A Philanthropic Experiment in Collaboration and Capacity Building

I mentioned earlier that a group of Austin philanthropists is working on a collaboration around building the capacity of local arts education organizations.  I now have more information on the project, and as an example of philanthropic collaboration and capacity building it’s pretty interesting.  The project, called Mind Pop, is a $225,000+ collaboration among Still Water Foundation, Webber Family Foundation, Applied Materials, Tapestry Foundation, the Education Foundation of America and additional funders who they are still working to secure. The leaders of Mind POP hope to improve the unequal access Austin students have to high quality arts education and the lack of capacity and collaboration among arts education organizations in town.

Their goals for the project are to:

• Establish a baseline for measuring improvements in access and quality
• Pinpoint inequities in the community to design targeted solutions
• Strengthen relationships between key community partners
• Fund four pilot projects designed by the key partners to address systemic change
• Improve the capacities of 25-40 arts education orgs and provide seed funding to strengthen their programs
• Act collaboratively, laying a foundation for ongoing coordination and potential  national funding going forward

The project has three phases over the next year.  Phase One is an analysis to understand gaps in resources in the current arts education landscape.  Phase Two is a series of professional development sessions for arts education organization leaders to address the four most critical barriers to capacity that they see. These two phases will happen concurrently. Then, Phase Three will be the distribution of $150,000 in grants to the arts organizations that participated in the capacity building sessions. This money is comprised of four systemic change grants at $25,000 each and 40 mini-grants at $1,000-2,500 for organizational change projects.

The details, partnerships and funders are still being worked out, so this is all subject to change, but I imagine the basic overall design of the project will stay the same.

Although the scope and dollar amount of the collaboration and capacity building project is relatively small, it is impressive for two reasons.  First of all, I like to see philanthropists pooling resources for greater leverage.  Particularly in Austin, where our foundation assets are small compared to the foundation assets of other cities, collaboration is crucial to achieve broader and deeper social impact.  So the fact that these family and corporate foundations are creating a pooled fund of money means a greater amount of capital working for the same goal, which hopefully means a greater chance that the goals are realized.  And secondly, this project is interesting because it seeks to understand AND remedy problems of capacity within the nonprofit sector.  I have talked at length about the need for greater capital to fund organization building in the sector.  Philanthropists are often hesitant to see their money go anywhere other than direct program services.  But when philanthropists like those in Mind POP recognize how important capacity and organization building is to addressing the root cause of social problems (like unequal access to arts education) they are moving the sector forward.  They are recognizing and demonstrating to their colleagues that capacity can and should be supported.

It will be interesting to see how this project progresses and the outcomes it achieves.  I’ll keep you posted.

Tags: Applied Materials, Austin, Capacity Building, Education Foundation of America, Mind POP, philanthopists, Still Water Foundation, Tapestry Foundation, Webber Family Foundation

A New Direction for American Public Education

I’ve written before about the potential for some serious education reform in America because of the Obama administration and their appointment of Arne Duncan, former Chicago Public Schools superintendent, as Secretary of Education.  Arne has a great track record and some exciting ideas and experience with education reform.  There is more insight into his ideas for how he will reform the American education system in his recent interview on Charlie Rose:

Tags: Arne Duncan, Chicago, education reform, Obama

Here Comes Some Real Education Reform

As President Obama signs the economic stimulus bill into law today it is interesting to analyze what this means for nonprofits, social entrepreneurs, and crumbling American institutions like our education system.  I have written many times before about the opportunity that this financial crisis offers.  When systems are crumbling the time is right to build something stronger, better, more effective.  So it is today, particularly in the realm of American education.

Arne Duncan has taken over as Secretary of Education.  He is a young, bright, energetic innovative former superintendent of Chicago Public Schools.  He’s seen as a consensus-builder with a similar governing style to Obama’s, which has allowed him to push through some key reforms while keeping teacher’s unions happy.  In his 7+ years as CEO of CPS he:

• Increased elementary test scores in Chicago from 38 percent of students meeting the standards to 67 percent
• Increased the graduation rate by 6%
• Increased the number of master teachers who’ve completed a rigorous national certification process from 11 to 1,200
• Spearheaded merit-pay incentives rewarding school leaders and teachers for gains in student achievement
• Championed good charter schools
• Shut down failing schools and replaced their entire staffs
• Opened 53 new schools

Another less talked about thing that Arne Duncan has done is to encourage the success of the Chicago Public Education Fund.  This corporate-backed venture philanthropy fund is in its 9th year and has invested over $25 million in innovative programs in Chicago’s public schools.

The Fund invests significant capital and management expertise in a limited number of well-managed, high-impact programs that improve school leadership, drive policy change and make system-wide impact. The Fund has invested in programs like Teach for America and New Leaders for New Schools and only invests if Chicago Public Schools signs on as a co-investor.

It’s a fascinating model, much like a city-sized, education-focused version of the social investment fund that America Forward, the Obama administration and others have been discussing where government and private dollars are pooled and invested in high-impact social innovations.

So Duncan brings to the table success in education reform paired with an understanding and experience with new models of social innovation (both social entrepreneurship and venture philanthropy). Now, add to that the $100 billion in emergency aid for public schools that he will have at his fingertips with the stimulus plan, and you have a pretty exciting combination of factors that could mean a transformation of the public school system based on social innovation.  $54 billion of this money is largely at Duncan’s disposal. According to a New York Times article, Duncan said he intends to reward:

• “Islands of Excellence:” school districts, charter schools and nonprofit organizations that demonstrate success at raising student achievement
• Programs that tie teacher pay to classroom performance
• Training efforts that pair new instructors with veteran mentors
• After-school and weekend tutoring programs

So, perhaps what we are starting to see is the large-scale education reform that Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, argued last month wasn’t happening with social entrepreneurs.  As I argued in response to him,

Perhaps we needed social entrepreneurs like Teach for America and others to point out the problems within the system and offer a theory of change.  Now that they have demonstrated that there are programs that work and new ways to do things, we can now create policy around those ideas.  And with a new administration and a new Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, who has a history of reforming the Chicago Public Schools and implementing new models like Teach for America, perhaps policy reform has a chance.  It will be interesting to watch.

Yes it will.

Tags: American Forward, Arne Duncan, charter schools, Chicago Public Education Fund, Chicago Public Schools, Obama, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation fund network, Venture Philanthropy