Northern California Grantmakers

NCG member ZeroDivide rolled out a new report today (http://bit.ly/MobileZD) that ramps up the conversation on how to support nonprofits in using mobile to move their mission. The focus is on initiatives by underserved communities in the U.S. — and how funders can strengthen the quantity and quality of support for this work.

Co-author Jeff Perlstein mentioned the report last week in a #funderTech session with new grantmakers at NCG’s New Grantmaker Institute, where we discussed specific ways funders can embrace and support technology among their grantees.

The report contains some great research about the ubiquity of mobile devices, especially among underserved communities and communities of color, and surveys some examples of community impact using mobile strategies.

Funders Get In The (fast moving) Act

The report contains a set of recommendations for funders that can shape support, even with rapidly changing technology.

The sweet spot for funders working with underserved communities lies in increasing the value people can generate from the types of mobile devices and access they already have. For now and the next few years, this means ensuring accessibility—designing projects for feature phone users—and emphasizing the strengthening of community capacity, knowledge, and strategy development.

Find ZeroDivide at COF next week to learn more, and register for the May 22 webinar to dig into the report with peers.

Last week, NCG staff had the opportunity to participate in the Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s 5th Anniversary Regional Meeting. A special celebration to mark what is traditionally known as the “wood anniversary” – while admittedly not the most alluring of celebratory symbols, perhaps a fitting metaphor for the lasting and powerful impact this community foundation has already had in the Peninsula. The redwoods dotting the landscape jump to mind.

Featuring an inspiring keynote from Vice President Al Gore, the afternoon event left guests with a sense of pride for the great work undertaken in the past years, and a charge moving forward to set sights on implementing change with a long-term vision.

SVCF President & CEO, Dr. Emmett Carson welcomed the crowd of more than 1,400 guests and shared highlights of the foundation’s successes, both since the earliest days of the merged foundation (over $1 billion in grants awarded in just 5 years, more than the combined grantmaking of the parent foundations over their lifetime) and in the last year (the establishment of a Donor Circle for the Environment, seeded with a $100,000 matching gift from the David & Lucile Packard Foundation).

Dr. Carson also shared with the audience a newly released report, Tying the Knot: The Founding of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, this detailed case study, captured by award-winning journalist Janet Rae-Dupree outlines the candid details of a complicated merger between two, very different, community foundations (the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley serving Santa Clara County and the Peninsula Community Foundation serving San Mateo County).

The union of these complementary, yet fundamentally different, foundations is told in this compelling case study that shares moments of inspiration as well as deeply rooted philosophical challenges in the creation of the largest community foundation in existence.

Happy birthday, Silicon Valley Community Foundation – we are are all very fortunate indeed for the thoughtful investments you make in our region!

Grantmakers for Effective Organizations’ most frequently downloaded publication has been updated and rereleased. Due Diligence Done Well: A Guide for Grantmakers, written by La Piana Consulting, is based on the 2004 publication on the same topic with updated learning about effective due diligence. GEO’s lays out the value of a streamlined approach to due diligence that balances a grantmaker’s information needs with the added burden on the grantee. The guide covers:

• The possible materials for review
• A set of questions to assess a proposal’s fit with foundation mission
• Questions for due diligence conversations and research
• A list of organizational effectiveness indicators to help assess your findings and weigh the decision-making factors most important to your foundation.

The PDF is free, and the interactive toolkit is available to GEO members (NCG is a member of GEO, and we checked this out – brilliant!).

GEO invites grantmakers to tell their stories about due diligence and join the fray on Facebook. NCG will be hopping on their December 8 member call about the new guide and report back.