Ask Your Question to Duncan, King and Walcott!

Published May 14, 2012 Commentaries , Site News 2 Comments
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For the first time ever in a public setting, Philanthropy New York is bringing together U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, New York State Education Commissioner John B. King and New York City Chancellor Dennis Walcott for a discussion about the intersections of national, state and local reform and the role that philanthropy can play. This panel discussion will be the centerpiece of Philanthropy New York’s 33rd Annual Meeting on June 4, 2012 (#PNYmeet).

WNYC’s education correspondent Beth Fertig will moderate the session and we want you to join us in developing the questions for the panel!
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Big Gaps in the Big Apple: Measuring Well-Being in the New York Metro Area

Published May 10, 2012 Program Recaps 1 Comment
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By Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis, Co-Directors,
Measure of America

What does well-being and opportunity look like in the New York metropolitan area? The typical Asian-American resident of the New York Metro Area lives over 9 years longer and has about the same education level as the area’s typical white resident, but earns $9,000 less per year. While we track gross domestic product (GDP) growth and inflation and stock market gyrations with remarkable regularity, we tend to pay far less attention to basic statistics like these, stats on crucial indicators of people’s capabilities to live fulfilled, productive lives.

One big challenge in philanthropy today is in measuring impact: is my focused effort moving the needle on issues I care about? The United Nations’ Human Development Index has become the gold standard in over 150 countries for both scanning the landscape in terms of need and then using the scan to monitor progress. Could it be useful for New York-area grantmakers?
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The Art of Inclusion: New York Funders Mobilize to Make the Arts More Accessible

Published May 3, 2012 Program Recaps Leave a Comment
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By Laura Cronin, PhilanTopic

(This post originally appeared on PhilanTopic, the Philanthropy News Digest blog, on April 24, 2012 and is reprinted with permission.)

If a person with a serious vision, hearing or mobility impairment came to your office on business or joined your organization as an employee, you would do whatever you needed to to accommodate that person so he or she could do his or her job. Indeed, most people would be embarrassed if their employer failed to create an accessible work space for such a guest, while failure to do so for a new employee is illegal.

But what if everyone at the office gathered around the virtual water cooler on a Monday morning to share their excitement about the latest blockbuster exhibition at the local art museum or the holiday performance at the local concert hall? Would your colleague have been there on Saturday along with everyone else? Would the museum or concert hall have been equipped to accommodate a patron who is blind or hearing impaired? Would any of their foundation grant dollars have been dedicated to figuring out how to make it possible for that potential audience member to enjoy its offerings?

Gains won as a result of the 1990 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are now so familiar—curb cuts, kneeling buses, signs in Braille—that it is tempting to assume that issues of concern to people with disabilities have been embraced by the field of philanthropy. Unfortunately, the data tell a different story. According to the Disability Funders Network (DFN), of the $45.7 billion in foundation grants awarded in 2011, only $559 million—less than three percent—was directed to disability issues.
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The Future is Now: The Need for Health Information Exchange

Published April 30, 2012 Program Recaps Leave a Comment
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By Sarah C. Shih, MPH, Executive Director, Program Evaluation and Planning, Primary Care Information Project

It was a great privilege to take part in a recent Philanthropy New York session on New York State’s overall health information technology strategy and share some thoughts on how we can move this project forward for the benefit of all New Yorkers.

I’ve been working with the Primary Care Information Project (PCIP), a Bureau of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, for almost four years. PCIP was established in 2005 to implement electronic health records (EHRs) to improve the delivery of clinical preventive services and population health.

PCIP has helped over 3,000 primary care providers representing over 600 independent practices adopt and use EHRs, targeting communities with high Medicaid or uninsured patients. The challenge we face with providers that have adopted EHRs is accessing and using a health information exchange, a necessary infrastructure to improve care coordination for the chronically ill and potentially bring substantial savings in costs to the healthcare system.
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A New Funder Embrace for Workforce Development

Published April 18, 2012 Thought Leaders Leave a Comment
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By Patricia Jenny, Executive Committee Chair, New York City
Workforce Funders & Program Director, The New York Community Trust
and Bret Halverson, Staff Consultant, New York City Workforce Funders

The loss of more than eight million American jobs between 2007 and 2009 has propelled private funders to consider how they can tackle startling levels of unemployment. In New York City, funders are focused on developing new approaches to prepare low-income individuals for entry-level jobs.
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Proactive Support Pays Off: The American Art Renewal Fund

Published April 11, 2012 Thought Leaders Leave a Comment
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By Ellen Holtzman, Program Director for American Art,
Henry Luce Foundation

For 30 years, the Henry Luce Foundation’s American Art Program has supported projects and programs advancing the study of American art through exhibitions, catalogues, doctoral dissertations, archival projects, collection reinstallations, digitization, and so forth. The Luce Foundation has distributed $140 million to museums across the U.S. and internationally, and, for most of the program’s existence, there has never been a dearth of proposals to the board for support.

Beginning in late 2008, however, something was different—we weren’t seeing the typical list of potential projects “penciled in” for the coming year. By 2009, it became apparent that the economic downturn was affecting museums to the extent that they were totally focused on basic operations and could not even consider the sort of activities the program would usually support.
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The Sky Really is Falling…Now What? A New Working Group for Funders

Published April 3, 2012 Thought Leaders 2 Comments
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By Liz Sak, Executive Director, Cricket Island Foundation

When the financial crisis hit, foundations endowments were hit hard. We all knew the recovery would take time, we just didn’t know how long. According to recently released data from The Chronicle of Philanthropy, spending at the largest foundations is still not expected to return to pre-recession levels until 2015. Closer to home for smaller foundations, in a report we recently helped produce in partnership with the Foundation Center, Diminishing Dollars: The Impact of the 2008 Financial Crisis on the Field of Social Justice Philanthropy, we found that unless the smaller funders who primarily support community-based social change work see five years of above-average investment returns, social justice grantmaking levels through 2015 will remain below 2008 levels. This is all hardly surprising given the slow and unsteady recovery of the economy.
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Five Qs for…Douglas Bauer, Executive Director, Clark Foundation

Published March 30, 2012 Thought Leaders Leave a Comment
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Laura Cronin’s interview with Doug Bauer—who is also Chair of the Board of Directors of Philanthropy New York—originally appeared on PhilanTopic, the Philanthropy News Digest blog, on March 26, 2012 and is reprinted with permission.

Philanthropy News Digest: How tough is it out there for nonprofits? And what can the foundation community do to inform itself about the financial challenges confronting the sector?

Doug Bauer: We’re entering what is now the fourth year of reduced funding for nonprofits, with continued cuts at the federal, state, and city levels, and it is taking a toll on the sector, especially in human services and the arts. If there’s any good news, it’s that the state of New York is looking at a $2 billion gap in the coming fiscal year, not the $10 billion previously forecast. That’s a better situation to be in than predicted, but it still means cuts are coming.
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A Glass Half Full: Japan’s Disaster Response at One Year

Published March 27, 2012 Thought Leaders 1 Comment
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By James Gannon
Executive Director, Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE/USA)

One year after Japan’s massive 3/11 disaster, talking about the recovery of the Tōhoku region is a “glass half full, glass half empty” proposition.

On the one hand, extraordinary progress has been made, especially considering the apocalyptic scenes that confronted us in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami. Millions of tons of rubble have been removed, tens of thousands of temporary housing units have been constructed, and shops are starting to reopen in cities and towns that had been completely decimated.

One reason is that Japan’s philanthropic response has been record-breaking. A recent media report estimated at least $6.25 billion (500 billion yen) in domestic charitable giving for the disaster; however, that figure is surely an underestimate, and the overall amount of local giving is probably several billion dollars higher. And one upside of globalization has been the invaluable role of overseas philanthropy: a recently completed JCIE survey finds that private American donors have contributed $630.2 million for Japan—the most generous outpouring of U.S. philanthropy in history for a disaster in another developed country.
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Occupy The Box

Published March 21, 2012 Thought Leaders 1 Comment
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By Maria Mottola, Executive Director, New York Foundation

(This post was adapted from a keynote address given at the Better Business Bureau Charity Symposium on February 28, 2012.)

When I heard the title of today’s symposium, “Thinking Outside the Box: meeting today’s challenges with creative leadership,” it reminded me of one of my favorite New Yorker cartoons. What I want to say today to you is this: You do some of your best thinking inside the box. Don’t dismiss the box—occupy the box.

Sandwiched between the government and corporate sectors, ours is not fully defined by either. Our “box” is not some version of a nonprofit big box store churning out a happier, more reliable workforce, and it’s not an extension of the government churning out happy citizens mindful of all the good their taxes are doing. What feels wrong about attempting to corporatize or politicize the independent sector is that it ignores the human aspect of our intention. We do this work because we want to, not because we have to. This is what distinguishes us. We value connectivity over competition. We don’t provide units of service—each interaction is an opportunity to tap into what is possible for the individuals and communities we serve.
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