Community Organizing and
Advocacy Funder Collaboratives
Written by Alicia Korten
Edited by Hugh Hogan
Published by the North Star Fund
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowlegements.................................................................1
Executive Summary..................................................................................3
Introduction.............................................................................................8
Case 1: The Philanthropic Community
Organizing Collaborative........................................................................11
Case 2: Initiative for Neighborhood and
Citywide Organizing...............................................................................19
Case 3: Donors Education Collaborative
of New York...........................................................................................28
Lessons Learned....................................................................................36
Appendix...............................................................................................38
Bibliography..........................................................................................41
© December 2012
Pictured on cover: Movement Leadership grantee participants Valeria Treves, Executive
Director, New Immigrant Community Empowerment, and Deloris Wright, Board
Member, Domestic Workers United.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Preface and Acknowledgements
North Star Fund set out over five years ago with a simple idea: that our foundation
could, and philanthropy could, do more to support grassroots social justice groups to
work together more effectively, over time, across their organizational, geographic and
constituency boundaries to change the system and achieve meaningful change in the
lives and neighborhoods of poor and working people in New York City. It was before the
onset of the great recession and the fall 2008 crash of the stock market. It was before
the election of Barack Obama, the rise of the Tea Party and the Occupy phenomenon.
When North Star Fund’s Executive Director met initially with several key allies to
explore the idea of a multi-year, multi-issue collaborative funding model that empowered
the grantee organizations to select their partners and design their campaigns, many
asked the same question: do you know who has tried this before, and what did they
learn?
It was in this crucible that the Power Together research project was born. Originally,
we hoped to launch a funders collaborative. We brought together several of New York
City’s outstanding grassroots organizers over nearly a year to design how it could work.
We imagined that we would identify a large national funder who was willing to provide
“patient grantmaking capital,” which could be matched by several local funders (a key
finding of this paper is that this ingredient has been essential to the success of several
collaboratives whose goals were systems change). We listened to the lessons of people
like Susan Berresford, who said, among many valuable things, “expect conflict and
be prepared ahead of time to deal with it.” And we sought to elevate the message and
develop a new way to prioritize philanthropic investment in the leadership of people
directly invested by injustice. We wanted to empower them, and the organizers and organizations through whom their visions for change are realized, to receive most of the
money and decide who their advocacy partners should be at the citywide, statewide and
national levels.
We still believe deeply that philanthropy must do more to build a lasting, grassroots
led social justice movement. And this effort must begin by directing a greater percentage of philanthropic dollars to grassroots leaders and institutions. But what we also
learned in the course of writing this paper was that many people in philanthropy have
been innovative, and they have been at this vital work for decades. Their voices, and
their lessons are the heart of this paper. Originally conceived to make the case for North
Star Fund to host a collaborative, this paper employed the practices of appreciative
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 1
Preface and Acknowledgements
enquiry. As such, it is perhaps less critical than it might have been. We encourage but
leave the critique and any polemics to others.
Foremost among the people that North Star Fund needs to thank for helping move
the Power Together research process along is the outstanding researcher and writer Alicia Korten. She succeeded where many of us struggled in our attempts to compile the
lessons contained herein. We also want to thank James Schaffer of Semantic Management for helping turn acronyms and run-on sentences into simple pictures of the collaboratives we explored.
We also want to thank Sarah Christiansen and Lani Romero Alston (formerly) at the
Solidago Foundation who generously supported our research over several years.
North Star Fund would also like to thank the following people for generously providing their time to be interviewed for this publication: Terri Bailey, (philanthropic
consultant, formerly with the Piton Foundation),Terry Minger (Piton Foundation), Lori
Bezahler (Hazen Foundation), Benjamin Dulchin (Association for Neighborhood &
Housing Development) and David Schuffler (Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice),
Lisa Duran (Rights for All People), Steven Flax (M & T Bank), Susan Cahn (consultant),
Mike Kromrey (Metro Organizations for People), Kavitha Mediratta (Atlantic Philanthropies, formerly with the New York Community Trust), David Portillo (Denver Foundation), Mike Pratt (Scherman Foundation), Norma Rollins (consultant), Luis Tejada (Mirabal Center), Laura Wolf (Clark Foundation), and Eric Zachary (formerly of Annenberg
Institute for School Reform at Brown University).
We also wish to thank our readers of the first draft of the paper, Maria Mottola of
the New York Foundation and Lukas Haynes of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation. Among
the researchers who undertook initial interviews and compiled our background literature, we thank Ronak Kapadia, Kate Grantz, and Paul Getsos. And for the help that they
provided with our initial round of key informant interviews, we would not have been
able to move forward without Penny Fujiko-Willgerodt of the Prospect Hill Foundation;
Joo-Hyun Kang, formerly of the Astrea Foundation for Justice; Vic DeLuca of the Jessie
Smith Noyes Foundation; Margie Fine, currently a consultant with Public Interest Projects; and Ann Bastion of the New World Foundation. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to Jodi
Doff, Mark Leger, and cori parrish, current and former North Star Fund staff, for their
boundless energy and editing skills.
Hugh Hogan
Executive Director
2 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Executive Summary
The North Star Fund commissioned this report to inform the foundation’s Power
Together research project, whose purpose was to assess the potential for a collaborative
funding model to support collaborative, multi-issue social change campaigns among
grassroots community activist groups in New York state. North Star Fund has sought to
understand new paths to build progressive power in New York through strengthening
relationships between community-based organizations and the grantmakers who support them.
The term “funder collaborative” is used in this paper to describe an entity created
by a group of funders who want to pool their financial resources in support of a common mission. Such entities often also use convening power to bring funders, and sometimes grantees, together on a regular basis. The terms “grantmaker” and “funder” are
used inter-changeably in this report.
The North Star Fund believes that large-scale community organizing, led by people
directly affected by inequality and injustice, is central to creating structural change within our democracy. By empowering marginalized groups to become active participants
in democratic practice, we believe that community organizers and the communities that
these organizers seek to empower, working in collaboration with grantmakers, will, over
time, strengthen philanthropy as a transformative force in our society and shift political
power in favor of the poor and disenfranchised.
North Star Fund is concerned that the progressive movement is not fully taking
advantage of the power of community-based organizations to create change. There are
often very few resources available to support collaboration between grassroots activist
groups. Often the most successful community-based organizations have strong relationships with their funders, yet these could be strengthened if funders and grantees were
working together in a more cohesive fashion, even while funders and grantees acknowledge the differences in power, practice and accountability.
Despite a dearth of collaboratives focused on community organizing, there are several that have made important contributions to the field. Three successful cases, which
are explored in this paper, are the Donor’s Education Collaborative (DEC), the Neighborhood Opportunities Fund (NOF) based in New York, and the Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC) based in Colorado.
This report aims to support local and national foundations that are interested in
partnering to invest in community capacity building. The publication examines the three
case studies to glean lessons regarding how to structure a funder collaborative focused
on building grassroots power for success.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 3
Executive Summary
Several patterns emerged from the cases, and these are summarized below.
1. Large Funders Provide Catalyst for Other Resources.
In all three cases large funders with significant influence acted as a catalyst for other resources. In the case of the PCOC, the Ford Foundation provided initial funding
of $1 million, which then spurred an initial ten smaller foundations to participate.
In the case of the DEC, several prominent foundations including the Rockefeller
Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and the JP Morgan Charitable Trust seeded the collaborative.
With respect to NOF, a grantee of this collaborative was able to attract the attention
of two funders with both subject matter expertise and significant financial assets to
commit to the effort, and these funders then galvanized other grantmakers.
2. Long-Term Funding Fosters Effective Collaboration and Trust
among Grantees.
In all three cases, the most critical factor in helping grantees forge effective collaboration and trust with one another was long-term funding. In the case of the PCOC,
each nonprofit was given guaranteed support for a three-year period. NOF decided
that they would provide long-term funding to grantees if the grantees were able to
show that they had met self-identified goals at the end of each year. DEC also provided long-term funding to a cohort of grantees. In each case, grantees typically felt
secure that their funding would be renewed, which helped reduce feelings of competition between them, thus fostering an atmosphere in which groups could work
together more effectively.
3. An ‘Honest Broker Role’ Can Be Critical to Success.
Funders are at their best when they can be an impartial broker among grantees
funded under a collaborative. An honest broker provides for continuity, conflict
resolution, and equitable treatment among grantees. For example, NOF released
funding to grantees only after ensuring that grantees had met self-identified annual
goals. Under this system, most grantees felt assured they would receive funding,
even while a couple were defunded. Grantees noted that having an honest broker
helped those groups that were working hard feel a greater sense of equity.
4. Empowering Grantees Enhances Success.
Each case had different instances in which grantees were given opportunities to
lead within the collaborative. PCOC grantees were given authority to determine how
to spend a technical assistance fund, and were invited to include grantee representatives on the PCOC finance committee. PCOC grantees were also empowered to
choose who they wanted to collaborate with, at what pace they wanted to develop
these relationships, and where they wanted to focus their campaigns. The DEC
4 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Executive Summary
found that when the funder chose the technical support providers, grantees often
did not use them. However, when DEC members uncovered who the grantees were
actually using for their support and brought these providers to the table, the technical support became an essential part of the broader initiative.
5. Technical Support Strengthens Grantee Capacity and Collaboration.
Each collaborative included a component of technical support in their structural
design, which played an important role in the success of each effort. For DEC and
NOF grantees, such support proved critical because to meet collaborative goals
grantees were often stretching to incorporate new types of programming. Had
the collaboratives been funding groups to do what they already did well, technical
support might have been unnecessary. In the case of the PCOC, technical support
provided a different function. Less important for the support role it provided, the
technical support was vital in providing grantees an opportunity to work together
on low-risk activities. In this case, the PCOC provided a technical support fund, and
grantees were given the freedom to determine how to use this small pot of money.
The exercise helped build trust between grantees, and led them to later work on
large-scale joint campaigns.
6. Strategy Meetings and Regular Communication Foster Trust
between Grantees.
Both NOF and PCOC required grantees to participate in regular strategy meetings,
with PCOC mandating that the top leadership of each grantee organization be present. While DEC did not have mandatory meetings, the collaborative did provide
lunches and forums for grantees to gather. Grantees in all three cases noted that
these meetings were important in helping to foster new relationships between them.
7. Trust and Respect are Essential for Collaboration.
Grantees needed to trust and respect each other to work effectively together. When
funder collaboratives pushed specific groups to work together, these efforts often
failed due to lack of trust between the groups. Generally, funder collaboratives were
more effective when they created opportunities for grantees to build trust with one
another over time. This trust then organically led to new collaborations between
groups. The PCOC was one such example. By mandating that leaders be present at
monthly meetings they created an opportunity for grantees to get to know one another. Over time, new relationships naturally emerged.
8. Prior Relationships Strengthen Collaborative Process.
In two cases, prior relationships between participating individuals and institutions
strengthened the ability of organizations to collaborate effectively. Several PCOC
members had been working closely with a couple grantees prior to the formation of
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 5
Executive Summary
this funder collaborative. These prior relationships helped build a culture of trust
among all participants—both grantees and funders. This culture spurred organic
relationships between grantees, and strengthened the ability of funders and grantees to speak candidly with one another when conflicts arose. In the case of NOF, all
grantees were long-time members of an umbrella organization called the Association of Neighborhood Housing Developers (ANHD), which managed the funds for
NOF. As such, some of the grantees had already worked together before the collaborative formed.
9. Core Person Is Needed to Provide Logistical and Strategic Support.
All three collaboratives found the management of the collaborative to be time-intensive, and each had a dedicated individual to support the logistics. Two collaboratives
hired a consultant on retainer to manage the process year round. One collaborative
had a lead individual who was a staff person within one of the collaborative’s member foundations. In one case, an intermediary nonprofit organization also provided
important logistical support and strategic direction.
Together the three collaboratives provide rich lessons for how to effectively fund
community organizing initiatives. Empowering grantees, long-term funding, strong
technical support, and steady leadership by grantmakers that could provide significant
financial support were a few of the success factors that enabled these collaboratives to
support movements that changed the landscape in their cities of focus and beyond.
6 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Executive Summary
Summary Chart
Success Factor
Philanthropic
Community
Organizing
Collaboratives (PCOC)
Donors
Education
Collaborative
(DEC)
Neighborhood
Opportunities
Fund (NOF)
Large Funders Provide Catalyst
for Other Resources
Yes
Yes
Yes
Long-Term Funding Fosters Effective Collaboration and Trust Among Grantees
Yes
Yes
Yes
An Honest Broker Role Can Be
Critical to Success
N/A
N/A
Yes
Empowering Grantees Enhances Success
Yes,
significantly
Yes, to some
degree
Yes, to some
degree
Technical Support Strengthens Grantee Capacity and Collaboration
Yes
Yes
Yes
Strategy Meetings and Regular Communications Foster Trust between Grantees
Yes,
significantly
Yes, to some
degree
Yes, to some
degree
Trust and Respect Are Essential
for Collaboration
Yes
Yes
Yes
Prior Relationships Strengthen
Collaborative Process
Yes
Yes
Yes
Core Person Is Needed to Provide
Logistical and Strategic Support
Yes
Yes
Yes
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 7
Introduction
Funder Collaboratives and Community Organizing
Funder collaboratives have emerged within philanthropy as a powerful tool for pooling resources in support of high impact goals that grantmakers cannot achieve alone.
Mutual collaboration can enhance everything from funding a clinic to supporting efforts
to transform healthcare in the United States.
The term funder collaborative is most commonly used to describe an entity created by a group of funders who want to pool their financial resources in support of a
common mission. Such entities often also use convening power to bring funders, and
sometimes grantees, together on a regular basis. The array of issues that funder collaboratives address, and the number of intermediary organizations that support their work,
has grown considerably in recent years. The 1990s, for example, saw twice as many
funder networks as the 1980s, and growth has continued in the 2000s.1
Despite the tremendous growth in funder collaboratives, few focus on building the
power of grassroots organizations. Yet community-based organizations play a vital role
in democracies by helping marginalized communities gain a voice in the political process. These voices shift power imbalances in favor of the poor and disenfranchised, and
can play a significant role in changing policies and reforming institutions to support
marginalized communities.
Community organizing is “the process of building an increasingly broad-based,
democratic organization, typically rooted in disenfranchised communities, and bringing
that power and collective voice to bear on the issues that affect those communities by
engaging with relevant decision makers. This requires a continuing process of actively
reaching out and involving larger numbers of people. Usually this is done by organizers
on staff. Community organizing can be one part of an overall advocacy or public policy
campaign strategy, but it is distinguished by the fact that affected constituencies—rather
than paid advocates who attempt to represent the interests of such constituencies—are
the agents of change.”2
1 Steven LaFrance, Andrew Robinson, Rick Green, and Nancy Latham, “Funder Networks in Action: Data Highlights,” Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, March 2004. Collected at www.socialimpactexchange.org.
2 Definition taken from Alicia Korten, Change Philanthropy, 2009, San Francisco: Josses-Bass, p.
234. Definition adapted from Ranghelli, Strengthening Democracy, 6; and Lisa Ranghelli, Andrew Mott,
and Larry Parachini, “Strengthening Neighborhood Organizing in Hartford: A Report to the Hartford
8 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Introduction
Community organizing fits into a broader process of change by helping those who
traditionally have little access to power to organize and, through their numbers, gain
a stronger more powerful voice in civic life. When poor and marginalized individuals
exercise their right to vote, to protest, and to bring attention to their issues of concern,
they are more likely to secure policies and transform institutions in support of their
needs.
Focus of Paper
Despite a dearth of funder collaboratives focused on community organizing, there
are several that have made important contributions to the field. Three successful cases,
which will be explored in this paper, are the Donor’s Education Collaborative and the
Neighborhood Opportunities Fund based in New York and the Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC) based in Colorado.
The publication examines how the structural design of the three funder collaboratives helped build the capacity of grassroots leaders to affect change. Questions that the
paper explores include:
1. What are the origins of each collaborative?
2. How did founders encourage other funders to dedicate their time and resources
to the collaborative?
3. How were grantees chosen?
4. How was conflict managed?
5. How did the collaboratives foster trust between funders and grantees?
The paper is intended to serve local and national funders, particularly those interested in partnering to invest in community capacity building. As such, the paper focuses
primarily on the mechanisms that have made the collaboratives effective, and provides
only minimal analysis of the grantee relationships. The author recommends that the latter be further developed in a follow-up paper.
The North Star Fund commissioned this paper because they will be spearheading a
funder collaborative focused on building grassroots progressive power in New York City.
The lessons learned from this paper will feed into a larger strategic planning process
that will help shape the structure of that collaborative.
Foundation for Public Giving” (unpublished report, September, 2004), 3, as provided in Sandy O’Donnell,
Jane Beckett, and Jean Rudd, Promising Practices in Revenue Generation for Community Organizing: An
Exploration of Current and Emerging Fundraising and Grantmaking Practices in Community Organizing
(Washington, DC; Center for Community Change, October 2005). Collected at www.comm-org.wisc.edu.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 9
Introduction
The North Star Fund also hopes that this paper will help spur other grantmakers to
create collaboratives that support community organizing across the nation and beyond.
Often the most successful community-based organizations have strong relationships
with their funders, yet these could be strengthened if funders and grantees were working together in a more cohesive fashion. In addition, a greater number of collaboratives
focused on community organizing would help channel additional and much needed
resources to grassroots groups, and would help increase the resources available to support collaboration between groups.
10 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community
Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (herein PCOC or funder
collaborative) is a partnership of funders in Colorado. These funders are supporting
grassroots organizations to work together to change unfair public policies and conditions on the ground in Denver and the surrounding area. The funder collaborative provides grants to organizations within the Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative
(herein CCOC or grantee coalition), which consists of grassroots community organizing
groups focused on immigrant rights, healthcare, education, and jobs and wages.
Fig. 1: Colorado Organizing
Collaboratives, viewable at
larger scale in the Appendix
on page 38.
The funder collaborative and the grantee coalition are unusual because they do not
focus solely on an issue area. Instead the funders and nonprofits have come together to
promote community organizing as a strategy to build leadership and create sustainable
change from the community level. One observer noted, “They have a lot of flexibility
to pivot around organizing and policy campaigns. There is no base of people they can’t
reach out to. They are really about building active and engaged voices in Colorado.”
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 11
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
The funder collaborative and the grantee coalition were formed as a result of a Ford
Foundation grant of $1 million, provided in 2004. The requirements for the grant, part
of a series that the Ford Foundation was providing across the country to support community organizing, was that “you had to have a foundation that was willing to play the
role of convening other foundations and you had to have community organizations that
were willing to meet together,” explained one CCOC member.
Two primary factors helped convene foundations from across the Denver area to join
the funder collaborative. “The seed money from the Ford Foundation definitely got the
attention of foundations, and brought them to the table. If you have a million dollars
that will definitely attract the attention of a lot of funders,” noted a consultant working
on the Ford Foundation initiative. “Terri Bailey of the Piton Foundation, [which administered the funder collaborative], was also such a strong leader and that pulled together
foundations.”
Creating the Structural Design and Process
Initially, the Piton Foundation organized ten foundations to participate in the funder
collaborative. The funders, in consultation with key NGO partners, made several decisions that would shape the collaborative. These included who they would invite to be
members of the grantee coalition, how funding would be allocated, and what the requirements were for participation.
Once the funder collaborative was formed, for example, Terri Bailey did a scan of
the broader Denver area to identify potential grantees. She found roughly 25 groups
that were engaged in community organizing, and further grouped these by additional
criteria she had developed together with a partner NGO. All organizations needed to
have community organizing as their central focus and be democratically controlled,
meaning that members needed to come from affected communities, play a leadership
role, and help decide organizational priorities. Due to a Ford Foundation requirement,
they initially also limited participation to those groups working on education, healthcare, immigrant rights, and economic justice issues such as minimum wage campaigns.
Over time, however, the thematic focus of the work broadened to include any efforts in
support of social justice that included community organizing.
Ultimately the funders invited seven organizations to form the grantee coalition.
Of the process, one grantee explained, “In our geographic area it wasn’t that hard for
funders to choose potential community organizations to participate. There were only six
or seven groups that had robust organizing on the ground.”
In addition to choosing the grantees, the funders, led by the Piton Foundation, determined the financial structure for the effort. Rather than having the grantees compete
for the Ford Foundation funding, the funder collaborative decided to guarantee support
12 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
to every organization for the first three years of the initiative ($50,000 in 2005; $35,000
in 2006; $32,000 in 2007). These were general operating grants that were large enough
to allow each of these fragile organizations to hire a full time community organizer.
In 2008, the funders provided the remaining funds to three new organizations in the
amount of $30,000 each in an effort to build the field further.
To encourage collaboration, the Piton Foundation and its allies put in place one
final structural element. They required the executive directors of the grantee coalition
member organizations to meet once a month. With respect to an agenda for these meetings, the funders made clear to the grassroots organizing groups that they would need
to forge new relationships, beyond the partnerships that currently existed between some
of the organizations, in support of joint campaigns. The funders hoped that by requiring
the leadership to meet once a month new relationships would begin to emerge organically. Generally, the grassroots organizations felt comfortable with the arrangement because the grantmakers did not place timetables on how quickly groups needed to begin
joint campaigns.
The Piton Foundation also decided to place requirements on the funding community. First, to build their commitment to the process, each funder was asked to contribute
money to the grantee coalition. To give each funder the time to secure the resources to
participate, including educating their boards, the funder collaborative gave everyone one
year to meet this obligation. In addition, in order to strengthen relationships, the funder
collaborative members initially were asked to meet with each other once a month,
and meet with grantee coalition members every other month. Over time, however, the
funder meetings became less frequent, with funders dedicating the majority of their
time to participating in coalition meetings with the grantees. “It was hard to keep the
funders meeting every month—they didn’t have time, and there wasn’t enough to talk
about that didn’t involve the organizing groups themselves,” one funder noted.
Letting Grantees Lead
There were also many ways that the grantmakers stepped back to allow grantees to
lead the effort. They were aware that grantees often have the best understanding of opportunities on the ground, and wanted to create a structure that facilitated collaboration
and gave grantees room to set the agenda for both collaboratives.
One critical way in which funders gave grantees control was by allowing grantees
to choose their areas of focus and not placing a timeline on when new partnerships
and campaigns needed to be formed. Many individuals felt that this was critical to the
long-term success of the effort. “Being able to meet for a couple years and not having to
produce a campaign with outcomes was huge. We were clear that it would be disastrous
to enter into a campaign prematurely in order to satisfy a funder criteria,” one CCOC
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 13
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
member explained. “We knew you couldn’t put money into something that wasn’t going
to create change but we also couldn’t artificially construct relationships and trust.”
The requirement that the heads of the member organizations within the grantee
coalition meet monthly had the effect of fostering new relationships in an organic fashion. “Because we were meeting, we did start to look for ways to collaborate. We did
some training, joint staff development—these were small things but they started to build
trust,” explained one grantee. These activities, funded by a technical assistance pool set
up as part of the initiative, “started to create an atmosphere where we wanted to leverage each others’ relationships and work for a common goal of improving the field of
organizing.”
The decision to guarantee three years of funding to all grantee coalition participants helped foster collaboration and leadership among the grantees. First, the general
operating support gave grantees the freedom to use the funding to continue the work
they were already doing if they chose. Second, the guaranteed support freed grantees
to focus on relationship building in the meetings, rather than on trying to capture a
funding base. “It took the pressure off,” one grantee noted. “It didn’t feel like, if this
funder doesn’t fund me, I have nothing to fall back on.” And finally, because they had
guaranteed funding for three years, grantees felt greater liberty to challenge funders as
they were less concerned that their funding would be cut if they said something that the
funder collaborative members didn’t like.
Breaking Down Barriers to Collaboration
In addition to the structural elements that the grantmakers within the funder collaborative put in place, other external variables contributed to an atmosphere in which
strong collaborations could be forged between all parties. “There was not a lot of history of antagonism between the organizing groups,” one funder reflected. In addition,
existing relationships between subgroups of individuals aided in building a culture of
trust between the two collaboratives. For example, a handful of collaborative members,
both funders and grantees, had worked together on an initiative funded by the Annie
Casey Foundation. “Because of the Annie Casey experience, we were no longer looking at funders and saying, ‘give us money and I’ll talk to you in a year,’” one grantee
explained. “We had a relationship of building an initiative together. I wouldn’t say the
power was equal, but we had already built some trust and we brought that experience to
our work.”
The structural design as well as existing relationships helped create a foundation
for trust to be built among involved parties. However, there were still many barriers that
the members needed to surmount to build effective relationships between grantees and
funders.
14 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
Continuing power differentials between funders and grantees came to the fore when
one of the grantees began to falter financially. The grantmakers felt that an evaluation of
the group was important, and asked a few grantees if they agreed. The grantees, however, did not feel they had room to voice their misgivings. Not understanding the power
dynamics, the grantmakers moved forward with the evaluation, despite simmering bad
feelings among some grantees.
The incident marked a turning point. “It turned into a huge issue. We spent a year
trying to heal those relationships,” one funder recounted. “At every meeting we had
with the grantees, one of the agenda items was about the power dynamic between the
funder and the grantee. It taught us that we weren’t where we thought we were.”
In response, both grantmakers and grantees agreed that grantees needed greater
decision making authority, and together they moved forward with three initiatives.
Grantees did the following:
1. Chose three new members to join the collaborative;
2. Took over the management of a $100,000 technical assistance fund; and
3. Elected two representatives to join a finance committee to review and support
decision making on budgets.
With respect to the technical assistance fund, the grantees decided that this money
would only be provided to projects that were beneficial to multiple members of the
grantee coalition. For example, most of the groups had trouble with media communications strategies, so the grantees used some funding to bring in a consultant to provide
training.
There were several factors that helped the conflict with respect to evaluating the faltering grantee resolve in a satisfactory manner. The first was that individuals were committed enough to the process that they were willing to continue to meet regularly. “We
had trust that no one would walk away,” one funder explained. In addition, there were
several funders who were able to put the conflict into a larger strategic frame. “It was
hugely fortunate that we had a few funders in our midst who were much more knowledgeable about organizing than the rest of us. They were able to make us see that these
organizations were testing not only us, but also their ability to test the funders upon
which they depended. There was a really important process of claiming power that was
going on,” one funder explained.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 15
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
Continued Funding
A mark of how much people valued the endeavor, when the Ford Foundation money
ran out in 2007, both the funder collaborative and the grantee coalition decided to continue their work together. “Everyone understood that the issues we were working on
together, and what we were creating together, was really important,” a member of the
funder collaborative reflected. Subcommittees were formed to support specific topic
areas such as education and fiscal reform, and many members began meeting multiple
times a week as they forged new campaigns together.
“Part of the success of the collaborative was that the organizing was so successful.
People will back a winner,” explained a consultant close to the project.
New funding also poured in to the initiative. “The numbers were quite impressive.
In 2007, we leveraged $2.4 million in new money for grantees, not including the Ford
money. Money being channeled directly from local foundations to grantee coalition
members alone went from $350,000 in 2004 to $1.6 million in 2007. This was new
money. We wanted to be sure that we weren’t just moving money around, but were capturing new money for community organizing.”
Foundations were able to leverage new funding in large part because of the relationships formed as a result of the funder collaborative and the grantee coalition. “Knowing
folks is critical to getting funding. You can’t get funding if you don’t know people. It’s a
relationship-based culture here,” one funder noted. “Without the relationships, funders
would dismiss the work, saying ‘it’s too controversial’ or ‘we don’t get involved in that.’”
The work of the funder collaborative and the grantee coalition also attracted the interest of the Colorado Health Foundation, one of the largest foundations in the state of
Colorado, with assets of $1 billion. “They began to see the role that community organizing could play in the work they were doing,” a funder collaborative member explained.
“A staff member came to our meetings and then did a big presentation to her board.
To have a foundation as well-resourced as the Colorado Health Foundation that understands community organizing at the board level was a game changer for community
organizing in the state.”
In addition, the funder collaborative and the grantee coalition created the groundwork that allowed grantees to capture national funding for their work on education. In
2007, when the nationally-based Public Interest Projects launched an initiative on public
education called Communities for Public Education Reform (CPER), grantees were well
16 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
positioned to capture these funds. “CPER wanted to know that groups had an organizing infrastructure and had high capacity. If we hadn’t had the [grantee coalition in
place] they would not have been picked,” a funder explained. “CPER provided matching
funds of up to $500,000 a year for the grantees.”
Strengthening Partnerships
By the third year of the effort and beyond, grantees were forging new partnerships
among one another, particularly as they discovered ways in which their issue areas
overlapped. One campaign, for example, focused on helping immigrant children go to
college—an issue area that cut across the interests of those groups focused on immigrant
rights, as well as those promoting an education agenda. “There are so many intersections between all these issues. The groups have worked hard to find commonalities between them,” one funder noted.
Over time, members of the PCOC and others formed a forum called the c(3) round
table, which became a strategic space in which grantees could partner with think tanks
and policy focused nonprofits. “The c(3) round table is a place where nonprofits can
come to talk strategically about how to get more involved in public policy,” a funder explained. “Think tanks bring their policy expertise. Community organizers bring their
organizing experience. It’s a way for everyone to work together.”
New partnerships were instrumental in securing a variety of campaign successes. A
few of the most significant wins included: 3
ƒƒ An increase in the state’s minimum wage;
ƒƒ A major legislative rollback of the state’s repressive tax structure allowing critically
needed resources to flow back into higher education, healthcare, and other human
services;
ƒƒ A new Denver Public Schools (DPS) disciplinary policy that reduced the number of
suspensions of students for non-violent acts;
ƒƒ Defeat of an anti-affirmative action ballot measure, which out-of-state opponents
advanced in multiple states. Colorado was the only state to successfully defeat the
measure at the ballot; and
ƒƒ Rejection of three tax-and-debt ballot measures, called the “bad three,” which
would have banned state borrowing, cut school district property taxes, and reduced
3 “Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative: Piton Foundation 2007 Annual Report to the
Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative” (unpublished document, Piton Foundation, 2007),
p. 5.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 17
Case 1:
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative (PCOC)
Colorado’s income tax, measures which some legislative analysts warned would
cost the state $2.1 billion in annual revenue.4
The campaign against the “bad three,” launched in 2010, was a key example of
how groups were partnering in new ways to achieve wins. “Instead of competing over
turf and funding, everyone rolled the initiative out together in a way that was incredibly
effective,” one funder recalled. “For example, they created non-overlapping canvassing
campaigns to distribute literature and put up yard signs.”
In 2010, however, changes at Piton Foundation resulted in loss of staff support for
the funder collaborative with significant repercussions. “Grantees still meet, but the
funders meet much less frequently,” one funder noted, explaining that there were efforts in place to revitalize the collaborative. The lapse pointed to the importance of having an anchor organization or dedicated staff leading the initiative on the ground.
Conclusion
The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative and the Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative were formed in 2004 with a seed grant of $1 million from
the Ford Foundation. Still in existence today, though with more limited participation
since 2010, the funder collaborative and the grantee coalition have been successful in
raising the profile of community organizing in Colorado. Leveraging community organizing has helped grantees in Colorado secure many campaign wins that have helped meet
the needs and interests of low-income communities and disenfranchised populations in
Colorado.
The funder collaborative and the grantee coalition embraced a structural design
that provided both funders and grantees opportunities to strengthen relationships and
build trust. A few of the success factors that helped the initatives succeed included guaranteed funding for grantees, mandatory meetings for both grantees and funders, and
flexibility with respect to when grantees needed to show concrete campaign wins. These
factors helped establish the work as an outstanding example of how funders can work
in partnership with grantees to support community organizing as a successful approach
to creating change at the state and local level.
4 Downloaded from The Huffington Post, 11/3/10, “Colorado Anti-Tax Initiatives Lose Badly,”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/03/colorado-antitax-initiati_n_778292.html
18 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case #2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and
Citywide Organizing
The Neighborhood Opportunities Fund (herein funder collaborative) is a consortium
of private foundations, as well as the community development arms of several banks
in New York City. The collaborative’s primary focus is to help community development
corporations and others transform the New York City neighborhoods, particularly in
support of low-income housing. The Neighborhood Opportunities Fund grew out of an
earlier collaborative called Neighborhood 2000. Housed within the New York Community Trust, Neighborhood 2000 included a mix of local and national foundations, as well
as financial institutions, and focused primarily on building low-income housing units in
New York City.
Fig. 2: Neighborhood
Opportunities Fund,
viewable at larger scale in
the Appendix on page 39.
In 2003, the funder collaborative joined forces with the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (ANHD), a membership organization of New York City
neighborhood housing groups, to launch the Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide
Organizing (INCO). With the funder collaborative providing the financial support, and
ANHD managing the program’s implementation, INCO’s goal has been to strengthen
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 19
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
grassroots leadership and organizing capacity among neighborhood-based housing
groups in New York City. Ultimately, the funder collaborative and ANHD hoped that the
initiative would strengthen the capacity of the groups to win campaigns at the neighborhood and city level in support of affordable housing.
INCO provided two types of support to an initial sixteen housing groups. Over a
four-year period, the initiative, through ANHD, gave each participating organization
$50,000 annually to partially fund the salary of a community organizer. In addition,
ANHD supplemented this funding with technical support including mentoring, campaign development, and strategic planning.
One factor that differentiated INCO from many other funder collaborative programs
was the strong role of the intermediary, ANHD. In addition to being the driving force
behind INCO’s creation, ANHD was the central organizing structure for the initiative. In
fact, ANHD staff, and not grantees, organized most of the campaigns.
In addition, grantees already had standing relationships with one another and with
ANHD before INCO began. All had been active members of ANHD for many years before INCO’s creation, so had already established a relationship of trust with ANHD and
in many instances had pre-existing relationships with one another.
Building Buy-In for the Program
The idea for INCO emerged because ANHD board and staff had grown concerned
that the organizing work in which their members were engaged was not helping to build
a powerful citywide grassroots voice in support of low-income housing. “We hired a
consultant to interview 40 groups. We were trying to figure out what our groups needed
[to increase funding for affordable housing]. The findings of the study were that they
needed capacity building and money to hire grassroots organizers,” recalled one ANHD
staff member.
In the early 2000s, the head of ANHD began dialogues with members of the funder
collaborative to see if there might be an opportunity to fund grassroots organizers.
“Over a period of time, we will show you that community organizing is just as important
as bricks and mortar and building affordable housing,” one ANHD staff member recalled saying.
Engaged in a strategic planning process of its own in the mid-2000s, the timing was
right for the funder collaborative. “ANHD had wanted the funder collaborative to do this
years ago, and we had said no,” one grantmaker recalled.
The conversations ignited the interest of two members of the funder collaborative,
both of whom had extensive experience with community organizing. Gary Hattem of the
Deutsche Bank Foundation and Steven Flax of the M & T Bank both felt that community
organizing could be a win-win for both communities, as well as the banks. In addition
to strengthening neighborhoods, Hattem, Flax, and many of their colleagues believed
that community organizing could play a central role in helping banks protect their in-
20 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
vestments in low-income communities. “If a neighborhood is going down hill, then a
bank’s investments aren’t protected,” explained one funder. “An organized community
that understands its own interests and is fighting for them in terms of better housing
can help protect a bank’s investments. There is a confluence of interests. Community
improvement and preservation in a low-income community can create community stability and community renaissance. That protects a bank’s investment in mortgages in that
community. If organizers get a speed bump put in—that protects the community and also
ensures that no one will be hurt by the building that we have a loan on.”
Often banks were lending in low-income neighborhoods as a requirement of the
Community Reinvestment Act. This piece of legislation required banks to lend in the
low-income neighborhoods where they took deposits. “They are forced to put money
into neighborhoods they might not want to,” explained one individual.
Despite some common interests between bankers and community organizations,
getting the banks within the funder collaborative to embrace INCO was a difficult task.
“Banks were apprehensive about INCO,” Steven Flax explained. “Community organizing wasn’t something most banks were familiar with.” Some were concerned that potential grantees might end up picketing in front of their banks.
The funder collaborative commissioned an evaluation, which also helped spur the
funder discussion regarding community organizing to support affordable housing. This
evaluation revealed a need that community organizing could help fill: many of the community development corporations with which the funder collaborative had been involved
were no longer representative of their communities. Community development corporations, or CDCs, are not-for-profit organizations incorporated to engage in activities,
including providing programs and offering services, that support a community. “The
evaluation showed that the most important thing that was needed was a reinvigoration
of the sense of community, in part because many new immigrants had arrived in the
community. So if you looked at the CDC boards you might see that the boards were all
African-American when 75 per cent of the community was Guatemalan,” explained a
consultant to the funder collaborative.
“The funder collaborative was ripe for a change, and ANHD did a good sales pitch,”
Steven Flax recalled. “We bought into it using the information from the evaluation,
which added richness to the dialogue.”
In addition, both Steven Flax and Gary Hattem brought gravitas that was essential
to bringing other funders on board. “Gary did a lot of the heavy lifting,” Steven Flax
recalled. “Gary is a strong personality with a lot of money and runs a world class institution. Gary and I had also done community organizing in Brooklyn, so people saw that
we had more than a theoretical understanding. We were talking about funding organizations we had worked at. The combination of having a banker’s hat, money to throw in,
and a deep understanding of the issues helped bring other people on board.”
While some members of the funder collaborative remained apprehensive, the
fact that they would be providing funding with partners also helped to ease concerns.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 21
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
“People were willing to take the risk as long as they had the cover of all the other banks.
Doing it in collaboration with a bunch of others gave them cover if it blew up,” a consultant for the effort recalled.
Another initiative, launched with INCO in 2004, helped build support for INCO
among the funding community. The Strategic Neighborhood Initiative (SNI) funded the
construction of low-income housing units. “Gary’s genius was seeing how both INCO
and SNI could be contained within the funder collaborative, and that this would give the
banks a greater level of comfort,” one banker explained. “They could be giving both to
the organizing work of INCO, as well as the bricks and mortar work of SNI.”
Establishing an Advisory Group to Select Grantees
The funder collaborative established an advisory group for INCO, which was in
charge of determining grantees. The advisory group had three types of representatives—
self-selected grantmakers who channeled money through NOF, self-selected funders who
funded ANHD directly, and individuals with whom grantmakers had prior relationships
who had expertise in housing and community organizing.
ANHD was not part of the selection committee. NOF and ANHD decided that removing ANHD from the selection process would help ANHD maintain strong relationships with its members. Individuals within NOF and ANHD were concerned that, if
ANHD showed partiality to some of its members, ANHD would erode member trust.
Ultimately, however, ANHD did play an important role in determining the grantees.
“ANHD fought hard for the groups they wanted,” one individual noted adding that the
ANHD voice was important because the organization was supporting the groups and
knew who the players were.
At times ANHD experienced tension with both the funders and the grantees because of the discrepancy between the articulated role of ANHD and its actual role with
respect to choosing grantees. “There wasn’t enough transparency in what the process
was going to be. I think it would have been better to tell people that ANHD was going
to make recommendations, and that the funders were going to be able to approve these
recommendations. ANHD’s role was sometimes confusing to funders as well as grantees,” one individual noted.
Establishing Criteria for Grantee Selection
INCO’s advisory group, together with ANHD, used several screening criteria to ensure that the grantees would use the money to build strong citywide campaigns fueled
by community organizing. They sought grantees that had:
ƒƒ Strong organizing capacity in the form of staff;
ƒƒ An authentic interest in and potential to do citywide and borough-wide organizing;
22 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
ƒƒ A history with or interest in actively engaging in ANHD campaigns and advocacy
efforts; and
ƒƒ A track record of successful advocacy efforts.
The advisory team, together with ANHD, decided to show flexibility with respect to
their criteria. They chose to fund some groups that had strong potential, but that were
not yet actively engaged in community organizing or citywide organizing. “We decided
to fund a range of groups because we wanted to move the whole movement in the city
forward,” an ANHD staff person explained. They showed particular flexibility with
respect to CDCs, given that CDC’s primary mission was generally to build houses and
provide services, not to organize communities. ANHD could then provide technical support to members to strengthen their community organizing.
Fostering Collaboration between Grantees
INCO incorporated several structural elements to foster collaboration between
grantees. These included a commitment to multi-year funding (though funding was not
guaranteed), regular meetings and often choosing grantees that had prior experience
working together.
While the funder collaborative had a commitment to long-term funding, the grantees had to demonstrate that they were making progress before the collaborative would
renew funding. Grantees needed to create a workplan for the year and then show that
they had met their goals in order for checks to be released.
Many grantees were grateful that the funder collaborative played the role of honest broker, which helped them to feel a greater sense of equity. “The funders decided
to defund a couple of groups. In one case, the grantee acknowledged that they weren’t
meeting their self-identified goals. In another case, the group wasn’t able or willing to
participate in collective campaign work. That was relatively rare, and it was a last, last
step. That heightened trust because groups that were working hard could see that others who weren’t were let go,” an ANHD staff person reflected.
At the same time, the funder collaborative demonstrated a clear intention to provide
long-term funding to grantees that showed that they were meeting their goals, which
helped build collaboration and trust between the groups. Secure funding reduced com-
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 23
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
petition between the participating organizations, and helped grantees develop a cohort
of staff members that were learning and working together.
In addition, the long-term funding showed grantees that ANHD and the funder collaborative were truly committed to the process. “People were being asked to hire new
staff. You can’t do that unless you know you are going to have money for the next year.
People needed to be able to plan,” one ANHD staff person explained.
Regularly scheduled meetings between the grantees also helped to build relationships, and a feeling that they were part of a cohort. Initially these meetings were monthly, and then bimonthly. By the third year, once stronger relationships had developed
between the grantees, the formal meetings became quarterly with many grantees in
contact on a more regular basis through informal meetings, a listserve, and phone calls.
Building Campaigns
INCO required grantees to work together on campaigns within the first year of the
initiative. This model was successful due to two primary factors.
First, there was already a degree of trust between many of the INCO grantee members, as well as between the grantees and ANHD, prior to the initiative forming. This
trust was due to the fact that, as part of ANHD, the players already had experience
working together. Because relationships had already been formed, groups could quickly
begin to collaborate successfully.
In addition, ANHD played a strong centralized function in organizing the campaigns. Many grantees, in fact, worked together primarily by providing participants to
partake in campaigns organized by ANHD. Therefore, the relationships did not have to
be as strong as they might have been had the groups been tasked with mounting joint
campaigns without the support of ANHD. Stronger collaborations between groups,
outside of the more structured relationship with ANHD, eventually did occur. However,
these happened “more organically over time,” explained a consultant working on the
project.
This centralized function, while pivotal to INCO’s success, also caused some tension
between ANHD and grantees. “The debate over decision making in citywide campaigns
was arguably one of the most vexing for INCO,” wrote Neil Carlson in Strengthening
Housing Organizing in New York City.5 “On the one hand, an ideal grassroots model
would have local leaders defining issues, running campaigns, and meeting with decision makers. On the other hand, there are some citywide issues […] that require fast,
5 Neil Carlson, Strengthening Housing Organizing in New York City: Initiative for Neighborhood
and Citywide Organizing Final Report (New York City: Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing,
July, 2008), p. 15.
24 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
centralized decision making — a role that INCO often assumed.”6 While most grantees
accepted the trade off, one grantee noted that there should have been more explicit conversations regarding how decisions were made.7
Grantees ultimately chose only one or two campaigns around which to organize,
and this focused strategy proved to be important. “Initially we had the groups choose
what they wanted to work on,” one ANHD staff member recalled. “Each group had
their own campaign and then ANHD tried to help these groups work together on all the
campaigns. It was an absolute failure. The sum was not bigger than the parts. So we decided to have the groups choose two campaigns and mandate that most of the grantees
work on them. We realized that the collective goals couldn’t be too diverse. In New York
City to make things happen you need to have a lot of power and coordination—and that
meant focus.”
Technical support including leadership development and training in how to organize
effectively, which built capacity at the local level, also proved to be an essential part of
the model. “INCO was great for local leaders,” one organizer said. “My leaders were
totally transformed. They went into the training hesitant and doubtful of their own abilities, but they came back with concrete skills, ready to step up and lead.”8
Some grantees, however, felt that the way that technical support was provided could
have been improved. For example, many trainings targeted those new to community organizing, which at times frustrated more seasoned organizers. “I think INCO has to be
clear about what they are offering, and from what level of staff,” noted one organizer.9
“Too many of the workshops were for people who are just entering organizing, which is
not helpful for experienced organizers. Another organizer added, “It would be great to
have a menu of services that grantees could choose from.”10
Successes
Many of the grantees funded by INCO transformed their organizing model as a result of working with INCO. “A lot of the groups, particularly the newer ones, had been
focused on creating tenant associations that were focused only on their building—forcing landlords to fix repairs in the building, for example,” an ANHD staff person noted.
“The funder collaborative and ANHD helped more groups to focus on citywide campaigns by giving them money for community organizers, by providing capacity-building
6Ibid.
7Ibid.
8
Ibid, p. 11.
9
Ibid, p. 11.
10 Ibid, p. 11.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 25
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
to transform their organizing model in fundamental ways, and through helping organize
big citywide campaigns.”
As a result of their involvement with INCO, many grantees also began to collaborate
with one another in new ways. “Before INCO, there were very few times that we collaborated with groups that didn’t directly serve our neighborhoods,” one grantee explained.
“Since INCO we have been working with a much broader range of organizations, and
we are having a lot more impact.”
Strengthened grantees were then able to work with partners and provide critical
support for citywide housing campaigns. In particular, INCO grantees supported campaigns by mobilizing constituencies to show up at public hearings, rallies and other
significant organizing events. They were also instrumental in helping generate media
coverage of events.
By 2008 the grantee members of INCO, working together with ANHD and other
partners had contributed to securing several wins in New York. Four victories, in which
grantees played important roles, had significantly changed city housing policy11:
ƒƒ A campaign focused on inclusionary zoning helped ensure rezoning plans for
Manhattan’s Far West Side and Brooklyn’s Williamsburg/Greenpoint neighborhoods, which included tax and building incentives expected to generate roughly
6,900 affordable units (though some felt that these units were not sufficiently
low in cost to support low-income families).
ƒƒ Efforts in support of targeted cyclical inspections secured an agreement with
the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development to create a
mechanism for ongoing inspections of the city’s worst buildings. In addition,
new enforcement measures were instituted against owners that refused to make
repairs. The program guaranteed repairs to 7,200 apartments per year.
ƒƒ Campaign work helped to force the city to make good on a historic promise to
use revenues from the Battery Park City Authority for low-income housing, an
act that generated $130 million to build and preserve affordable housing over a
four-year period.12
ƒƒ INCO and ANHD spearheaded a campaign that helped to pass Local Law 7, New
York City’s new Tenant Protection Act, which gives tenants stronger protections
against landlord harassment.
These wins came about in part because grassroots organizing, spurred by the community organizers funded by INCO, had made housing issues a hot political issue. “To
win victories like this, you need to be organized, have sympathetic allies in government,
11 Ibid, foreword.
12 Ibid, p. 4.
26 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 2:
Initiative for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing
and you need to be lucky. Without the organizing, though, the rest doesn’t matter,” one
organizer noted.13
In addition, these campaign wins, combined with the exposure the funder collaborative provided other foundations to community organizing, helped grantees raise new
funds for housing and tenant organizing in New York City. By 2008, grantees had raised
over $1.5 million in new funding, both from New York City government and from foundations not involved with the funder collaborative.
Many of the individual members of the funder collaborative also transformed their
thinking with respect to community organizing due to their involvement. “INCO became
the darling of the funder collaborative,” one individual noted. “The fear of organizing
really receded among many members.”
In a few instances, such as in the case of M & T, INCO’s success influenced the
member institutions more broadly. “After INCO launched, M & T decided that our
strategic focus for our charitable contributions program for New York City would be
community organizing for a two-year period. That was about $750,000,” one funder explained.
The work has changed how grantees work together. “We’ve formed new partnerships among ANHD members, and these would continue even if the funding were discontinued,” one grantee explained. At the same time, this individual noted that, if funding were to stop, this would negatively affect his organization’s ability to maintain strong
ties with its base. “The INCO money is a huge support. If it were to end, it would put at
risk a lot of the work we have done with the communities,” he noted.
Conclusion
The Neighborhood Opportunities Fund established the Initiative for Neighborhood
and Citywide Organizing (INCO) in collaboration with the Association for Neighborhood
and Housing Development (ANHD). The effort has strengthened local and citywide organizing in support of low-income housing throughout New York City, and achieved a
number of significant victories in the fight to build and preserve affordable housing and
the accountability of landlords to their tenants.
Several factors contributed to the success of the initiative. Multi-year funding and
mandatory meetings for grantees helped to strengthen trust and partnerships between
the groups. In addition, the centralized role that ANHD played allowed grantees to work
quickly and effectively together. At the same time this centralized function at times
caused tension between ANHD and grantees with grantees wanting greater control of
the campaign process. These and other factors helped the initiative fuel significant wins
in support of low-income housing in New York City.
13 Ibid, p. 4.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 27
Case #3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative
of New York
The Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York (herein DEC or funder collaborative) is a partnership of 27 foundations and donors, which supports policy reform aimed
at making the New York City public school system more equitable and responsive to
the needs of all children. The collaborative focuses considerable resources on helping
develop an informed and organized constituency of parents, educators, businesses and
community leaders that can advocate on behalf of systemic reform of the school system.
Fig. 3: Donors Education
Collaborative, viewable at
larger scale in the Appendix
on page 40.
The impetus behind the funder collaborative grew out of a meeting in the early
1990s between several foundation presidents—that of the Rockefeller Foundation, the
Ford Foundation, the New York Community Trust, the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and
28 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
the JP Morgan Charitable Trust. “They got together because the city was going through
a bad financial period, and it was hurting the city, including the school system,” Norma
Rollins, a consultant for the collaborative, recalled. “They wanted to find a way to respond.”
The presidents met for two years before deciding that the focus of their joint efforts
would be to increase public support for New York City’s public schools. One collaborative member recalled, “One reason that they chose education was that when people
picked up the paper the only thing they saw were horror stories about the schools.
There had been huge budget cuts, yet there was no public dialogue. A role for civil society wasn’t prevalent.” The founders of the funder collaborative believed that they could
help build a network of New Yorkers that could act as advocates for the city’s public
schools.
The founders also decided that the focus would not be on direct services. “Some had
tried this approach and found that as soon as their private funding would stop, the program would stop, so they wanted to do something together in a way that focused on the
notion that the work required an empowered constituency that would create change,”
Rollins noted. “They felt that if you could create a wave of public support and a push for
that then you could really create important change.”
Housed at the New York Community Trust, the Ford Foundation spearheaded funding with an initial grant of $1 million. “Ford set the tone that this was going to be big
money,” Rollins explained. The foundations felt that, given the complexity of the New
York public school system, only significant funding levels and large grants to nonprofits
would have the kind of impact that they were seeking.
Creating the Donors Education Collaborative
With the basic frame in place, senior staff in each of the foundations worked on
operationalizing the plan. Initially their focus was on concretizing the goals of the program, determining the governance structure, and identifying grantees. In determining
how to move forward, they were guided by three principles—collaboration, flexibility,
and participation.14
The funders decided that any foundation could join if they contributed $25,000.15
The minimum contribution was placed high enough to be a real commitment, but low
enough to attract smaller foundations.
The foundation representatives determined that all applicants needed to include several key variables in their proposals, which included:
14 Ann MacKinnon, Working Together to Achieve Greater Impact: The Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York City (New York: Grantmakers for Education, April 2006), p. 6.
15 Ibid., p. 6.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 29
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
ƒƒ Building the public constituencies that would advocate for a stronger public
school system;
ƒƒ Policy research that would provide arguments for enhanced support of the
school system;
ƒƒ Advocacy in support of the public school system; and
ƒƒ Partner organizations.
Funders required applicants to apply with at least one other organization for several
reasons. Funders felt that the most effective organizing models were ones that blended
community organizing, advocacy, and policy research. Yet few organizations used all
three approaches. By mandating partnerships, applicants could draw on the strengths of
each partner to meet application requirements. Funders also felt that collaboration was
essential to strengthening the education movement.
Determining the Voting Structure
The funder collaborative chose a governance structure of one vote per funder, regardless of the amount of money provided. The one stipulation was that a member had
to read an applicant’s proposal in order to be allowed to vote.
The voting structure was an important component of the collaborative’s success. “It
was really helpful in getting everyone to work together,” Rollins noted. “There has been
a real sense of collegiality because people feel that this is something that everyone has
a voice in. One foundation, one vote is a symbol of that and encourages the sense the
everyone had an equal stake.”
In addition, the voting structure gave those providing larger dollars political cover.
“The Ford Foundation was playing a huge leadership role. They had funded an education initiative in New York in the ‘60s that had blown up and Ford was implicated. Ford
needed to be able to support in a way that didn’t put them out in front,” one funder
noted.
In reality, however, those with more money did at times have a stronger voice in
decision-making. “If a large foundation really wanted something, it happened,” Rollins
recalled. In most cases grants were passed by consensus, but when there was a vote, if a
large foundation made a strong argument then people on the fence would just go with it.
There is a certain amount of influence that comes from having a lot of money.”
30 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
Choosing Initial Grantees
The grantmakers decided to send the request for proposals to roughly 1,000 groups
in order to help stimulate engagement by new organizations in the issue. Yet despite
wide dissemination, they received back only 39 proposals. “I told potential applicants
that if you can’t show us how you are going to meet all our criteria then there is no point
in applying,” Rollins recalled of why so few organizations applied. She also noted at the
time there was a dearth of organizations working on these issues.
Of the 39 proposals received, only a few looked like they had the potential to be
funded. “Most of the proposals were terrible. They weren’t well conceived,” Rollins explained.
In response, the funder collaborative decided to provide nine planning grants. Applicants had one year to develop a more comprehensive proposal. Of these, the funder
collaborative gave four multi-year implementation grants, each which included funding
for two or more organizations.16
Rollins noted that the multi-year grants were vital to the success of the initiative.
“Many of these organizations were starting new projects. We didn’t want them to have
to worry about starting a new project for just a year and then not having funding for it.”
As part of the selection process, Rollins would organize the funders into panels
with each panel assigned eight proposals. This process ensured that all the proposals were read, and created greater uniformity in results across proposals. “I never let
people choose the proposals they wanted to read because then they would already be
influencing the results. I would ask them to abstain from reading any proposal they had
a preconceived notion about. I also wanted the same sets of eyes to see the same sets of
proposals. If five funders all read the same sets of proposals, then if there was a funder
who was always negative, he or she would be negative across all the proposals.” Once
funders had voted on the proposals they had read, then other individuals from within
DEC who were not on the panel had the opportunity to voice any additional thoughts.
Providing Technical Support
The funder collaborative also contracted Chapin Hall, an independent policy research center at the University of Chicago, to act as evaluators for the effort, a component of the initiative, which proved vital to its success. Initially, Chapin Hall supported
the planning grants by helping grantees develop a theory of change and benchmarks
that would indicate whether they were having success. Once the implementation grants
were underway, they became more traditional evaluators. “They were always asking the
16 Ann MacKinnon, Working Together to Achieve Greater Impact: The Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York City (New York: Grantmakers for Education, April 2006), p. 2.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 31
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
grantees, ‘Why?’” Rollins recalled. “If they had a big rally in front of city hall, they’d
ask ‘Why?’ or ‘How is this going to lead you where you want to go? Did this accomplish
what you wanted? Would you use the same strategy the next time?’ It was really technical support for them.” Of the technical support role Chapin Hall played, Rollins reflected, “If we had been funding groups to do what they already did well, then it would have
been best to just let them do it—give them the money and leave them alone. But because
we were pushing them to break out of a mold, they needed to have a stronger support
function.” Grantees typically found the role of Chapin Hall to be extremely useful to
their planning processes.
In addition to Chapin Hall, the members of the collaborative wanted to provide
other kinds of technical assistance support. At first the founders contracted consultants
and told grantees that they could use them up to a certain number of days. However,
often the grantees did not feel the consultants were useful. Soon the collaborative members realized that grantees, of their own initiative, were going to the Annenberg Institute
for School Reform for support. “We realized we needed to find out from the groups
what they needed and who they were using, instead of providing them with consultants
we’d contracted,” Rollins recalled. In response, the funder collaborative decided to provide funding to the Annenberg Institute, which then became a more official channel of
support to grantees and others in the field.
Building Collaboration
One key funder goal was to enhance collaboration between potential grantees. Several tools were used to further this goal, including requiring that all applicants apply in
partnership with at least one other organization, providing stable funding over time, and
using convening power to bring together grantees and others in the education field.
The strategy of mandating that organizations submit joint proposals had moderate
success. “Usually these partnerships were successful when there was a good match of
competencies and leadership styles,” one funder recalled. This grantmaker noted that
often the partnerships brought together a research institute with a community organizing group. Ultimately, this individual also pointed out, the most critical factor in ensuring a successful partnership was that “each group respected what the other brought to
the table.”
Not all the partnerships, however, were successful. “You had some shotgun marriages and there were partnerships that didn’t go very far,” a consultant to the project explained. “The funder collaborative tried to organize meetings, and I think some of these
meetings were a little tense.” At times, partners jockeyed among each other for credit,
clashed over how to develop and implement campaigns, and diminished one another’s
contributions. “In one case, the organization became a pass through where one group
32 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
did one thing, and another group did another thing,” one funder noted. “The sum was
not bigger than the parts.”
While in most cases organizations chose their own partners, in one instance the
members of the funder collaborative asked two applicants to work together, an arrangement which proved unsuccessful. “We had two proposals on the same issue, so we told
the groups they needed to work together. It was a disaster. It was like having two siblings who didn’t like each other come to the breakfast table. They just developed their
own lines of work. We’d get two separate reports clipped together,” Rollins recalled. “In
hindsight, I realized that if they had wanted to work together, they would have applied
together. It’s not like they were strangers. It’s never a good idea to force groups to work
together that haven’t chosen to work together.”
The funder collaborative also convened meetings and brown bag lunches, which
had moderate impact on grantees’ ability to form partnerships. “We held brown bag
lunches. People started going to these meetings so they got to know one another,” a consultant on the project explained. However, one funder noted, “that alone didn’t get them
to do things together.”
The most important tool in establishing grantee partnerships proved to be stable
funding. Long-term funding “created a setting where grantees could form trusting relationships, a cohort of sorts,” explained a consultant who worked for the funder collaborative. In addition, the sustained funding helped build the capacity of the organizations, which gave them greater ability to reach out to one another and form alliances.
Smoothing Bumps in the Road
One area of difficulty for the collaborative was bringing on board new members
once grantees had been chosen. “If we were lucky enough to have people come on when
they were choosing grantees, that was the best. Then they participated, but otherwise
it was harder,” Rollins recalled. To support new members, often Rollins would meet
individually with them to give a briefing on the collaborative. In one instance, three new
funders decided to write a paper together on the accomplishments of the grantees. This
process helped to incorporate them into the collaborative by familiarizing them with the
grantees, and gave them greater credibility with existing collaborative members.
The clear focus of the collaborative helped to bridge occasional challenges among
the members. “The funder collaborative has had very clear goals,” a consultant to the
collaborative noted. “When there have been disagreements, what’s been helpful has
been to go back and say, ‘What is our mission?’ and ‘How will this decision align with
our mission?’ It’s helped us to prioritize.”
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 33
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
Successes
As the fifth year came to a close in 2001, the funders decided to continue the initiative. “At the fifth year, there was a lot of movement happening and a lot of success stories,” Rollins recalled. “Many groups were coming into their own and having influence
at the state level. So Ford said, ‘I don’t think we should end. Here’s another million.
So then others said, ‘I’m in. I’m in.’ It always takes a powerful deep pocket voice to say
they are in, and then others come in as well.”
By 2011 the funder collaborative had invested nearly $14 million in organizations
across New York, and these millions of dollars played a critical role in strengthening key
organizations in the field.17 “When we came together in 1996, there was no field. The
field of organizing and constituency building for education did not exist. Helping build
key coalition groups affecting change in New York City was a monumental task. Today,
no one would guess that these grantee coalitions were fairly new because they are so
effective,” Rollins explained of how far the funder collaborative had helped to move the
field. For example, the funder collaborative’s work helped foster the Community Collaborative to Improve Bronx Schools and the Brooklyn Education Collaborative, both
of which became key components of the Coalition for Educational Justice, an umbrella
organization that has spearheaded key campaigns in support of public education in New
York City. In addition, organizations such as the New York Immigration Coalition, which
had previously not focused on education, had become leaders in shaping education
policy throughout the state.18
These coalitions were also, in part due to the funder collaborative, partnering with
academics and others to achieve major wins in New York City. The Coalition for Educational Justice, for example, led a campaign together with policy focused partners aimed
at increasing investment and reform in middle school education. “[The funder collaborative] support allowed us to do major public mobilizations, two major policy reports,
and develop a broad consensus among elected officials, advocates and academics that
the reform was essential,” one grantee explained. “The reports had a tremendous impact on debate in New York City. This was a great example of the funder collaborative
bringing together community organizers and academics to get everyone on the same
page and working together.” The efforts led to a Middle School Success fund of almost
$30 million to support comprehensive reform in low performing middle grade schools
citywide.
17 New York Community Trust, “Donors’ Education Collaborative,” http://www.nycommunitytrust.
org/AboutTheTrust/FunderCollaboratives/DonorsEducationCollaborative/tabid/396/Default.aspx
18Ibid.
34 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Case 3:
Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York
The funder collaborative’s sustained funding of key grantees also helped them to
secure other significant wins. These included the following:19
ƒƒ In 2007 the New York State legislature approved a bill calling for an increase in education spending, which promised to bring $7 billion annually
in additional funding.
ƒƒ In 2006, state financing was approved for an $11 billion capital plan to
build new schools and modernize existing facilities;
ƒƒ The City Department of Education adopted more proactive policies on interpretation so that immigrant parents could become more involved in their
children’s education; and
ƒƒ The New York legislature approved a new fair and simple “foundation funding formula” to distribute school aid based on student need instead of politics.
“The collaborative was really bigger than the sum of its parts,” one grantee reflected. “The joint funding meant that you had a lot of money being channeled in support
of a common strategic vision that really altered the education reform landscape in New
York City. If you are trying to achieve city wide change you can’t have a bunch of funders
all working independently. They need to pool their resources.”
Conclusion
Several prominent foundations based in New York City established the Donors’
Education Collaborative (DEC) in 1996 to strengthen public participation in the education debate in New York City. By 2010 that mission had been realized on several fronts
and grantees had secured significant wins that had improved the New York educational
system.
Several factors helped to support these successes. Multi-year grants were critical in
helping to forge collaboration between organizations across the city, and technical assistance supported grantee efforts to forge new programs and initiatives. Within the collaborative, a system of one vote per foundation, regardless of the amount of money provided, helped create a collegial atmosphere. In addition, clear collaborative goals helped
to bridge differences between grantmakers. Through a well-thought out framework, the
Donors’ Education Collaborative has proved to be a key driver in building an infrastructure of constituencies advocating for school reform.
19Ibid.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 35
Lessons Learned
The three case studies together provide valuable insights for those interested in starting collaboratives, particularly those focused on community organizing and building grassroots power. Several success factors span across the cases.
Strong leadership by one or more individuals or foundations played a critical role in convening
each funder collaborative. These point people included individuals who: a) could commit significant dollars to the effort; b) knew the subject matter; and c) had strong relationships with other
funders. In one case, a well respected funder used a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation to
attract funders to join a collaborative in support of community organizing in Colorado. In another,
a nonprofit was able to attract the attention of two funders, with both subject matter expertise and
significant financial assets, to commit to the effort, and these funders were then able to galvanize
other grantmakers. In the final case, the collaborative was convened as a result of a meeting of five
presidents of established foundations.
Once convened, success was the most common ingredient that kept funders coming back to the
table. Each funder collaborative began as an effort with a clear ending date. However, in all cases,
when this date arrived, funders saw that their support was generating results on the ground and decided to commit additional funding to continue the work. All three of the funder collaboratives are
still in existence today.
All three funder collaboratives hoped to strengthen partnerships between organizations in the
field, though at times used different tools to attain this goal. Different strategies for encouraging collaboration among grantees included:
ƒƒ Providing long-term funding;
ƒƒ Requiring participation, including of senior staff, at meetings;
ƒƒ Offering optional learning forums to bring together grantees; and
ƒƒ Requiring that funding applicants apply with at least one other organization.
In all cases, the most critical factor in supporting the development of new relationships was
long-term funding. In two cases, in their initial years long-term grants were provided with an option
to renew. In the other case, funding was renewed annually as long as grantees had shown reasonable effort in achieving their stated goals. A sense of security with respect to funding helped build a
feeling of being part of a cohort among grantees, and reduced the feelings of competition that often
keep nonprofits from working effectively together. In addition, the long-term funding helped build
the capacity of many grantees—and as organizations grew together they were more likely to partner
with one another.
Two of the three funder collaboratives required that grantees meet regularly. In one case, executive directors needed to be in attendance. These meetings created a context that allowed grantees
to get to know one another. In both cases, the meetings helped form cohorts. In one case, because
executive directors were in dialogue, they organically found ways to partner with one another on
projects and campaigns.
36 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Lessons Learned
The third funder collaborative offered optional learning forums, and these had some success in
helping build new relationships. One grantee supported by this collaborative noted that he would
have liked to see more opportunities for cross-fertilization of ideas through additional convenings.
In one case, the funder collaborative required that applicants apply with a partner organization.
Because the field was new, this meant that groups typically were applying with organizations with
whom they had not previously worked. In some cases, this worked well with new partnerships established as a result. In other cases, however, asking groups to forge relationships quickly and artificially led to difficulties that were not surmountable.
None of the funder collaboratives had strong conflict resolution mechanisms, and this at times
caused problems for the collaboratives. In most cases, the funder collaboratives were not fully prepared when conflict arose, but the strength of the relationships that had been built helped them to
resolve their issues. In one case a significant conflict erupted and the important variable in resolving the concern was that people were committed to the process and were willing to stay in dialogue
until issues were resolved.
All three funder collaboratives pointed to technical support such as strategic planning, campaign development and communications support as a critical element in their overall strategy. Often
funder collaboratives were asking grantees to take on new types of programming, and technical assistance became a critical component of helping ensure their success. In one case, a common pool
of funding for technical support gave groups an opportunity to work together on small-scale efforts,
which later led to collaboration on campaigns.
All three collaboratives had significant staffing requirements. Time intensive activities included
convening meetings, organizing site visits, managing communication and defining strategy. In two
cases, an outside consultant was contracted to meet staffing needs. In addition, in two cases a staff
member of a participating organization provided considerable support to the funder collaborative to
ensure the smooth operation of the effort.
Conclusion
The three case studies highlighted in this report were all successful in building their fields of
interest in significant ways. The Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative strengthened
community organizing in Denver and beyond—which led to wins in several areas including in support of education, healthcare and a higher minimum wage in Colorado. The Neighborhood Opportunities Fund helped to grow community organizations that significantly changed housing policies in New York City in support of low-income housing. And the Donors’ Education Collaborative
helped to organize and strengthen a rich network of organizations engaging parents, teachers and
the general public in ensuring a strong educational system in New York.
Together, the three collaboratives provide rich lessons for how to effectively fund community organizing initiatives. Empowering grantees, long-term funding, strong technical support, and steady
leadership by grantmakers that could provide significant financial support were a few of the success
factors that enabled these collaboratives to support efforts that changed the landscape in their cities
of focus and beyond.
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 37
Appendix:
Colorado Organizing Collaboratives [Fig. 1, p. 11]
38 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Appendix:
Neighborhood Opportunities Fund [Fig. 2, p. 19]
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 39
Appendix:
Donors Education Collaborative [Fig. 3, p. 28]
40 Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives
Bibliography
Donors’ Education Collaborative
Janice Hirota, Robin Jacobowitz and Prudence Brown, The Donors’ Education Collaborative: Strategies for Systemic School Reform (Chicago: Chapin Hall, 2000).
Janice Hirota, Robin Jacobowitz and Prudence Brown, Pathways to School Reform:
Integrating Constituency Building and Policy Work (Chicago: Chapin Hall, 2004).
Ann MacKinnon, Working Together to Achieve Greater Impact: The Donors’ Education Collaborative of New York City (New York: Grantmakers for Education, April
2006).
Neighborhood Opportunities Fund
Neil Carlson, The Making of a Movement: How Organizing is Transforming Housing in New York City: An INCO Organizing Case Study (New York City: Initiative
for Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing, November, 2005).
Neil Carlson, Strengthening Housing Organizing in New York City: Initiative for
Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing Final Report (New York City: Initiative for
Neighborhood and Citywide Organizing, July, 2008).
Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative
Piton Foundation, “Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative: Piton Foundation 2007 Annual Report to the Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative” (unpublished document, Piton Foundation, 2007).
Piton Foundation, “Colorado Community Organizing Collaborative: Piton Foundation 2004 Annual Report to the Philanthropic Community Organizing Collaborative” (unpublished document, Piton Foundation, 2004).
Piton Foundation, “Proposal for the Ford Foundation’s Fund for Community Organizing” (unpublished document, Piton Foundation, June, 2004).
Community Organizing and Advocacy Funders Collaboratives 41
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