Transcript: Support Beyond the Check

Shaady Salehi: These are our fabulous speakers for today. We'll have Carrie Avery, who's the President of the Durfee foundation based in Los Angeles, Leslie Ito, Executive Director of the Armory Center for the Arts in Los Angeles, John Esterle, the Co-Executive Director of the Whitman Institute, and Vera de Vera, the Director of Leadership for Movements at Weingart Foundation.

Just a quick refresh to get us started. Trust-based philanthropy at its core is really acknowledging the prevalence of power imbalance in our sector between foundations and nonprofits. Ultimately it’s about working for systemic equity, because we can't talk about power without talking about the systemic inequities and systemic injustices in our work and the role of philanthropy in undoing and reversing some of that.

I'd like to turn to our first speaker, Leslie Ito, who's the Executive Director of the Armory Center for the Arts. Leslie, can you please offer us a little bit of perspective as a nonprofit leader, and as a leader of an arts organization? We know that the arts have been under some extra challenges at these times because people can't convene and would love to hear from you. Why is support beyond the check such an important offering and what has been useful to you as a nonprofit leader?

Leslie Ito: Thank you Shaady. I think in California, we have a stereotype of being a little more touchy-feely than the rest of the country. I've been thinking about why the moral support and going beyond the transactional relationship is so important, particularly in a time like this. The ear and the shoulder of our funding partners is really important, particularly for executive directors. We've always known that it's very isolating work, but we're in a position of making some really tough decisions under very uncertain times.

I've been thinking about all of the things that I'm personally faced with: battling systemic racism, really tough financial decisions navigating layoffs and what that means both for the people that I've laid off and also for the people that remain, how to navigate survivor's guilt for the rest of the staff, thinking about the public health issues both to protect staff, but also to prepare to open back up to the public at some point, the political climate and then all of the personal things now that we're working from home and the boundaries have been melting away caring for loved ones.

All of these things that color the context of our work in the present day is really emotional work. If we're doing it right it takes a personal toll on executive directors. For me, early on in the pandemic, I reached out to funders—the ones that I've had the closest relationships with—and really it was a way for me to share what I was experiencing in the field, knowing that what I was experiencing is not unique to me.

We talk about the power dynamics between grantees and funders. I encourage my colleagues, as grant seekers, to really reach out to those that they have a long-time relationship with to share what's going on, because this is how we level the playing field. These should be human-to-human conversations. We should have the courage to reach out. I encourage funders, being a former funder myself, to be available, be open and honest, and have authentic conversations.

We're really coming down to building relationships and providing emotional support for our leaders in the field so that they can continue to stay whole. So that we can do our jobs and lead the sector. I'll leave it at that.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much, Leslie. I'm going to turn us over to John Esterle, who is the Co-Executive Director of the Whitman Institute. As one of the original architects of trust-based philanthropy, why is it that you and your Co-Executive Director, Pia Infante, really felt the need to call out support beyond the check as a core practice? What informed that?

John Esterle: What really informed it was the basic premise that underlines all these principles: the sense of partnering in the spirit of service. It's saying from our end, “We want to support you and we are in alignment with you. If there are any other ways we can be supportive in addition to financially, let us know.” It was an invitation to hear from them how we could be supportive and it wasn't a requirement.

What we found over the years was some of the importance of just being a sounding board. We found over time that there was value in that.  There's a whole spectrum of things you can do from the informal to more formal things. We never went in the more formal direction, but informally, we've done funder lunches or learning dialogue things. So opening doors and being an advocate for the work we found was really appreciated.

In reaching out to other funders, sometimes I found if I can be the one reaching out and doing the inviting, then sometimes I can be the one hearing the “no”, and I'll gladly take that on. The nonprofits hear that enough. Being an intermediary sometimes was helpful there. We found over the years that, being an informal coach and cheerleader, we had been invited in to give more strategic support and thinking and feedback.

We started seeing cross-fertilization across different programs or fields that we funded in, that our grantees found beneficial because they weren't getting them in other spaces. One formal thing we did do over the years was periodically have these two and a half day retreats where we would bring our grantee partners together with our board. They started smaller and then over time became bigger events based on what we heard back from our grantee partners.

I just want to raise up that support can extend beyond the life of your grant. The relationship doesn't go away because the money has gone away. Support beyond the check really does link to these other practices of trust-based philanthropy. When you're giving unrestricted funding, when you're streamlining reporting proposals, that actually frees up the time to take on these different roles and be responsive. When you provide support over time, what I've also noticed is that maybe one year you're not providing that much support beyond the check. You'll maybe see somebody a couple of times a year, have a conversation, then the next year things come up and you're more actively doing things. So there's a different rhythm that you're just always being responsive towards.

Moral support is really important. There's so much of people feeling unheard and unseen when you deal with a lot of rejection on the funding side, that when someone encounters an invitation to a more authentic relationship it's really valued, and it deepens the work. My own work has become tremendously more meaningful because of this particular area of trust-based philanthropy.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, John. A follow-up question for you because you and the Whitman Institute provide a range of different types of support beyond the check. How do you figure out what a need is? Are you hearing directly from grantee partners? Are you intuiting what they need and offering? How do you navigate the different types of support that are needed and how you can bring in your influence and support?

John Esterle: Feeling my way into that over the years, it’s usually wanting to hear from our partners what would be helpful and what they need. If there's been a transition then it's just like, “If you want to talk, I'm here.” So sometimes it's an invitation on our part.

Shaady Salehi: We often talk about support beyond the check as it's totally optional. It's about offering, not giving. It's an invitation, as you said. There's always this issue with power and nonprofits feeling like they have to say yes to whatever the funder is asking. How do you make sure that it is truly optional? And how else do you try to be mindful of those power imbalances that are inherently in the relationship?

John Esterle: A request is always heard as “now I have to show up.” So part of that is on our side is to be willing to sit with their distrust for a while. When we first started doing our retreats, there was a couple of people who said, “Oh, I can't, I can't show up. It's not a good time.” We didn't discontinue the funding for that. It's really just following through and realizing sometimes you have to prove through your actions and not just your words, that you're meaning what you say.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, John. I'm going to move us along with the Weingart Foundation. Weingart takes a more structured approach to offering support beyond the check. Can you share a little bit more with us about what that looks like and why this has become a priority for the Weingart Foundation?

Vera de Vera: Sure. Last year our staff had those conversations with our grantees and applicants around how organizations are incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into their governance management and practices. Because of our unrestricted operating support, non-profits themselves identify what their organizational goals are for the next two years or so. Out of the couple of hundred active grantees that we had, we identified that at least 60 of those grantees self-identified board diversity as a priority for their organizations.

So we worked in partnership with the African-American Board Leadership Institute to provide technical assistance. We reached out to those 60 grantees who identified board diversity and other equity and inclusion issues as a priority. We said, “We have the services of the African American Board Leadership Institute available to you, if you so choose. This does not affect your funding. If you're interested, let us know.” About half the organizations responded that they had interest in some follow-up from the African American Board Leadership Institute and we managed to identify 10 organizations that were willing to commit the time necessary to receiving this form of support.

It's no cost to the grantees. Weingart Foundation is paying for their technical assistance. What have we learned from this? Yet to be seen. It had to be postponed for a couple months because of the pandemic and had to be retooled, but, again, this was something that was identified by the non-profits in their conversations with program officers and plus the data that we had on their organizational goals. That's how we identified and tailored this specific support beyond the check.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Vera. It seems like there was some real intentionality to make sure that it didn't feel required that grantee partners take on this type of support. Can you offer some more insights on how you make sure this is truly opt-in for your nonprofit partners?

Vera de Vera: Well, definitely in the messaging, in the communications, both through email when we informed them about this opportunity and in the conversations that they have with their respective program officers. It's all in the messaging. Definitely make it very clear this is all opt in, for their benefit, if they so choose.

Shaady Salehi: I really love these examples Vera. What's your advice on how to get started if you want to set up some kind of formal offering like this?

Vera de Vera: We have the benefit of not just anecdotal information from the conversations with our program staff, but also from data that we have on the goals that the organizations themselves identified as priorities for themselves. That system is very helpful to us.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much for sharing. We're going to move on to Carrie Avery, President of the Durfee Foundation. At Durfee you're providing a mix of support beyond the check. Some informal, some formal. Can you share a little about Durfee's philosophy on non-monetary support and how this shows up in your work?

Carrie Avery: Sure. We really do look at the people that we support as people, not just as the roles that they inhabit or the heads of the organizations that they support, because it helps them in their leadership roles.

We have a sabbatical program for nonprofit leaders that we've been doing for a long time. People get a grant to be able to take a three-month break from their job as an executive director and we support the organization during that time. As part of that program, we bring all of the sabbatical alums together for retreats, for lunches and gatherings. Part of what we're trying to do is create a network of leadership in Los Angeles across all different types of organizations.

We're not a subject matter funder. We fund newer organizations that are in their first five years. We will partner them with a mentor, someone from our sabbatical program or our Stanton fellowship program. We pay that mentor to work closely with the newer leader to help them as they develop their organization. So there's some checks involved, but there's also a lot of relationship building involved.

Another thing that we do is really look at how we can leverage our position as a foundation. Some of that is in connecting them to other funders. I'm thinking about one of our newer organizations that we support, Los Angeles Children's Project, which is out in Lancaster, California. Really far North Los Angeles County. It's kind of a barrier to get out there because it's really far. So we put together a site visit, to bring other funders to the space and make it easier for the organization to be able to host a number of funders at one time. And also to create a fun field trip experience out of driving out to Lancaster. That resulted in some funding for them.

We nominate people for awards. We scout around and look for awards that funders are offering and nominate our grantees for awards. Generally we just want to give the sense that we're in your corner.

Last week was the social venture fast pitch in Los Angeles. There are 10 organizations that come and do a three-minute fast pitch about their organization. One of our grantees, Michael Martinez from LA, participated, and everybody from the Durfee staff was watching and sending him emails and cheering them on. That's also the kind of thing that we can do to let people know that we're there for them.

Shaady Salehi: That's really great. I'm curious how many grantees are you in relationship with at any given time. And how do you navigate what's needed and what connections would be most useful?

Carrie Avery: We have probably 30 active grantees at one time, but with our alums…it's like the family thing. They're always in the family. People will reach out to us even if they got an actual money grant from us 10 years ago. That's closer to 200 people but they're not all knocking on our door at the same time. It ebbs and flows. People have different points at which they're reaching out. It doesn't feel overwhelming. We don't have hundreds of applications at a time because we have very targeted grant programs. That leaves us more room for relationships.

Shaady Salehi: I really love, Carrie, the way you talk about support beyond the check as a signaling of “we've got your back.” Sometimes it's just as simple as acknowledging that and letting folks know that you're there in case it's needed. I think that goes a long way.

Another question for you, Carrie, I'm curious, how have you channeled having your grantees’ backs in this moment when there's added strain and stress on many organizations, many families? How has the Durfee Foundation been responsive in supporting partners?

Carrie Avery: Leslie's opening up about the stress that she's living with is very disheartening and difficult to hear. Every executive director is feeling what she's feeling right now. We started a pilot program of facilitated peer support groups, connecting executive directors with the facilitator. A number of people signed up and we just did surveys because they wrapped up and it was very positive. We're going to launch even more peer support groups.

It's just been such a crazy time, especially for executive directors, to navigate right now from the very beginning about how do you manage your entire team on zoom and how do you help people with that? Then navigating the health scare, the pandemic, the racial reckoning, and then the existential crisis of when is this all going to end? It just helps to talk with other people and have somebody else setting up those meetings and doing that part of the work for you.

We did a staff appreciation grant to 60 organizations that are active in our network. We decided to send $5,000 checks to 60 organizations and tell their leaders to use that however they saw fit. You didn't have to ask for the money. You didn't have to report back on what you did with the money. We trusted them to do what was needed at this time. Even though we didn't ask for reports back, we got lots of great photos of desktop fountains and yoga mats and ergonomic keyboards and groceries.

We gave our cell phone numbers out in the first week of the pandemic and told people to call if they want to talk with us about anything. We're just trying to make ourselves available.

Shaady Salehi: I love that example of appreciation gifts. It says a lot that people were saying it was so meaningful. Leslie, I want to turn it back to you. As an executive director, what is resonating for you? What are some of the considerations you think are particularly useful or poignant for our funder colleagues to hear?

Leslie Ito: Building trust and how we go about doing that took a very different turn once we entered quarantine. I've been thinking a lot about my grandma, and how no matter how old we are, if we think about how our grandmas used to do things in terms of relationship-building and building trust, what did that look like?

I feel like we have to return to those days. The care package and, for me, sharing lemons from my tree has been my way of connecting with people. I would reach out and make a coffee date with somebody if I wanted to pick their brain. Now I feel like my reach out is a written letter or a care package either delivered by door or by supporting the postal service. We have to think outside the box, way outside the box, but there are ways that we can build trust. We just have to be creative.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you so much, Leslie. Vera, I want it to come back to you. What are your tips if there's a funder out there that wants to find a technical assistance partner to provide services support for nonprofit partners. Do you have tips on how to identify those prospective partners or intermediaries? What are some best practices or ways to even identify those right kinds of technical support?

Vera de Vera: At Weingart Foundation we have relationships with a number of intermediaries. So we do recommend them to our grantees depending on what they ask. We will share with them the intermediaries that we know offer this type of support. We do try to provide them with ideas based on the relationships that we have with those intermediaries and other funders as well.

What's important is that with our program staff, there's a culture of sharing those questions with each other. We may have one program officer who received a couple of similar requests from their grantees. If they raise it, another program officer might be able to say, “Hey, you know what? I have grantees that raised the same question.” That's how we can begin to figure out is there a bigger need than we're hearing individually.

Shaady Salehi: That's great. It's just kind of the active listening that you do, like partnering in a spirit of service, it becomes part of the internal discourse.

Let's talk about race and gender inequity and the reality that white male leaders might feel more comfortable being direct with funders about what they need. I'm going to start with you, Carrie. How can funders correct for this inequity and make sure that the support is being offered equitably?

Carrie Avery: We recognize the senior leadership at the Durfee Foundation is two white women of a certain age. Maybe not everybody is as comfortable reaching out to us as others. I recognize this with a couple grantees who are fantastic people who reached out to us about extraordinary needs that they had at their organization and wanting to brainstorm with us about how to how to move forward. This was a while ago, but we made extraordinary grants to those organizations to help them at a certain time.

I don't regret those grants at all, but both of those leaders were white men and they felt comfortable reaching out to us to have those discussions. We need to make sure that everyone feels that we are as accessible to them as those white men. I recognize it from a gender point of view that men are more comfortable asking for things. There's a lot of data about men asking for raises and things like that. So there were race issues and gender issues there, and I think it's something that you need to be conscious of all the time and thinking about and talking to people about. How do we make ourselves accessible? Maybe you have to do some extra reach out, creating more diversity on your staff and your board and otherwise changing the makeup of who you are helps in that direction as well.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you. I'm going to turn to you, John. I'm curious how you navigate this or how you thought about inequities of, there's certain people who might feel more comfortable asking for something than others. How do you think about those kinds of race and gender inequities when it comes to support?

John Esterle: There's internal ways. How do you model this yourself as an organization? Certainly over time different things. Having Pia come on as Co-Executive Director or changing our own board, originally a largely older white boomer board, to a majority people of color and younger board. It's being invitational and mindful. Part of that is going, “Oh, I'll invite them.” It's important to show up to your partners’ things. It's important that you read what they've sent.

That is another way to build trust, especially when there's issues of equity and power. At the Institute, it's demonstrating that you learn and you're acting on what you learned. The first retreat we ever did, when we had all the E.D.s there, I looked around the room and it was like, “Oh, this is a largely white, older group.” It's not like I intentionally set out to do that, but it was like, now let's not do this again. Let's be more intentional about who we’re supporting and inviting into the room.

That set the Institute on our own journey around that. The last retreat we had was just dramatically different. What I did notice is that people of color showing up to that retreat were like, “Oh, this is a people of color space.” For me, that learning around my own white male privilege of walking into rooms and assuming, “Oh, you know, I hope I'm trusting everybody. We're all good.” What I have learned is the importance right now is being able to sit with people's initial distrust, not get defensive, and go, okay, that's where we're at and I'm going to need to prove through my actions to you. Self-reflection and constant self-examination, not just for you individually, but also for your organization is such a key part of this work.

Shaady Salehi: I wanted to bring you in for a nonprofit leader perspective. What have been the grounds by which you have felt comfortable asking for support or responding to an offer for support?

Leslie Ito: I guess I'm in a bit of a unique position because I've worked several times in the field leading organizations, and also in philanthropy, kind of switching back and forth. That divide is really a huge delineation. As soon as I'm back on the field side there's a line that I can't cross. There are tables that I'm not allowed to sit at. But I've never been one to hold back on reaching out and getting help or picking someone's brain. And it's a two-way street. I try my best to also be a resource to folks and help make those connections and encourage people.

I didn't really realize how, because I've been in a unique position being on both sides of the fence, until I had a development team at the Armory where I've been coaching them to be proactive, to reach out, to have conversations. We recently started last fall. We started a funder breakfast where we invited all of our funders to come and observe a conversation on cultural equity and inclusion. That was a way for us to gather, break bread. We invited the funders to come and I was a little hesitant to do it. But it worked out really well. I was surprised people actually like made time in their day to come and spend time with us. And it was a good chance for funders to see each other that hadn't seen each other in a while. I think it was successful in  that we were also doing the inviting and the funders actually took the time to meet with us and hear what the Armory was up to and how we're trying to lead and be very transparent about our cultural equity journey.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you. That's great. We often get questions about just how to manage offering this type of support when you've got a lot of grantees. Maybe, Vera, we can start with you because I believe Weingart program officers have a lot of grantees at any given time. What are some tips of figuring out offering support effectively in a way that is manageable given the number of relationships?

Vera de Vera: The two examples that I shared with you, particularly the Board Diversity Project, that input came from the program officers. They were able to feed that information to me so that it wasn't them having to do individual follow-ups from grantees around, “We want to diversify our board,” “We want to address issues of diversity, equity, inclusion.,” “We just don't know where to turn to.” That kind of feedback, that's where we said, “Okay, we're going to have this partnership and opportunity available to those grantees who articulated that this was an area that they wanted to work on.” Then that project became an opt in.

In all transparency, that's always a challenge. Volume of requests and then volume of grantee portfolios. Our program officers have relationships from 10, 15 years ago in addition to some newer relationships. Responsiveness is key, right. That the grantees know that they can reach out to our program officers and they will receive a response in a timely manner.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Vera. I think that's a great example of when you do have a large volume of grantees, getting that feedback on where the needs are and finding a right partner that can take on some of that support can go a long way.

John and Carrie, do either of you want to offer some additional insight on how you navigate offering a deeper level of support for certain grantees?

Carrie Avery: If you're hearing a lot of the same thing from a lot of people then you begin to realize, “Okay, we can maybe bundle this into something that isn't necessarily 25 separate phone conversations.” There could be some real value in peer support and in bringing people together to recognize that they're struggling with similar issues.

I don't have a formula for it, but I think it's something that you're tracking and trying to keep tabs on. Sometimes it's one-on-one. Sometimes it's things like putting together the peer support groups. We have a number of Black leaders in our network and we met with a couple of senior Black leaders to give Durfee insight and feedback. That's part of it too, recognizing when you need to maybe let go of some of the control and let the network self-organize.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you. With those peer support groups that you convene, are Durfee staff present for those?

Carrie Avery: No, we're not present. We have a facilitator that we that we pay to do the groups.

Shaady Salehi: How often do they happen? Are they opt-in? How do the grantee partners inform the content of those sessions? Can you share a little bit more?

Carrie Avery: In pilots that we started in April or May, it was opt-in completely, and six people in a group facilitated. They met every other week for 90 minutes. The content was rising up from what was on people's minds and it was changing with every session.

We sent out surveys and got a sense of, what's the best day of the week? What's the best time of day? Do you want it facilitated? We wondered if people just wanted to self-organize and continue on their own, but they said there was huge value in having a facilitator. That's another great example of a support that you can provide that doesn't require much time from you and your team. You hire someone to facilitate and lead those conversations and people show up.

Shaady Salehi: That's great. Yeah. Before I share our key takeaways and next steps I would love to invite our panelists to share one insight or one theme that you want to lift up from today's discussion. I'll start with you, Leslie.

Leslie Ito: Keep in the theme of quoting my grandma, she always taught me to add three things to say as a follow-up: please, thank you, and how can I help? I think that's in line with what we've been talking about in terms of being in service to the nonprofit organizations and the grantees.

Shaady Salehi: How about you, John? What's one insight or piece of advice you want to offer folks today?

John Esterle: It's going to be different for each organization, but I would say if having the time to create the relationships that will enable you to provide support beyond the check, if that's important, then design your organization to make that happen. That can maybe mean fewer and larger grants. Maybe it'll mean looking at staffing differently, but I think it starts with what, what are the values? I think it gets into the trust-based practices. If these are practices you really want to implement, it may require rethinking some internal structures and internal roles.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, John. It is so important to recognize that ecosystem. Vera, how about you? What's one insight or piece of advice you would offer folks today?

Vera de Vera: The act of active listening. It's not just listening when you're in conversation with somebody or listening when you're sitting around a meeting room or a Zoom room, but listening to who you're not hearing from and finding ways to kind of unearth what some of those needs might be.

I'll share an example of reading grant applications. There was a set of grant applications around youth organizing that we were reviewing. A couple of applicants mentioned wanting to increase organizing capacity in a certain part of LA. That there wasn't that infrastructure present. Being able to connect the dots from pieces of information, we were able to say, “Hey, a number of folks identified this one organization.” So we reached out to that organization, and invited them to apply because our partners were talking about them.

Shaady Salehi: Thank you, Vera. We're talking about offering support beyond the check. That's our focus. But then there's soliciting and acting on feedback. There's being transparent and responsive. All these other principles that really are intertwined in order to make this type of support that much more meaningful.

Carrie, your final insights or words of wisdom for our colleagues today?

Carrie Avery: The interconnectedness of trust-based philanthropy. I would also just add that the support beyond the check; this is where the greatest joy of this work is found. To deprive yourself of this is to deprive yourself of these deep connections and ability to work closely and create and maintain relationships with people.

Shaady Salehi: I love that. So just to sum up some of the things that we've heard:

·       Non-monetary support can be more meaningful than financial support, so keep prioritizing multi-year unrestricted support, if you can.

·       Always, always, always remember support beyond the check should be offered as an optional and be clear about that and the way you communicate it.

·       Modeling humility and vulnerability as part of this process, it's how you show up. It's how you build trust.

·       More joy in the work, which is really meaningful and really important, especially right now.

So what can you do right now? One thing you can do is to do an internal brainstorm with your team about ways that you might offer support beyond the check, if you're not already doing it.

If you are already offering support beyond the check, maybe take another look at the process and the language and just make sure that the offering is genuinely totally optional. Maybe you want to make some adjustments to the language, making sure that folks know that it's optional.

If you haven't reached out individually, just to check in on a grantee partner since the pandemic started, it might be a good time to drop a personal note and offer a listening ear.

Finally I want to thank our partners at Philanthropy, California. Special thanks to Kate Seely and the team at Northern California Grantmakers. Also, special thanks to Southern California Grantmakers and San Diego Grantmakers for being excellent partners and promoters and thought partners in this process.