Northern California Grantmakers

The Nonprofit Sector and Community Solutions Act of 2010 (H.R. 5533) was introduced on June 16th, 2010 by Congresswoman Betty McCollum of Minnesota, and intends to strengthen America’s communities by making the federal government a more productive partner with nonprofit organizations.

Despite the importance of the nonprofit sector to the U.S. economy and to the success of many federal, state and local policy initiatives, no federal agency or congressional committee has responsibility for evaluating, building or maintaining the capacity of the nonprofit sector, and government does not collect the data necessary to make sound policy decisions that have measurable impacts in communities.  This Act proposes to:

• Establish the U.S. Council on Nonprofit Organizations and Community Solutions consisting of 16 leading voices from across the sector. The council would produce a report and convene an annual summit on improving the relationship between government and our sector.
• Create an Interagency Working Group on Nonprofit Organizations and the Federal Government composed of cabinet members and other leaders from agencies such as the IRS, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Corporation for National and Community Service. This body would help coordinate efforts between the two sectors.
• Require federal agencies to increase collection of data on nonprofits, with $5 million going to the National Science Foundation for research grants to our sector. The bill spells out a number of proposals such as more accurate counts of employees and better tracking of government funding to nonprofits.

This bill could establish more effective partnerships between philanthropy and government at the federal level, as there would be an opportunity for foundations to share program-area expertise and best practices in supporting community-based organizations and those that they serve.

Read more about H.R. 5533 at Independent Sector and in a recently published article from the Nonprofit Times.

Have you recorded your family’s philanthropic story?

At the heart of every philanthropic act are people who choose to make a positive difference in other people’s lives. Often the unsung stories behind individual donors’ history and intent go unheard.

On June 24, 2010, NCG’s Family Philanthropy Exchange hosted its long-awaited and annual signature program with the intent of encouraging local philanthropists to have their philanthropic stories told. The event, Stories That Inspire: StoryCorps Oral Histories of Bay Area Philanthropist, was held at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco and celebrated the philanthropic legacies of Bay Area family philanthropists mother and daughter, Shirley Fredricks and Lisa Parker of The Lawrence Welk Family Foundation and Douglas Goldman (Richard Goldman’s son) of the Lisa and Douglas Goldman Fund. Rae Richman, Director of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors San Francisco office moderated the real-time StoryCorps demonstration.

The program also included a presentation by StoryCorps Founder and MacArthur Genius David Isay who told the “story behind StoryCorps” by sharing audio excerpts of and extra insights about local philanthropists with the audience. He also shared other recorded StoryCorps interviews over the years since StoryCorps began in 2003. The audience was particularly moved by the love story of Danny and Annie Perasa of Brooklyn, New York.

Listen to Danny and Annie describe their first date.

In an increasingly visual world, Mr. Isay eloquently demonstrated how audio has continued to be one of the most effective means to share compelling stories. However, staying current with the times, StoryCorps is now featuring animation with a few of its interviews.

Thank you to those who attended, the Family Philanthropy Exchange Steering Committee for planning the event, the Contemporary Jewish Museum for graciously hosting us, and to David Isay for inspiring us to record our individual stories. While modesty and privacy certainly have their places in family philanthropy, the message was loud and clear about the importance of capturing your family’s history, which can help guide your philanthropic mission across generations. It was also great to rediscover the art and gift of listening to others.

To record your story with StoryCorps, please visit their website at www.storycorps.org. Thanks to the generosity of the Museum, the StoryCorps booth is now a permanent exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. We encourage you to arrange a StoryCorps interview by contacting Sara Geis at sgeis@storycorps.org
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Staff here at NCG is putting the finishing touches on preparations for tomorrow’s annual Corporate Philanthropy Institute (CPI). This year’s CPI features Chip Heath, co-author (along with his brother, Dan) of New York Times Bestselling books Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard and Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die.

The CPI is one of our signature programs here at NCG, which means it’s more intensive than our usual events. CPI is a full day including a keynote address, break-out sessions, speaker panels and networking opportunities for attendees.

Staff here at NCG will be “all on deck”, as we like to say around here, and it’s a great opportunity for us to connect with our corporate members. While they’re taking in the institute’s offerings, we’re learning from our members: their current grantmaking challenges, how the landscape of corporate philanthropy is evolving and the types of programming corporate grantmakers would like to see NCG develop.

Over the years we’ve had some truly inspiring speakers participate. In 2009 founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality Chip Conley gave members a behind-the scenes look at how he transformed Joie de Vivre by creating loyal employees, customers and investors. And in 2008 Raj Sisodia, co-author of Firms of Endearment, explained the findings of his book’s research: that companies can make a profit and be committed to a business model that takes into consideration employees, customers, society at large and shareholders.

This year we’ll be at IBM’s conference center on Market Street in San Francisco and attendees will explore how to develop a “forward-looking” corporate citizenship strategy during these challenging economic times.

There’s still time to register.

For more program information visit NCG’s website.

See you there!