One Foundation, Ireland

One Foundation is a private philanthropic fund based in Dublin, Ireland. It is a ten-year fund, set up in 2004 and operating to 2013. Its mission is to improve the life chances of disadvantaged children and young people in Ireland and Vietnam. To achieve this, One Foundation invests in mental health, integration of minorities and social entrepreneurship.

Deirdre Mortell, Co-founder and CEO

One Foundation has responded to the recession in Ireland at two levels: foundation level and grantee level.

Our biggest challenge during a recession is to build exit plans for our grantees within four years. We know that the exit plans that we have built so far are unlikely to hold, as the assumptions we have based our plans on are under profound challenge. They included the assumption that state funding might ‘adopt’ the scale-up of services with proven outcomes where they align with government policy, as has happened with, for example, Big Brother Big Sisters or Barnardos’ family services. We also assumed that philanthropy would grow through this decade, whereas it is currently in a significant contraction. And we believed that the fundraising market would grow if we invested in the fundraising capacity and professionalism of our grantees, which we have done with significant funds. All of these exit plans make strategic sense, but are unlikely to be achieved within the four years of life that remain for One Foundation.

We have not yet solved this problem and we may not be able to solve it fully. Below is an outline of the actions we have taken so far.

At foundation level, we have focused on our core priorities, which are expressed in eight goals to be achieved by 2013. We have cancelled plans for any grants that were not focused on those eight goals. In parallel, we determined to maintain all existing core commitments and planned grant expenditure for whatever it took to achieve this. To do this, we undertook a cost-cutting exercise on overheads, including cutting Board advisory fees by 50 per cent and managing cash very tightly indeed. This involved changing grant payments from being annual to being quarterly to ensure we could conserve our cash and stretch it as far as possible.

At grantee level, we surveyed the financial resilience of our 24 Irish grantees over the summer months to determine in detail their risk profile (if any) and any patterns that we needed to be aware of. This produced a number of surprises; when all the data has been examined, we will be able to determine what, if any, actions we need to take to support our grantees.

We have also decided as a policy to support any mergers or alliances that are appropriate within our portfolio or outside it. We have supported one merger to date through convening and consulting services and we will grant-fund the new organization when it emerges. This is an immigrant-serving organization that operates in a fragmented and weak sector; it was clearly financially unsustainable and needed consolidation. However, we are clear that mergers are only a good idea where they advance mission, as well as saving costs. For example, we have supported an alliance of two synergistic organizations within the youth mental health field: Headstrong works on face-to-face services with young people and ReachOut! Ireland provides online support to young people going through tough times. They now share office space (to save costs), and plan to share a youth advisory panel and a research advisory committee, building on the synergies of co-locating.

Finally, we will revisit the terms of some of our grant contracts, in order to ensure that grantees have flexibility to manage their finances towards the grant objectives. With this in mind, we will discuss whether they might extend the life of the grant, change some activities, or move around spending within budget lines for greater efficiencies or in the interests of sustainability of the organization.

In Ireland, we know we are in a recession, not just a financial crisis, so we will keep all decisions under review as we know that fundraising, philanthropy and state funding have taken savage cuts recently and are likely to drop again in 2010, creating a very tough financial environment for our grantees. Our goal is to hold steady within that turmoil, while reviewing our eight goals in relation to exit planning during the coming months of 2009.

For more information
www.onefoundation.ie
info@onefoundation.ie