the level of diversity that we should have,” says Ms. Brandes. “We have to get very concrete about ways to create a pipeline for philanthropy.”
Rigorous Training
That’s exactly what Proteus’s Diversity Fellowship program attempts to do.
Each year, candidates from across the country, and with a vast range of credentials and professional experience, apply to be one of a handful of fellows.
To qualify for the program, candidates must have relevant experience (such as working for a charity or being a community leader) and have a college degree. The program’s organizers look for applicants who want eventually to work for a grant maker.
Nonprofit employees who are accepted spend a year working as paid program officers at foundations in Massachusetts, as well as participating in a rigorous training program intended to teach them the skills necessary to be effective grant makers. The fellows quit their jobs to devote themselves to their fellowships at their foundations.
“This is a tough field to get into without a lot of training,” says Ms. Dowley-Blackman.
Ms. Brandes says that giving minority candidates access to the insular world of foundations is precisely what makes the fellowships so effective.
“Access is really what they need,” she says. “There aren’t that many job openings to begin with, and searches are often done by word-of-mouth.”
The program has seen great success in placing its participants on new career paths. Of its 14 fellows so far, 10 are currently working at grant-making organizations including the Boston Foundation, New England Foundation for the Arts, and Charles Schwab Foundation.
“Now the challenge is to expand the reach of the program,” says Ms. Dowley-Blackman.
A Seat at the Table
Delia Arellano-Weddleton applied for a fellowship in 2007 after spending more than 25 years in social services, including starting a fathers’ group in Framingham, Mass., to encourage men to get more involved in the lives and education of their children. In addition to joining the inaugural group of fellows, Ms. Arellano-Weddleton was also the first fellow to secure a full-time job in grant making upon completing the program.
In 2008, she was hired to be a program officer at the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, where she had served her fellowship. As a fellow, she says, “I was given a great deal of responsibility from the very start, and my background was seen as an asset.”
Ms. Arellano-Weddleton, who grew up in what she describes as a very low-income family in San Antonio, says that experience of being a fellow has been life-changing for her.
“I’m sitting at the table with the people who have the power,” she says, “yet I’m still able to be a voice for the community.”
The fellowship’s emphasis on training and support has been key to her own professional transition, says Ms. Arellano-Weddleton: “The fellowship looks at philanthropy as a profession and asks, ‘What are the skills necessary to be effective?’”
Fellows also praise the program’s commitment to helping them make connections within the often closed world of philanthropy. Weekly education sessions are devoted to hands-on training in such essentials as nonprofit budgeting and financial planning but also to introducing the fellows to their would-be counterparts at foundations.
Ms. Rivera, who is hoping to find a job at a foundation in or around Boston, says that the fellowship helped her start her job search with a network already established.
“I’ve been able to visit foundations of all types and sizes and really meet people,” she says.
Expansion Plans
So far, the foundations participating in the Diversity Fellowship are limited to a small, primarily Massachusetts-based group. In addition to Barr, Hyams, Nellie Mae, and Proteus, the program also gets support from the Boston Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation.
Ms. Dowley-Blackman is now looking to increase the number of donors as well as organizations that are willing to play host to the fellows. “We’ve seen firsthand how the fellows and the foundations involved benefit from the program, and there’s really nothing else like it,” she says.
Still, she concedes that expanding is not without challenges. Because it provides intensive training and support, the Diversity Fellowship is an expensive program to operate. (She estimates that the annual cost for four fellows is roughly $500,000.)
“We’re still looking for a sustainable funding model,” says Ms. Dowley-Blackman.
Ms. Brandes maintains that the costs of the program are well worth it, considering the results that it has produced. She notes that the Barr Foundation regularly plays host to fellows and that the organization’s chief of staff, Ify Mora, is an alumna of the program. Says Ms. Brandes, “We have a diverse group of people working in philanthropy who otherwise would not have been.”
For more information on the Diversity Fellowship program, go to: proteusfund.org/diversity-fellowship.
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