You have a Masters in Public Policy and have played an active role in Foundations on the Hill. As we head into 2012, an election year, what issues should be at the forefront in regional associations staff’s minds?

All politics is local, which in this context is my way of saying regional association staff always have members at the forefront of their minds! So the questions are what are your members concerned about and what are you doing to engage and to listen to them? Have you established policies with your Board and members that allow you to advocate or lobby when opportunity or need knocks? In the Baltimore area, our members are anxious about government budget cuts and reduced private giving to nonprofits as a result of the economy. We are monitoring carefully the national conversation on charitable deductions and other efforts to gain government revenue from nonprofits and foundations.

You recently shared ABAG’s member renewal “thank you” letter on the Member Marketing listserve. ABAG seems to have a great relationship with its members, partially because of special touches like this. As the Member Services Director who also has a lot of other duties on his plate, how do make sure you get these important details right?

If I do get things right, it is precisely because I turn to the Forum network for best practices and rely on feedback from ABAG staff and long-time members (I believe in group writing). To focus my attention I rely on writing a fairly detailed annual plan and then pour my brain into my outlook calendar (my ring tone is “If I only had a brain”). Everything from reaching out to an unengaged member to taking my toddler to gymnastics happens because my iPhone buzzes. Send me a meeting maker anytime.

ABAG also serves the local nonprofit community. What kinds of programs do you offer to bring together grantseekers and grantmakers?

There is a separate Maryland Nonprofits association with whom we work closely and we try to provide a limited number of high quality workshops exclusively for grantseekers. To deepen relationships, we have experimented with having a summer book club to which our members could invite a grantee (Switch and Do More than Give). Mingling social and learning purposes has been popular. We have also supported member efforts to convene their grantees together and allowed affinity groups to invite strategic “partners” to some educational programs. It feels organic, but is the intentional result of a strategic plan goal: “ABAG will help members to address critical issues and improve community conditions, engaging the public sector, national philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations to support these efforts.”

What would you say is ABAG’s most popular member program?

Among the 98 programs seating 1122 bodies or 288 unique individuals in 2011… our annual fall Conversation with the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools is always the most popular. Dr. Alonso is known nationally and offers a mixture of truth and dare showmanship to an issue that our community cares about deeply. I have a very devoted and tiny group of members who meet monthly with me to discuss BIG ideas – What We’re Reading. We grab a New Yorker, SSRI, or other article and discuss how it applies to our values and work as grantmakers.

Is there anything you’re working on now that is particularly exciting?

I was excited to be asked to join the steering committee of Policy Works, a multi-year initiative that seeks to build the capacity of regional associations of grantmakers’ staff, board, and volunteer leaders to engage policymakers in support of a vibrant and effective philanthropic sector. Now housed at the Forum and staffed by Erin Skene-Pratt. Everyone should join.

What’s one thing you do in your position that the Forum network can help with?

Everything. Oh, one thing? Keep me looking smart by connecting us to national resources and experts whether through colleagues, Forum Bits, or webinars for our members. The Forum is an excellent filter and alert system for information in our field.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job?

Turkey sandwiches. Sorry, we always joke about the number of lunch meetings. But it is the meetings. It is being in an environment of continual learning where smart people are dedicating that learning to improving the community.

Outside of work, what are you passionate about?

I am passionate about service and volunteerism; public programs like AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps in which I served. I used to be passionate about fantasy football outside of work, but I brought that inside, having just completed our second year of a league for ABAG members and staff. Now if only I could win.

Anything else we should know?

I have not slept more than five hours straight in three years yet I am getting younger every day. I have a pirate (age 44 months) and tinker bell (age 20 months) and a better half (for 12 plus years) that fly me to Neverland every day for grand adventures.

And, ABAG rocks. We have the best staff and Madame President. But you already knew that.

Name:Mary O’Neill
Position: Director, Programs
Years with the Forum: 6.5

What are your primary responsibilities at the Forum?

As is the case at many regional associations with smaller staffs, I do a little of everything. My primary areas of focus are member benefits, programs, events, public policy, external partnerships, and special initiatives. I also handle administrative issues such as human resources and support Mike with board and funder relations. Every day is different!

What is the most enjoyable part of your job?

I enjoy having a variety of projects to work on, and there is never a shortage of projects at the Forum! I am a task-oriented person so I like being in a position to use the ideas and guidance of those of you who are experts in a topic and turning them into a program or resource that can benefit everyone. I also love working with and learning from my colleagues at regional associations and other infrastructure groups. I’ve been in this field for almost 15 years now and have built strong relationships that help me do my job better but have also led to real friendships which I value greatly.

What are you working on right now?

I’ve been on semi-maternity leave since my daughter was born in June, but I have kept involved in all of my projects. Right now I’m focused on planning related to Foundations on the Hill and our 2012 annual conference in Pittsburgh. I’ve also been serving as a liaison between regional associations and the Council on Foundations related to their annual salary survey and the Defining Philanthropy’s Role in Society initiative, and am determining next steps for the Forum’s involvement in the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading.

How can regional association staff get involved?

We will soon be asking for volunteers to serve on the planning committee for the annual conference, and we always welcome input on how to make the program most useful to the network. We also need volunteers to serve on the advisory group for the COF salary survey, so please contact me if you are interested!

What are you passionate about outside of work?

As the mother of two daughters (ages four and six months), I’d say right now I am most passionate about sleep. Unfortunately I get very little of that, but I do try to have a life other than work and parenting. I try to read for pleasure every day, even if it just the newspaper, and I always do the daily crossword puzzle. I love travel and photography but don’t get to engage in either as much as I would like. Our family loves sports — we have season tickets to Washington’s baseball and women’s basketball teams, my older daughter plays soccer and swims, and my husband and I been playing on the same softball team for 15 years. I used to play on a women’s basketball team but decided I was getting too old and creaky for that. In my ideal world I would be more passionate about exercise and less about food.

Anything else we should know?

In general I’d like to apologize to the network for not being as engaged in the last several months while I’ve been on part-time leave, but just want to assure everyone that come January I’ll be back full time, re-energized and ready to go in the new year!

Each stipend will cover up to $1,200 in travel and hotel costs associated with attending Foundations on the Hill. Registration fees will also be waived for all stipend recipients. A stipend recipient’s regional association will also receive a $300 award to continue public policy and advocacy efforts in the state.

To apply for a stipend, an applicant’s organization must be a member of either the Council on Foundations or a regional association of grantmakers and must be a first-time attendee of FOTH. Community foundation representatives must also be compliant with the National Standards for U.S. Community Foundations. Preference will be given to next generation leaders (ages 40 and under), minorities, and to representatives of foundations that meet one or more of the following criteria:

• Applicant’s foundation has assets less than $25 million
• Applicant’s foundation is located in a underrepresented area (see stipend guidelines for details)
• Applicant’s foundation is located in a rural area (see  stipend guidelines for details)
• Foundation location in a House Ways and Means Committee member’s congressional district, a Senate Finance Committee member’s state, or the district/state of a House/Senate leadership member (e.g., the Majority Leader)

Awards are limited to one person per foundation and are non-transferrable to other foundations or foundation staff. Due to limited funds and anticipated demand, the stipend award may not be able to support all eligible applicants.

More information about the stipend program is available at www.foundationsonthehill.org/stipendprogram.asp

The deadline to submit applications for the stipend is Friday, December 16, 2011 and award recipients will be notified by Friday, January 27, 2012. To apply please fill out the application form and return it to Chatrane Birbal at the Council on Foundations via email or fax (703-879-0889).

1. Redesign the front page so that it’s inviting, active, compelling, and clear.
2. Further develop LP’s search function – make it easier to find and more highly functional
3. Improve initial search screen
4. Populate and format the resource landing pages
5. Improve the log-in/register page
6. Build out the individual profile functionality
7. Add and build more interactive elements
8. Test initial value-added content, like collections of resources, Q&A, etc.

They are currently preparing the site for another round of user testing. Click here to sign up to be a user tester and/or to review more of LearnPhilanthropy’s page designs. Please also share this opportunity with grantmakers in your region.

Other recent blog posts on LP.net

• Perspectives on Grantmaker Learning – And How LearnPhilanthropy is Learning From Them!- highlights 3 learning frameworks by the Forum, GrantCraft, and The Bridgespan Group
• Fun & Learning- Jessica Bearman’s thoughts on “What makes learning fun and how can fun make learning better?”
• Can’t Get No Satisfaction?- an overview of three perspectives on job satisfaction

LearnPhilanthropy is a network of people from all parts of philanthropy who are working together to create a stronger, more rational, and less fragmented system for grantmaker learning than we have today.

We’d like to thank the 32 regional associations who updated their information to include 2010 data. This is a comprehensive and time intensive survey to complete and we appreciate the time and effort it takes to provide this information each year.

The Forum and the Council on Foundations are also excited to provide the first ever brief on the organizational and management trends of Affinity Groups and Regional Associations, available at the link above. The study uses data from both the 2010 Affinity Group Management Survey and the 2010 Regional Association Characteristics Survey to compare the similarities and differences of operations and organizational trends among these two very distinct groups of organizations. The Council has also provided access to the Summary Report for the 2010 Affinity Group Management Survey.

• Encourage our 280 grantmaking member organizations and their 2500 individual staff members and trustees to look carefully at age-related issues through the prism of their existing areas of focus and then integrate age-related concerns into their current mix of priorities.
• Connect age-related concerns to Philanthropy New York’s own central focus on policy. To reinforce this priority, a close working and advisory relationship was forged with the New York Academy of Medicine and the city’s “Age Friendly NYC” initiative.
• Increase the footprint of age-related issues within the institutional fabric of Philanthropy New York.

To date, three of our educational programs have reinforced these strategies. They include a kick-off forum which parlayed a demographic overview presented by the New York City Department of City Planning with a funder’s panel on how the aging of New York City is profoundly affecting their approach to funding.

A second event was held in conjunction with a Grantmakers In Aging Regional Issues Forum at the Museum of Modern Art, with the theme of “Creativity and Healthy Aging.” During this program, funders were exposed to the science of creativity and the idea of the arts as a vehicle for both therapy and elder empowerment and heard from keynote speaker, MacArthur Award winner, and choreographer Liz Lerman of the Dance Exchange.

A third cross-cutting forum linked education with age-related issues and highlighted (using local projects) intergenerational education collaborations, opportunities for elders in higher education, and the older adult as an active learner. Also featured was the use of database technology to expose elders to educational opportunities.

Future forums currently being discussed will expose funders to the intersection of aging and workforce development issues and the ever-evolving opportunities for grantmaking in the areas of aging and health.

To better integrate age-related concerns into the ongoing work of Philanthropy New York, both a members’ listserv and a designated presence on our website are in the planning stage. As we proceed with our initiative, the optimum challenge is to bring our awareness and educational efforts to the next step of active grantmaking and multi-funder collaboratives. Already, members of our Working Group have met individually with other funders, encouraging and mentoring them in age-related issues. It is our hope that what we have planned, along with web-based marketing efforts, will create even greater successes in this area.

This October, Beeta attended the annual conference of Grantmakers In Aging held in Washington, DC, where GIA’s new CEO John Feather warmly welcomed all participants. The conference, exciting throughout, had a number of sessions and events most relevant to our New York initiative.

The intensive session “Habla Ingles? Language Access and Advocacy for Diverse Aging Populations” discussed the importance of understanding the history of a population, cultural competency, and making a “systems level of change,” encouraging funding over 10 years or more.

It was most inspiring that The Eisner Foundation awarded the inaugural Eisner Prize of $100,000 for Intergenerational Excellence to The Intergenerational Center at Temple University, led by Dr. Nancy Z. Henkin. The importance of intergenerational programming across all age-related programs was prominent and present throughout the conference.

Finally, “Seniors Out Speaking on Medicare,” an intimate roundtable session led by Barbara Greenberg, Foundation Advisor for the Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation, illustrated the exciting potential in age-related funding. The session highlighted a creative program in Westchester County, NY initially funded by the Helen Andrus Benedict Foundation that has now spread to several sites nation-wide. The program uses the model of “Medicare Minutes,” one-page sheets that can be read in one minute to inform seniors about updates to Medicare. The program also takes into account language barriers and makes region-specific translated versions of the minutes available. Through a large force of volunteers, the program accomplishes three main goals: providing good information for the public, engaging the elderly (persons 50 years and older), and affecting broader public policy.

For more information about Philanthropy New York’s EngAGEment initiative, contact our program consultant Robert Hyfler at bobhyfler@comcast.net.

In Ray’s book, Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People are Changing the World, he classifies people by value systems rather than ethnic or economic indicators. Three groups emerge: Traditionals, Moderns, and Cultural Creatives. Those in the Traditional set are cultural conservatives. Moderns represent what we might call the mainstream, people who are success-oriented and well represented in the media. Ray defines Cultural Creatives as those people whose primary interests include authenticity, life-long learning, idealism, activism, globalism, ecology, feminism, and spirituality (though this does not necessarily mean religious).

Cultural Creatives represent about 35% of the population and, according to Ray’s research, they are growing. It’s important for philanthropy to take note here, because they also happen to be the group that volunteers and donates the most. In addition, they tend to be the opinion leaders in areas of social change.
So how do you reach these people? Authenticity is the key. Ray says Cultural Creatives see right through glossy marketing campaigns. If you try to sell them something, they’re not buying. Cultural Creatives want to learn and they want to learn with you. As this group grows, it will become increasingly important for grantees and foundations to tell their own stories. Foundations, Ray says, must clarify their values in relation to each project and grant. Cultural Creatives want to know how things work and why.

We’re all well away of the browning and graying of the population, but if the trends described in Ray’s book hold up, philanthropy will also have to contend with the rising tide of Cultural Creatives to be successful in the decades ahead.

Learn more about Dr. Ray’s work at http://www.integralpartnerships.com/.

ThinkShout owners Sean Larkin and Lev Tsypin have been passionately involved in nonprofit tech and open source software development for the majority of their individual careers. Over the last five years, Sean and Lev have managed over 100 Drupal development projects. ThinkShout continually pushes the boundaries of open source software development to consistently release software that serves the needs of the nonprofit community.

The Forum’s KM Initiative is comprised of a Content Management System (CMS), an Association Management System (AMS), and a Knowledgebase that spans all sites. The Drupal CMS as designed by ThinkShout will replace our aging and restrictive CMS with an extendable, modular, open source Drupal system. IMPak, a web-based membership database provided by ISSI, Inc., will continue to be offered as the KM Initiative’s AMS solution, though now we will offer the option of integrating with Salesforce as well.

Participants in the KM Initiative include:

• Conference of Southwest Foundations
• Connecticut Council for Philanthropy
• Council of Michigan Foundations
• Council of New Jersey Grantmakers
• Donors Forum (IL)
• Donors Forum of Wisconsin
• Florida Philanthropic Network
• Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers
• Grantmakers of Western Pennsylvania
• Indiana Grantmakers Alliance
• Maine Philanthropy Center
• Northern California Grantmakers
• Ohio Grantmakers Forum
• Philanthropy New York
• Philanthropy Northwest
• Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers

The Forum embraces the principles and power of the network and the KM Initiative is a concrete demonstration of our commitment to working smart together. In its current iteration the KM Initiative has accomplished unparalleled cooperation and collaboration among regional associations. The partners in this community share a wealth of knowledge that leads to greater successes for each RA, all while simplifying and streamlining back office functions. Acting together, we can harness the power of this system to deliver better programs and a more satisfying experience to all our members.

by Buffy Beaudoin-Schwartz, Communications Director, Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers

As a membership organization of foundations and corporate giving programs ranging in size, staff, resources and capacity, we at The Association of Baltimore Area Grantmakers are continually looking at how to better our communications with and on behalf of our members.

As The Resource on Grantmaking, we provide critical information and services to the philanthropic and nonprofit communities. As The Network for Givers in our region, we convene grantmakers and others to address issues and create lasting solutions. And, as The Voice for Philanthropy, we represent the philanthropic sector to key audiences, including the media, legislators, and national organizations, raising public awareness and understanding about the role and impact of philanthropy on our society.

In order to enhance our ability to be the resource, network and voice of and for our members, we have been utilizing social media, and in particular Facebook and Twitter for four specific reasons: To Communicate, Disseminate, Concentrate and Participate.

• Communicate: As an additional avenue to communicate with our members.
• Disseminate: To “Tell the Story of Philanthropy” by highlighting the importance of charitable giving and how donating to one’s community can bring about real change – which is the work of our member institutions.
• Concentrate: To “listen” to what others are saying about issues we care about, and to utilize these opportunities to gather knowledge, information and resources.
• Participate: And, to be a part of, and help to shape the conversation about philanthropy that is taking place all day, every day, through social media.

Based on our several years of experience and continued learning, I offer the following recommendations for organizations on how to make use of Social Media:

• Develop your specific rationale for the use of Social Media as it relates to your overall communication strategy in tandem with your strategic plan – the goals, expected outcomes and implementation steps.
• Develop a social media policy for your organization.
• Create communication and concentration categories of the types of information that is appropriate for your organization to provide and obtain through social media, and why. ABAG uses the following categories: ABAG specific, ABAG Members, ABAG Partners, Regional Philanthropy, National Philanthropy
• Map your social media distribution and participation opportunities in advance as much as you can– identify based on seasons, holidays, programs, events, trends, hot topics.
• Be clear about who you “friend” and “follow” and why in order to obtain the best and most relevant ongoing information.
• Find your organization’s unique and professional yet casual voice – it’s a new and different medium to engage in and with.
• Practice good social media etiquette – participate, reach out, comment, follow, friend and thank your core constituencies on an ongoing basis.
• Recognize that a sound social media plan requires an organizational commitment.
• Engage your board, staff and volunteers in your social media efforts.
• Evaluate! Social media efforts should be monitored as part of your overall communications efforts.
• Be thoughtful, strategic, fluid and flexible – have fun with it!