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As a special benefit to SDG family foundation members, Family Ties will
be published bimonthly in 2009. Feel free to submit news
about your foundation or other topics of interest.
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February
2009
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Succession Planning and the Next Generation
Does your family foundation have a plan for succession and
involving the next generation(s) in philanthropy? COF's Succession
Planning Workbook notes that planning for the long-term brings many
benefits: it identifies new leaders, increases enthusiasm by
reminding participants of the big picture, reduces anxiety, and helps
everyone make better decisions by clarifying goals and priorities.
Early succession planning ensures that younger generations have time to
prepare for leadership and that decisions aren't forced by a crisis.
Talking about succession can also be a gateway to discussion of other
difficult issues, such as disputes over mission, the pressure of
geographic dispersal, uneven competencies and commitment across family
branches, poor leadership, or inadequate staff support.
A set of primers from the National Center for Family Philanthropy
(NCFP) and the Association of Small Foundations (ASF) offer
advice for both family foundation founders and younger
generations. Making Plans for Succession: What Founders Need
to Know
(note: you must log in to
the Family Philanthropy Online Knowledge Center using your SDG name and password to
activate the link) provides guidance along three steps to
succession:
- Paving the Way:
Involve the younger generations in philanthropy.
- Asking the Right
Questions, Getting the Answers: Which family members will
serve on the board? How will the foundation choose leaders?
Which parts of your legacy should be kept constant, and which
should change
- Stepping Aside:
Give the next generation a chance to lead.
Connecting to Your Family's Foundation: A Primer
for the Next Generation offers advice to younger family
members about how to overcome obstacles to participation and learn how
to balance the old and the new.
Another NCFP publication, Passing the Baton? (login required),
outlines several different possibilities for shared leadership in
family foundations:
- Create a next
generation board, and make sure it has a significant role and real
grant making responsibility.
- Transfer leadership
to the next generation.
- Change the ratio of
senior generation members to next generation members on the board
- Establish an Emeritus
Title.
- Establish a Senior
Council.
Finally,
check out the tips in Successful Succession: Inspiring and Welcoming
New Generations of Charitable Leaders (login required).
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Family Philanthropy Headlines
Giving
by U.S. Family Foundations Increased 13 Percent in 2007, Report Finds
U.S. family foundations awarded more than $18 billion in grants in
2007, a 13 percent increase over the previous year, according to the
2009 edition of Key Facts on Family Foundations (pdf). Other findings:
- Family foundations accounted
for the majority (56 percent) of giving by independent foundations
overall.
- A third of all family
foundations have been established since 2000.
- Education was the top
funding priority of family foundations located in the Northeast, Midwest, and South.
- Health accounted for
the biggest share among family foundations in the West, largely
due to giving by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Asset
Declines and Investment Strategy Changes by Family, Independent, and
Public Foundations
Survey results released by COF at the Family Philanthropy Conference
showed that family, independent, and public foundations experienced a
28 percent decline in their asset values over the course of 2008.
Many foundations have not made major changes to their investment
strategies, but a substantial proportion are making changes in their
investment managers, their diversification, and aggressiveness of their
investment strategies. Other highlights from the survey:
- While nearly half of
assets were held in equities at the end of 2008, more than
two-fifths of respondents noted that the share of assets held in
equities had dropped.
- Of the two-thirds of
foundations using investment consultants, a
quarter had either already changed consultants or were
considering a change.
- At least 60 percent
of foundations noted that their target allocations have not
changed since June 30, 2008, yet a quarter reduced their target
allocations for equities and increased it for fixed-income
securities and cash.
- While the use of
investment managers is nearly universal, nearly half had already
changed managers or were considering making a change - in fact
more than half of larger foundations ($100 million or more in
assets) had already made a change.
Navigating
the Wealth Transfer
"It has become a common boardroom scene at family foundations: the
grandfather wants to fund traditional scholarships in the local
community, while the granddaughter is passionate about providing
micro-loans for disadvantaged women in Africa.
How to bridge the generational giving gap?"
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Other
Family Philanthropy Resources
New National Center for Family
Philanthropy Website
NCFP has redesigned their website. Don't forget that as an SDG member,
you have access to the Family Philanthropy Online Knowledge Center (log in
with your SDG name and password), featuring over 1,000 articles,
research reports, and sample documents related to family philanthropy.
NCFP
Teleconference: Building Trust to Promote Community Collaboration (login
required)
March 12, 2009
Problems in a community can be
hard to solve when the people involved don't communicate with each
other because of their conflicting values across religious, cultural,
political, social and other divides. On this teleconference, hear how
the Ruth Mott Foundation in Flint,
Michigan, worked with the
Public Conversations Project to build relationships and trust so
community members could work constructively on shared concerns. You'll
learn about communication tools and techniques that can bridge the
divide among community stakeholders.
COF
Webinar: Family Gatherings: Boost Your Impact: Give Grantees a Voice
February 26, 2009, 1:00pm-2:30pm ET
Family philanthropies can
leverage their impact by helping grantees make their voices heard in
the public arena. This session will explore lessons learned in
leveraging program support by improving communications capacity. Eric
Kessler of Arabella Philanthropic Investment
Advisors, building on an analysis of grantee communications
capacity-building efforts, will interview the creator of one such
program pioneered by the Woodcock Foundation. Doug Hattaway
will walk participants through a presentation of his BeHeard! communications
program and a hands-on discussion and exercise that reveals
opportunities for immediate implementation.
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Family Funder Profile: The Patricia and
Christopher Weil Family Foundation
The Patricia and Christopher Weil Family
Foundation was founded in 1997 to create educational opportunities
for children and families in underserved communities. Christopher
Weil shares that their family foundation handled the issue of
succession by inviting the next generation (adult children and spouses)
to serve on the board from almost the inception of the
foundation. The Weils also envision
future involvement for their five grandchildren, ages 4-13. Chris
is quick to point out that there is no one way to plan for succession
because every family has its own dynamics and the process depends on
the interests of both the founding generation and later
generations. In the case of the Weils,
the foundation focuses on educational support, but each board member
also has a discretionary fund from which to make grants. In this
way, family members can pursue their own individual goals while also
supporting the foundation's work. Chris recommends that families
make use of a good consultant who can be helpful in determining their
optimal path to succession planning.
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