Giving Compass' Take:

• Vu Le at Nonprofit AF, discusses why the roles of foundation board trustees and staff should radically change in order to make nonprofit organizations and program officers more effective. 

• Le argues that there is a power dynamic between foundation trustees and program officers that makes it difficult to provide honest feedback to boards.  A call for radical change might also mean a call to reflect on current power dynamics within foundations and adjust accordingly.

• Check out the Giving Compass Boards and Leadership Magazine for more information. 

In the past few months, there have been some critical feedback for philanthropy. The criticisms are not new. Over the years have been many articles, often written by former program officers, with the same heavy criticisms pointed out by Edgar Villanueva’s Decolonizing Wealth and Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All. The difference this time is that it seems philanthropy, to its credit, is taking things more seriously. The issues are brought to plenary level at philanthropic summits, whereas in the past they may have been a poorly-attended workshop at best.

The biggest challenge that program officers bring up for why things don’t change is that foundation board trustees have all the power. Trustees make the final decisions on who gets funded, how, in which priority areas. And the power dynamics between program officers and board trustees mirror the power dynamics between nonprofits and program officers.  This means it is incredibly difficult for program officers to give honest feedback to their boards, the way it is hard for nonprofits to be honest with program officers.

In the current way that foundations are set up, we’ve been underutilizing both trustees and program officers, hampering both parties and trickling down this ineffectiveness to nonprofits. For philanthropy to accomplish its overarching mission of a just and equitable society, the roles of both foundation board trustees and foundation staff must radically change:

  • Foundation staff must have the trust and autonomy to make funding and other decisions.
  • Trustees focus their energy on creating alignment around ambitious, visionary goals. 
  • Learn to let go.

Read the full article about changing the roles of foundation board and staff by [u'Vu', u'Nonprofitwballs'] at Nonprofit AF