Alliance Online - September 2007

A buzz in the hallways

Caroline Hartnell

EVENT European Foundation Centre 18th Annual General Meeting and Conference
Date 1-3 June
Venue Madrid, Spain
Theme The New Challenges for Global Philanthropy

‘There was something qualitatively different about this conference,’ said Barry Gaberman, ‘a buzz in the hallways.’ He was addressing the closing plenary of the EFC conference in Madrid in early June, which brought together almost 700 participants. What was the buzz about? Two things, said Gaberman. One, the conference had put the critical issues of our time on the agenda – as signalled by the conference title. Two, EFC members had agreed to an increase in fees and thereby committed themselves to supporting the organization adequately in the future. A significant chunk of EFC core funding still comes from US foundations – a situation that CEO Gerry Salole would like to see changed.

Foundation assets are growing on both sides of Atlantic, said Barry Gaberman, recently retired from the Ford Foundation. As foundations in the US and Europe face many of the same issues, they need to come together to learn from each other. He then went on, in a brilliant and inspiring address, to outline seven key areas in which such learning could take place.

Transatlantic comparisons

The first was supporting public policy. This is an area, he said, where European foundations are much more comfortable. Acceptance of a social compact, however imperfect, is part of this. In the US, since the 1970s, the social compact is almost gone, so US foundations take on an adversarial role and see the state as the enemy. Here they need to learn from the Europeans and redevelop the social compact.

When it comes to diversity, on the other hand, US foundations have gone much further than the Europeans in trying to reflect society and the constituencies they serve. There is no conflict between excellence and diversity, he insisted. ‘The wider the pool, the greater the chance of attracting talent.’ Funding of research – ‘we need numbers in order to strengthen our voice in the public arena and to demonstrate impact’ – he cited as another area where the Europeans are beginning to pay more attention.

Impact is something that is going to become increasingly important in both the US and Europe, said Gaberman. ‘If accountability was the watchword of the turn of the century, the new mantra will be impact. Continued favourable tax treatment will depend on our ability to demonstrate impact in time of scarcity of resources.’

We will also be called on to show how assets in endowments contribute to public benefit, he suggested. ‘Maximizing returns for grantmaking will not be enough. At least we'll need to demonstrate that our investments aren’t undermining grantmaking.’

Another area he touched upon was what he termed ‘infrastructure support fatigue’. Very few foundations in the US or Europe see supporting infrastructure as part of their programmatic activity, he said. In days of plenty in the US, philanthropy and non-profit infrastructure organizations were established with little concern for their long-term sustainability; now some of these will need to close or merge or scale down. Europe is not yet saturated with infrastructure organizations and can learn from US mistakes in this regard.

Finally, he regretted philanthropy’s tendency to attack approaches to philanthropy other than one's own. ‘Traditional foundations mock at old wine in new bottles,’ he said, ‘while new foundations talk about bureaucracy, etc.’ The Wall Street Journal apparently said the Gates Foundation’s greatest fear would be to become like the Ford Foundation. ‘Surely we have better things to worry about?’

Sounding more global?

To extend the US/Europe comparison a bit further, one area where the Europeans do better is in sounding as if they understand what it means for an issue to be global. When the Council on Foundations looked at even that most global of global issues, climate change, at its conference in May, it seemed that the issue was to be dealt with within the borders of the US. The situation of the rest of the world barely came into the discussion, let alone any possible responsibility on the part of US foundations to do anything about it.

Rui Vilar of the Gulbenkian Foundation, speaking at the closing plenary, exemplified the European perspective. Existing issues need to be reframed in a global context, he said. ‘Europe is a rich area, and needs to assume responsibility for supporting development in poor countries.’

There is an irony here, however. While European foundations collectively sound so much more global in outlook than their US counterparts, it is among individual US foundations that one finds the real global funders – whether it be in the areas of climate change, global health, poverty or philanthropy infrastructure.

Ray Murphy honoured

Europeans and Americans came together to honour Ray Murphy, who died earlier this year. The 2007 Raymond Georis Prize, a prize honouring outstanding contributions to philanthropy, went to Ray Murphy, and the Principles of Accountability for International Philanthropy, a joint endeavour of the EFC and the Council on Foundations, were dedicated to him. Finally, it was announced that Atlantic Philanthropies, the Mott Foundation and Philanthropy Ireland plan to launch a lecture series in his honour.

Supporting advocacy and research

Global issues were prominent throughout the conference, starting with the opening plenary, where UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres forcefully drew attention to the plight of people needing to move – because of poverty, environmental degradation and climate change, or war and conflict. With natural disasters increasing and the effects of climate change becoming more obvious, he said, things can only get worse. Increasing migration is happening largely illegally, he pointed out. ‘This means people don’t have rights.’ In this sort of environment, trafficking is more likely to occur.

Society has failed to deal with these problems, said Guterres. He urged foundations to fund advocacy and research as well as supporting people already affected.

Pedro Alonso, of Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, also stressed the crucial role of research funding. Despite the advances of the 20th century, developing countries face huge health problems. Malaria is still endemic in 100 countries, while both HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are overwhelmingly diseases of developing countries. All inflict huge economic damage. He referred to ‘the 10/90 Gap’ – only 10 per cent of the global biomedical research budget is spent on diseases that cause 90 per cent of the global burden – and urged European foundations to play a part in closing the gap.

Climate change on the agenda

At the EFC plenary on climate change, one of several sessions on the topic, Uday Khemka of the Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation urged foundations to recognize that climate change will affect everything they do, as his own foundation had done. ‘Climate change does not sit only in the environmental box,’ he insisted.

‘What is the message for foundations like ours that will go on working on peace and social justice?’ wondered one of the small but increasing numbers of foundation board members at the conference. ‘How do we get climate change alongside other funding?’ asked another delegate. Carry out a study on how climate change will affect other programme areas, was Khemka’s suggestion. ‘If you are intellectually honest, the change to start to include climate change will happen naturally.’

Limited life?

Anyone writing up a conference inevitably has a limited viewpoint, having at most attended only a few of the many sessions on offer, but comments from other participants suggested that sessions this year were of a high quality. One that I attended, on the pros and cons of limited life philanthropy, exemplified everything that a conference session should be – thought-provoking, enjoyable, even funny. John Healy, recently retired President of Atlantic Philanthropies, eloquently argued the corner for the limited life model, while Stephen Pittam of Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust was equally convincing on the other side.

If John Healy’s viewpoint prevails in future, he said, conferences like this will get smaller and smaller as foundations spend down and shut up shop. Somehow this doesn’t seem likely any time in the near future.

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