Building Capacity for Grantmaker Education Overview

The Forum of Regional Associations has engaged in a major initiative to build the capacity of its 32 member organizations to provide professional education to grantmakers around the country.   This work will be funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation from July 2006-December 2008.

As the number of foundations has increased over the past 25 years, regional associations have played a significant role in providing educational opportunities for grantmakers. We define grantmaker education in the broadest way to include programming for trustees, staff, CEOs, donors, and corporations.   The Forum’s ultimate outcome in its grantmaker education work is that all grantmakers practice more effective grantmaking, which results in greater impact and community benefit. 

Our vision for this work is that “philanthropy is more effective and rewarding because all participants are engaged in continuous learning and reflection, and because regional associations and our partners are fulfilling our potential as resources for this activity.”  We will strive to accomplish this long-term vision through the achievement of the following outcomes: 

  • The philanthropic field has an increased understanding of key educational components of effective grantmaking.
  • Grantmakers have more access to high quality educational programming based on common curricula.
  • There is increased collaboration among philanthropic organizations to leverage knowledge and resources.
  • Regional associations have an increased capacity to provide consistent, high quality programming and reach more unaffiliated grantmakers.

The Forum’s Role
Collectively regional associations of grantmakers are the largest deliverers of grantmaker education in the U.S.  A regional association fulfills a unique position in the community, state, or region that it serves.  It is the place where grantmakers from all different types of foundations and giving vehicles come together to learn, discuss, connect, and reflect upon issues and concerns of direct relevance to their community.  Through regionally-sponsored funder networks, grantmakers can better understand important, challenging problems and combine their resources to meet community needs.  Regional associations readily combine an issue focus within a place-based context and much of their educational programming reflects this approach.

The Forum is uniquely positioned to provide leadership for this national effort to significantly increase grantmakers’ access to a wide range of high-quality educational programs and related resources.  This work will be guided by the Grantmaker Education Task Force, which is currently chaired by Judie Donaldson of Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania and Vicki Rosenberg of the Council of Michigan Foundations.  Individuals from regional associations, philanthropic infrastructure funders, philanthropic partner organizations, leading grantmaker education providers, and field analysts will be invited to serve as advisors, and sometimes partners and collaborators, on this work.

Project Plan
The activities that the Forum has determined will be most effective in reaching these outcomes are to:

1) Create and promote an educational framework describing the essential skills and capacities of effective grantmakers.  The creation of this framework is the first, key step in guiding this work so that we can make informed decisions about programming priorities. 

2) Overlay the scan of current programming onto the educational framework to determine areas of need. By using the educational framework in combination with the Forum’s 2006 scan of all grantmaker educational programs in the U.S., we will be able to determine where the gaps of programming are and to make a plan on how to fill those gaps. 

3) Create strategic partnerships with curriculum developers to fill in gaps.  We intend to establish and coordinate strategic partnerships with curriculum developers and other grantmaker education providers in order to take better advantage of their strong educational programs.

4) Regrant to regional associations to develop, create (in partnership with curriculum developers), and test replicable programming at various sized regional associations. The Forum will regrant $170,000 through a competitive process to regional associations beginning in the second quarter of 2007 to work with curriculum developers and partners to design, redesign, refine, and/or transfer educational programming. 

5) Create a system of measurable outcomes using a common evaluation approach for grantmaker education programs.  A macro-level evaluation will provide an overall assessment of the impact of this work over the next three years. A micro-level evaluation is intended to be a mechanism to collect and aggregate data about the specifics of the new programming across the regional associations and its impact on grantmakers. 

6) Develop annual programming on key topics that is delivered through the regional associations via teleconferences or Web seminars.  Rather than having each regional association develop its own programming on important universal topics, the Forum will develop a series of six teleconferences and/or Web seminars targeted to grantmakers nationwide in both 2007 and 2008. 

7) Provide a distribution and discussion network by developing a coordinated approach of distributing key research, thought papers, and educational content on effective philanthropy to communities across the country.  The Forum’s new Web Knowledgebase (to be launched in early 2007), shared by all regional associations in the U.S., will make important, high quality information available to all grantmaker members of regional associations.