• Our Philanthropic Advisory Services (PAS) team met with the board both individually and collectively to assess the foundation’s history, goals, activities, interests, and concerns in planning for the future leadership of the organization.
• After integrating all that was learned, the PAS team facilitated a board retreat tailored to the needs and objectives of the organization, building in key decision points, and providing a blueprint for next steps.
• Following the retreat, we recommended a governance structure and role requirements in order to give existing and future board members a clear understanding of their responsibilities.
• We also worked with them to build a succession plan for the foundation that honored the current governance and grantmaking structure while making room for a new generation of leaders, including the following elements: an outline for candidate search, identification, and training; a phased approach to transitioning in new board members over time; and program and funding policies to support the addition of new perspectives.

Impact

Partnering with Foundation Source enabled this foundation to set the stage for governance in perpetuity. Throughout the process, they were equipped with new insights and learnings to help them successfully transition giving from one generation to the next and to strengthen the understanding of and enthusiasm for philanthropy among younger family members.

Ultimately, the joint creation of an institutional plan for succession and engaging the next generation in leadership roles gave this board the confidence to invite candidates, maintain allegiance to the founder’s legacy, and be open to new approaches for addressing community needs in the future.

Specific areas of improvement:

• Defined foundation leadership roles and activities, including:
  • Responsibilities of the board, officers, staff, and committees and the organizational structure for these roles
  • Governance practices, adjusted to position the foundation and the board for the next phase of their philanthropy
  • A stable and sustainable board model that included clarity on family versus non-family participants, length of service, recruitment, and selection

• A succession plan which:
  • Encouraged the board’s reception to new ideas
  • Incorporated a flexible program strategy to help the foundation be responsive to evolution and change in the context of their mission
  • Set aside a portion of the grantmaking budget for innovation grants toward experimental approaches that are consistent with the foundation’s history and key priorities

The post Succession Planning in a Private Foundation appeared first on Foundation Source.

• We hosted an initial call with the client to conduct a needs assessment and determine the key issues and concerns requiring attention.
• Next, members of our Philanthropic Advisory Services (PAS) team met individually with the board members to gain a full understanding of their goals for the foundation. Discussions included topics such as foundation history (including founder’s intentions), current grantmaking objectives and funding parameters, and an optimal timeline for spending down.
• Information from each board member was synthesized to develop the framework for a customized planning session that would enable leadership to make informed decisions on next steps.
• Our PAS team facilitated a group meeting with the Board of Directors to provide a sector view on sunsetting. Understanding the history, structure, and goals of the foundation allowed us to make tailored recommendations that would honor the founder’s intentions, provide final grantmaking options, and demonstrate how sunsetting can be deployed as an effective strategy.
• As follow-up to the joint planning session, we delivered an action plan that included a signature grant program, which aligned with the board’s goals for the foundation’s budget, timeline, and community impact.
• Foundation Source partnered with the foundation to implement the final signature grant program, which included distributing, tracking, and receiving applications, responding to applicant inquiries, and forwarding proposals to the board for review.

Impact

As a result of the partnership with Foundation Source, the board learned about different models of sunsetting, determined what would be best for their foundation, and felt confident that the sunsetting plan they devised was thoughtful, well-informed, and honored both their founder and the communities the foundation served.

The foundation was also able to implement a sunsetting plan that incorporated the key elements of budget, timeline, program development, and grantmaking activities that simultaneously addressed leadership’s concerns for limited successor options and lasting community impact.

Specific areas of improvement:

• A concrete timeline that incorporated key elements, including:
• a goal date for closing foundation operations
• flow of grant distributions that mirrored an overall spending model — signature grant disbursement and related communications initiatives

The post Sunsetting a Private Foundation appeared first on Foundation Source.

Our goal was to explore the interests and goals of the foundation’s board, which would inform a funding plan that acknowledged their current grant partners and focus areas yet provided significant room to grow.

• Members of our Philanthropic Advisory Services (PAS) met with the directors individually and as a group to learn more about the foundation’s priorities and goals, and the directors’ interests in expanding on the current program focus or exploring new areas of giving.
• After compiling the board members’ input, the PAS team facilitated a board discussion to review options for addressing the increased spending. As part of the discussion, we led the board through an analysis of the financial information for one of their average grantees. They noted that the foundation’s funding already accounted for a significant portion of the organization’s budget and that it could be hard for the organization to absorb additional funds and increased giving could cause compliance issues for the foundation.
• Next, we looked for overlaps in additional program interests and potential expansion of current target giving, and recommended a plan for moving towards a higher level of giving, including:
  • Expanding current program areas to include a wider geographic scope or broader aspect of the problem to be solved.
  • Introducing another tier of grantees that have larger budgets and more donor diversity so that larger gifts would not be problematic.
  • Exceeding the minimum distribution requirement (MDR) in the year additional funds were added to the foundation in order to reduce the amount of the following year’s MDR and ease the foundation into increased grantmaking.
  • Creating a tool for evaluating applicants for funding to streamline and standardize the grant decision- making process in light of a potentially increased number of applicants and grantees.
  • Considering a percentage of discretionary funding for directors to utilize on expanded areas of interest that did not overlap with the interests of other directors. These funds might serve as an incubator of ideas where the board becomes interested after seeing impact over time.

Impact

Partnering with Foundation Source allowed the foundation to expand its giving in a graduated and intentional manner. Through discussions with directors and board facilitation, our PAS team helped this foundation find comprehensive solutions to address a significant increase in assets while continuing its grantmaking impact in the community.

Specific areas of improvement:

Program Focus:
The foundation kept its grassroots community grants focus but segmented another pool of funds to encompass broader funding interests including:

• Grants to regional and national organizations such as advocacy groups and food banks addressing homelessness and hunger on a more macro scale. These larger organizations have the donor diversity and resources to absorb and efficiently utilize larger grants and give the directors access to knowledgeable networks including experts in the field and funders with a history of addressing these key issues.
• Exploring topics of financial literacy, career training, childcare, or other programs to alleviate stresses in the local community which might be a root cause of hunger and homelessness. Directors would meet community leaders to learn about larger organizations that use more holistic programming.

Grantmaking and Budgeting Tools

• A timeline that incorporates short- and long-term grantmaking activities including researching the fields of interest by meeting with community, regional and national experts; grant category budgeting; applicant review and grant decision-making.
• A discretionary budget starting in 2021 enabling each board member to make gifts to organizations that did not align with the foundation’s grantmaking priorities. The discretionary funding would exceed the current year MDR, allowing the foundation to carryover spending into the following year and mitigate the impact of the dramatically higher required spending.
• A rubric for evaluating applicants which would facilitate board decision-making by comparing multiple grant applicants to a standard set of funding criteria.

The post Scaling a Private Foundation appeared first on Foundation Source.

The post How Foundation Source Accelerated a Foundation’s Grant Approval Processes by 33 Percent – Overview appeared first on Foundation Source.

Challenge:

The foundation has its roots in a humble frontier feed store. Founded in the 1890s, the store eventually grew into a sizable company with a household name. Relatives of the three brothers who grew that company founded their foundation in the 1940s, and it has been in operation ever since.

Today, the board of the foundation, which is comprised of descendants of the brothers, pays homage to its history by keeping track of other descendants through familial records. There are now dozens of descendants and, upon reaching the age of 18, they are all eligible to join the foundation as a non-voting member and attend board meetings. The foundation will match up to three member gifts to charity for as much as $1,500 total in a given year. Members are also able to provide feedback via grant committees for organizations that have applied for funding.

The foundation’s tradition of making giving a (very large) family enterprise is one of its most cherished hallmarks. Even so, all that gift-matching and grant committee activity makes for an enormous amount of paperwork and a sizable administrative burden.

Collaboration:

Foundation Source set up their gift-matching program on Applications, our online grants management system for accepting, organizing, tracking, and replying to charitable requests. (Applications is available as an add-on to the robust platform our clients use to manage their foundations.)

Family members use Applications to apply for their gift match. Foundation Source verifies that the family member made a donation and that the recipient organization is eligible to receive grants from the foundation. We also customized Applications so that when a family member is a part of a grant committee, they can log in, review their committee’s applications, and then leave comments for board members.

Outcome:

Thanks to their experience with Applications, the foundation now benefits from a seamless, paperless process for its gift-matching program. The foundation is free to celebrate its heritage without worry that the growth of its family tree will outstrip its administrative capabilities.

The post How a Private Foundation Is Keeping An (Extended) Family Tradition Going Strong appeared first on Foundation Source.

Challenge:

The board of the Charles R. Wood Foundation carries on the work of its late founder by supporting children, the arts, and healthcare in upstate New York.

While traveling in rural North Carolina, the president of the foundation read an article in the local newspaper about Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program and its outreach to the region. This national program, which is available to any community, mails a book to children under five years of age each month. The purpose of the program is to boost early childhood literacy and foster a love of reading.

As the Charles R. Wood Foundation wanted to promote childhood literacy in upstate New York’s rural counties, they asked their Private Client Advisor at Foundation Source to get them information on how they could get involved.

Collaboration:

The Private Client Advisor contacted the Dollywood Foundation, which was able to provide the demographic research the foundation required to assess regional need. Dollywood also identified possible literary agencies that might be willing to partner with the Charles R. Wood Foundation. Foundation Source coordinated the effort by discussing the program with the Literacy Volunteers of Clinton County, who agreed to handle the child registration process.

Foundation Source has streamlined the entire application process, saving the foundation significant time and administrative effort. The foundation is very pleased with their new process, but we revisit it each year and continue to refine it based on their evolving needs.

Outcome:

The Foundation now supports the Imagination Library program, enabling 3,500 children in Clinton, Essex, Franklin, and Hamilton counties to participate. The foundation is thrilled that Foundation Source could help connect them with the necessary partners to make this project happen, and they appreciate how easy we’ve made it for them to track its results, procuring semi-annual updates for their review.

The post Connecting a Private Foundation to An Opportunity for Literacy appeared first on Foundation Source.

This corporate foundation awards grants of up to $5,000 to fund projects at schools located in markets where the parent company has a presence.

As many as 2,000 schools submit applications for projects annually, and last year, the foundation made over 300 grants. The foundation’s program was achieving its intended objectives, but the large volume of applications and grants was making the process extremely time-consuming and difficult for staff to manage.

COLLABORATION

Foundation Source moved the entire grantmaking cycle online with Applications, our online grants management system that makes it easy to accept, organize, track, and reply to charitable requests. Applications is available as an add-on to Impactfully, our award-winning web platform for managing a foundation.

Using Applications, we were able to set up a public-facing website for the foundation where grant-seekers can review funding criteria, fill out a customized grant application, and then submit it electronically. Through Impactfully, foundation reviewers, who are given “limited views” to see only the applications that were assigned to them, then score the application.

Because the foundation uses a blind application review process, Foundation Source manages the way information is displayed so that the school’s name and other identifying details are hidden from reviewers. To ensure that the schools are eligible to receive grants from the foundation, we also vet them and add them to our database. With Impactfully, the foundation can easily organize and manage the applications, centrally communicate about them, and generate data and reports. Automated responses make it convenient to acknowledge receipt of applications and inform grant-seekers of their status.

OUTCOME

Foundation Source has streamlined the entire application process, saving the foundation significant time and administrative effort. The foundation is very pleased with their new process, but we revisit it each year and continue to refine it based on their evolving needs.

The post Reducing a Corporate Foundation’s Workload for a High-Volume Program appeared first on Foundation Source.

Challenge:

When we met her, this successful actress already had a private foundation, and she had a good handle on its finances. She didn’t need us to monitor the finances or prepare the foundation’s tax returns, but she did need help organizing her giving. Every time she wanted to review her grantmaking history with the various organizations she supports, she had to comb through files stuffed with acknowledgment letters and receipts. Researching new potential grantees was a hassle and, since she expected her grandkids to take over the foundation in a few years, she wanted to get an organizational system in place that would make it easy for them to take the reins.

Collaboration:

To fund her grantmaking, Foundation Source set up an operating account for the client at Sterling National Bank. Going forward, since all of the grants and qualified expenses would be paid out of this operating account, the actress, her accountant, and anyone else she permits will be able to quickly and easily review the foundation’s transactions. Foundation Source also introduced her to Impactfully, our exclusive “command center” that enables clients to research nonprofit organizations, make grants, and review their grantmaking history from any location, at any time.

Outcome:

The client loves how easy it is to make grants using Impactfully. In fact, it has completely changed the way she gives, helping her track how many times (and how much) she’s given to a specific charity and enabling her to access important information on organizations through sources like Guidestar® and Charity Navigator.TM Moreover, now that the foundation’s house is in order, the actress doesn’t worry about burdening her grandchildren with its day-to-day operations. “Foundation Source has made my life so much easier,” the client says, “It’s a gift from heaven!”

The post Organizing and Informing Giving appeared first on Foundation Source.

Here’s what happened

The assets for this foundation had been fairly stable for a couple of years at $1 – $2 million dollars, as had the income levels. A large funding event of appreciated stock in 2005 brought the foundation’s total assets to $10 million. Later that year, the foundation sold the bulk of the appreciated stock, realizing a significant earnings spike. The calculation to determine the excise tax rate looks at the foundation’s giving pattern over the previous five years, specifically examining the ratio of grants to assets. Since the 5% minimum distribution requirement in any given year is based on the previous year’s assets (then $2 million), suddenly the foundation found that its annual giving became very small as a ratio to current assets. The CPA preparing the return complained that that the foundation had missed qualifying for the 1% excise tax rate by only a few thousand dollars, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

What We Did

Fortunately, upon review of the foundation’s qualifying distributions, Foundation Source discovered that in 2005 the foundation had committed $15,000 to a matching gift program for a local school; but because the school was unable to meet the commitment requirements in 2005, the grant funds were reserved, but not distributed in that year. When the school met the requirements early in 2006, the foundation then made the matching grant. Since the foundation made the commitment and reserved the funds in 2005, this grant qualified as a “cash set aside,” and counted as a 2005 distribution, even though the actual grant was made in 2006.

How That Helped the Foundation

By being able to count the additional $15,000 grant for 2005, the foundation qualified for the 1% excise tax rate because it changed the ratio of grants-to-assets for that year enough to swing it over. This meant the foundation paid $75,000 less in excise taxes in 2005 that could now go to charity.

The post Foundation Source Saves Client $75,000 In Foundation Excise Taxes appeared first on Foundation Source.

At first, The Emch Foundation got involved through Cure Autism Now/Autism Speaks and funded individual clinical research projects specified in their grant awards. They soon realized, however, that their foundation could also fill an unmet need. “We found that there were plenty of people focused on autism in children, and there was a perception in the media that autism was a childhood condition,” Emch explains. “There was virtually no realization that autistic kids grow up to become autistic adults. And although there certainly should be clinical research on autistic kids, there wasn’t enough focus on autism’s impact on adults. So we shifted our philanthropy toward what’s happening with this population as it ages, leaves high school, and transitions to their 20s and 30s.”

According to Emch, although autistic children are accommodated by special education programs and services while they’re in school, they “fall off a cliff” when they turn 18. “Children coming out of these programs are less likely to continue in the education system and are underemployed compared to other special education kids,” Emch explains. “By law, public school systems have to provide services while the kids are enrolled, but once they graduate from high school that entitlement ends. Even if they’re eligible for programs that might help, there are usually extensive waiting lists.” The transition from school to independent living is often too daunting. “They tend to have a hard time taking the next step,” says Emch. “Attending a community college might be too tough, and most have difficulty getting and staying employed. Many of them end up back at home, playing video games while their parents are off at work, struggling to figure out who can stay at home with their child.” With 50,000 children with autistic spectrum disorder turning 18 each year—some of them with profound disabilities—the impact on families and communities alike can be devastating.

Emch and Pavlides feel lucky that their own son has cleared these hurdles. “Our son is off at college, living on his own,” Emch reports. “We’re proud of him. He’s been able to be included in the community. But we have friends who haven’t experienced any of this. Some of them are having a really rough time.” To help other families coping with autism, the couple have established a website, www.autismafter16.com that serves as a clearinghouse for information on autism research, service providers, housing, employment, finance, and other issues of concern for autistic adults and their families. In addition, the foundation also funds organizations such as the Southwest Autism Research & Resource Center (SARRC). “We spend a lot of time looking at models of service provision and employment,” says Pavlides. “I’m impressed with the work at SARRC. The organization was started in Phoenix by parents and clinicians and they pushed into adult services long before other people did. We tend to look for organizations like SARRC that are doing work that can be replicated elsewhere. With one in 88 individuals diagnosed as autistic, it’s not enough to have one model program—we need programs that can be duplicated in communities across the U.S.”

Pavlides, a special educator by training, is the author of Animal-Assisted Interventions for Individuals with Autism (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2008), a book with a forward by Temple Grandin. So perhaps it’s not surprising that she and her husband are particularly interested in both animal therapy and animal welfare. “I put my son into a therapeutic horseback riding program and noticed tremendous benefits. From there, my interest evolved from a piecemeal approach to the bigger picture of autism and animals,” Pavlides explains. “Animals aid cognitive development but more importantly, they help autistic individuals develop social skills. They practice social interactions with animals and learn sensory integration. Perhaps even more importantly, pets provide autistic individuals with social capital. Like guys taking dogs to a dog park to function as chick magnets, having a pet facilitates social interaction for some autistic individuals.”

The Emch Foundation has supported both service dog agencies and animal shelters. “We fund Saint Francis Service Dogs here in Virginia,” says Emch. “It’s an organization that trains service dogs and makes them available for people with a variety of disabilities, including autism. Dogs can help autistic individuals with elopement—kids and young adults who bolt from family homes or bolt when on walks, sometimes into traffic. People with autism also frequently suffer from other disorders, such as seizures, and some service dogs can sense these coming on. More generally, the dogs can be emotionally calming for the individuals they serve, enabling them to be successful in otherwise stressful environments.”

The foundation has also granted to the SPCA of Martinsville, Virginia. “Rural animal sheltering is challenging because most work on a shoestring budget in areas where spaying and neutering is the exception rather than the rule. Consequently, they usually have far more animals in the shelter than could be adopted successfully in the local community. Some of the best ones develop creative spay and neuter programs as well as work with urban rescue groups, moving animals to areas where people may be waiting to adopt shelter dogs and cats. The best public/ private efforts, where 501(c)(3) groups work with, rather than against, their local county-run ‘dog pound,’ have drastically lowered euthanasia rates in rural counties.”

With so much work going into their philanthropy, Emch says he turned to Foundation Source in order to maintain his focus: “I don’t know foundation law, and I have no interested in paperwork,” he says. “That’s why we turned to Foundation Source. Foundation Source gives me the peace of mind that someone is doing my tax return and other paperwork, not letting me run afoul of any of the laws, all of which allows me to think more about my philanthropy.” That steady attention to the issues has paid off in significant impact. “We have helped families through the website and through the foundation,” Emch observes. “We see some progress being made on the clinical side, and we understand autism better than we did in 2007.”

Of course, much work is still required. “We want to advance the dialogue about autism—not only its causes but also best practices,” says Pavlides. And it’s the best practices component that is especially lagging. “The field has evolved to acknowledging that we don’t really have a handle on best practices for adults.” As The Emch Foundation continues its mission, that day may soon come.

The post Helping Adults with Autism and Their Animal Companions appeared first on Foundation Source.