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When Making Grants, Do the Analysis — but Trust Instinct, Too

By  Paul Brainerd
October 2, 2018

The scale and urgency of climate change, global poverty, and other problems that command philanthropy’s attention are often daunting.

At the Brainerd Foundation, whose mission is to protect the environment, the urgency was so clear to us, we decided we needed to spend everything we have and close our organization’s door by 2020. This was no simple decision, but my sister, Sherry, and I agreed that we need to invest now and then pass the baton to the next generation of philanthropists.

As we do that, it’s important to share with this new generation the lessons that have helped us make a difference.

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The scale and urgency of climate change, global poverty, and other problems that command philanthropy’s attention are often daunting.

At the Brainerd Foundation, whose mission is to protect the environment, the urgency was so clear to us, we decided we needed to spend everything we have and close our organization’s door by 2020. This was no simple decision, but my sister, Sherry, and I agreed that we need to invest now and then pass the baton to the next generation of philanthropists.

As we do that, it’s important to share with this new generation the lessons that have helped us make a difference.

Most essential is to remember that at its core, philanthropy is about investing in people. We do our best to be strategic and to be good stewards of our resources, always looking for ways to achieve the greatest possible impact. And then we place bets on people we trust to get the work done. After all the analysis, we trust our gut.

Coming out of the technology boom in the 1990s, where entrepreneurism ruled the day and the impulse to find data-driven solutions was strong, my sister and I brought many of these values to the Brainerd Foundation. Yet it was my earlier career in journalism that ultimately defined my thinking about our approach.

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All good stories are about people, as any journalist knows. To create a story, it is critical to have a healthy sense of curiosity, ask good questions, and listen carefully, not just for what is said but also for what is left unsaid. So, too, for philanthropy.

The technology sector continues to generate extraordinary levels of wealth, with many of its leaders recognizing the importance of giving back by working to address the challenges facing society. Whatever form this philanthropy takes, it is always built on investments in people.

Given this reality, after 25 years working in the field of philanthropy I’ve come to follow a few basic guidelines:

Listen to your grantees.

I am stunned by how frequently people ignore this most basic tenet of philanthropy. Grantees are the people in the field, working daily to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing society. Yet too often, philanthropists driven by finely crafted strategies — albeit with the best intentions — fail to ask questions and listen closely to the answers.

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As a former journalist, I know that asking questions is second nature. In the past, I was looking for a good story, but at the Brainerd Foundation asking our grantees what they need has become our modus operandi. It helps establish a sense of trust, and once that happens, a torrent of good ideas flows.

For example, our grantees told us they sometimes needed resources more quickly than our typical grant-making cycle would allow. So, we created a special opportunity fund that requires just a few steps for grant seekers — and we commit to moving quickly on those applications. We also regularly provide general operating support, not just restricted dollars, as a direct result of many clear and thoughtful requests. We introduce our grantees to other donors in response to their requests for help raising additional resources. And to listen closely, and create a space for honest feedback and dialogue, we host regular gatherings of our grantees.

Our commitment to accessibility led to the creation of a new organization, Headwaters Economics, a think tank that helps rural communities with economic analyses pertaining to conservation. In this case, our grantees saw a need for nonpartisan research to help support community-led conversations in rural western communities, and they approached us about it because we had opened the door to this kind of brainstorming.

Look for what is missing.

While we listen deeply to what the nonprofits we support need, that doesn’t mean the Brainerd Foundation lacks its own perspective on what gets priority. We have our own goals, strategies, and approaches to make a difference. One of those approaches involves looking for gaps — what is it that our grantees and the environmental movement in general aren’t seeing and how can our money make a difference?

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As grant makers, we are in a good position to see across the landscape of grantees to understand how they are moving toward shared objectives. From this vantage point, we look for missing pieces that may hinder the work of many organizations.

For example, early in our history, technology was a missing piece. In the 1990s, the internet was new and most of our grantees did not use email or websites. In those days of dial-up modems, online access was extremely limited. Recognizing the coming importance of connectivity, we helped to create Online Networking for the Environment / Northwest, or ONE/NW, as it came to be known. Established to help environmental organizations connect to the internet, ONE/NW filled a critical gap and expanded the impact of the nonprofits we support.

None of our grantees specifically asked for ONE/NW, but we could see how their work could be more powerful with additional technological capacity. By reading between the lines, we were able to meet a communitywide need.

Invest in leadership potential.

After we decided to distribute all the assets of the Brainerd Foundation by 2020, we developed a strategy to maximize our impact and to promote durable outcomes. While an overarching sense of urgency drove our decision to get all our money out the door, we did not want to see decades of progress turned back; nor did our grantees.

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Recognizing the fundamental strength of our work — that it is about investing in people — we decided to increasingly focus our resources on the leadership potential of young professionals.

While this decision manifested itself in many ways, one example stands out. Recently, we gathered grantees to ask how we could best help them prepare for the future. The most ambitious idea came from the League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, a 50-year-old organization grappling with ways to ensure it remains relevant in the face of a rapidly changing cultural and political landscape. The League wanted to run a yearlong intensive program to develop millennial leaders. It also wanted these young leaders to help identify key issues and approaches to shape the strategy of the organization going forward.

Exciting as the idea was, it was also risky because the League wanted to do this at the same time it was busy working on the 2016 elections and developing a new four-year strategic plan. Not only was time a challenge, the cost of the proposed program was substantial.

While it was a difficult decision, we supported the idea. And it proved to us what is possible when you set a high bar and show confidence in the next generation of leaders.

The young leaders did their research and presented recommendations to the League’s executive team at the end of the program, and several of their ideas were reflected in the organization’s new strategic plan. The experience made participants feel valued and empowered, and the program represented a cultural shift inside the organization. Based on the success of the League’s first leadership development effort, we decided to support a second round this year.

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Investing in leadership potential is not limited to grantees alone. We also see big opportunities to engage a new generation of philanthropic leaders.

More than 20 years ago, I joined a group of business leaders — Bill Neukom, Doug Walker, Scott Oki, Ida Cole — to start Social Venture Partners, an organization created to help donors bring both their management skills and money to great nonprofits. Recently the Brainerd Foundation borrowed from that approach to create the Northwest Conservation Philanthropy Fellowship to gather and support a group of conservation-minded donors who want to learn more about nonprofits and the landscape of funding opportunities in our region. Given the urgency we feel about challenges facing the environmental movement, it makes sense to cultivate a new generation of philanthropists to whom we hope to pass the baton in a few short years.

Strategic philanthropy is sometimes portrayed as an approach at odds with focusing on the needs of nonprofits. But the truth is more nuanced. At the Brainerd Foundation, we have worked hard to listen to our grantees, fill gaps with support that goes beyond grants alone, and invest in the next generation of leaders because philanthropy is ultimately about investing in people.

Paul Brainerd is president and founder of the Brainerd Foundation. After working at the “Minneapolis Star Tribune,” he co-founded Aldus, which brought the first desktop publishing application — PageMaker — to the market. He and his wife, Debbi, are currently working on a community development project in Glenorchy, New Zealand.

A version of this article appeared in the October 2, 2018, issue.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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