Unknown Speaker  00:00
We are on. So I think we have no problem. Everything is on PA. I shouldn't be on. Okay. I don't maximum minimum volume. Okay, we'll hope this works. Ah, because these tapes are apparently going to be available for what use I don't know whether they're going to sell them. But in any case, let me introduce each of our panelists. Before I talk I will also be presenting on the panel. But I also have the double job of introducing everybody. So where do I start? Which way whoever comes out first I start. Kathy McCarthy, who is not I think, in alphabetical order, but that came forward. I've known actually Kathy longer than I have known Allison, I just met Kathy is probably known to both to many of you. She's a very, very distinguished writer, author, scholar in the field of philanthropy and women in particular. She got her PhD from the University of Chicago, and has now the position of Associate Professor and in history, but also Director of the Center for the Study of philanthropy at the graduate school and university center of the City University of New York. So she is here in New York, where she has come to roost. Her books are among her books, I should say, our Noblesse of leash, charity and cultural philanthropy in Chicago, which I guess is where I first met you. We first met actually at a seminar in philanthropy at Columbia, not far away. She's also written lady bountiful revisited women power and philanthropy and a new I guess the newest one is women's culture, American philanthropy and art. Since I'm married to an art historian, that book might even appear also in our house, the two might fight for numerous presentations, I won't go into all of them. Many of the conferences we have played footsies that hadn't been in some of the same place at the same time. Among other professional activities, though, that I think you may enjoy knowing she is on the governing board of the Rockefeller archive center, which I thank you for since I used and she's First Vice Chairperson of the nonprofit academic center Council. And I could go on and on with her distinguished record, so but I will not take any more time except to say that when she does her speaking, you will be very fortunate to hear. I'll introduce both speakers all of us and then we'll go back to Katherine. Now, we have Alison Bernstein, who I have met for the very first time in fact, I was chasing descriptions of her to find her. Today she is feeling if it's already to say somewhat under the weather, so she will speak first. And then feel questions. Oh, no. Does that. Actually Kathy will go first. Alright, then we will do Alice and Alison will field some questions. Then I will speak and we'll save the questions for Kathy and me afterwards. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  03:10
All right. So holding up.

Unknown Speaker  03:12
No, well, yeah. All right. No, she's holding up and this is good.

Unknown Speaker  03:18
We will help

Unknown Speaker  03:18
right. Okay. Allison, is at as you will know, at the Ford Foundation, which puts her in an enviable position in any panel because I remember when I worked for United Way, everybody said to me, oh, here comes United Way. I don't know if they say to you, oh, here comes the Ford Foundation. But we have to admit that there is a certain aura, it would be less than honest, if we didn't admit that. However, she has very fine academic credentials as well. She has a PhD in history at Columbia University. So I'm surrounded by historians, which is all right. Our professional position is Director of Education and Culture Program of the Ford Foundation, where she is responsible at the moment. For the overall design, implementation and assessment. This is a lot to say quickly of the Foundation's work in the United States in higher education, primary and secondary, secondary education and arts and culture. I seem to be the only one concerned here with human services, but never you mind if she's interested in cultural diversity, and encouraging creativity in the performing arts. This I found very interesting because I did not know this that you were Associate Dean of the Faculty at Princeton University. We'd like to see women in those positions, Associate Dean Dean and up because that's management, as well as academic responsibility, and a variety of other things. And in addition, because she hasn't had enough to do in her various administrative activities, I'm happy to say that Allison has written two books of the American Indians in World War Two which is kind of interesting toward a new era in Indian Affairs, and a book co authored called the impersonal campus where I think I'd like to read as a matter of fact, and I have to confess I have not read. So I think you can see we have two very distinguished panelists. Now I'm in the awkward position, I should have told me first because by comparison, I won't look as glamorous and can't tout yourself anyway. No, I didn't even I didn't even bring it with me. I won't remember what I did. For God's sake. Okay. I graduated from Smith, I'm a real woman's product, I went to Bryn Mawr where I got my master's in social work. And I have a doctorate from Columbia University. So across the street. I've had a woman's career in the sense that I had many years out, but I have no children. But I did go back and worked actually at the United Way. in Westchester County for many years where I did planning, allocations, evaluation, everything, but fundraising. And I think I will tell you, at least this much that I am really an example of somebody who was in a place too soon, they that time did not encourage women in large United Way's to go into campaign, if you did not go into campaign in the United Way, you really could never become an executive director of a large United Way. So I left not encouraged, I got back at them by writing a book on The United Way. Just before the scandals hit, so I became a little more famous than I intended, it was an academic book, not a pop book. But in any case, that is the true story. It was a case where they did not encourage women to get their hands on the money planning and allocations was considered all right. So I've written a book on that I've written a book on the Urban Development Corporation, which is planning and public authority and private interests in New York State. And numerous articles recently one on women and fundraising activities, actually, which has just come out. So I'm teaching I guess I should say where I am, I teach at Rutgers University in the School of Social Work, I teach policy planning, and administration, and at the doctoral level organizational theory, and at the undergraduate level, my favorite course, which is citizenship for women, which has been a great fun course to teach. So with that,

Unknown Speaker  07:17
I can get your name.

Unknown Speaker  07:19
Oh, Eleanor, brilliant. Okay, you will have it I hope on your, on your panel material. And I apologize, I'm not used introducing myself, Eleanor brilliant. Unfortunately, like it sounds. So well, you know, the jokes, I don't have to tell you somebody at a dinner party for the smarts to meet the brilliant dumbs lived around the corner. Okay. With all of that in mind, I will now pass us to more serious things that you really can't hear about. And we'll start with Kathy who will talk on I made a list which I'm not going to redo so that we can get to our discussion about a whole full page just of all the questions I could think of in five minutes about the field of philanthropy, how to define it, where it comes from? Who's involved and what does it mean for women? And Kathy is going to start with her own set of

Unknown Speaker  08:12
those questions. Yes, with historical perspective.

Unknown Speaker  08:16
That's, that's good, because that gives me wrap up. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  08:19
First of all, I want to thank you for your introduction, Eleanor. And also for the kind words about the center, I do have propaganda about the Center for the Study of philanthropy. And since I hold it up here, I would be delighted if you didn't take it, so I don't have to take it back with me. Eleanor was very stern with me yesterday telling me that I can only talk for 15 minutes, if I didn't, she suggested that a large hook would come out and draw me away. So I will try to get to.

Unknown Speaker  08:48
Now if that's how you do your history.

Unknown Speaker  08:51
This is going to be a whirlwind tour. So what I want to talk about today are three things First of all the historic impact of women's philanthropic roles, then a very brief outline of some of the strategies they used over time. And finally, some conclusions about how the the implications of these activities and historical record for current issues and trends. So let's start with the full of the historical record. Six years ago, the senator that I directed at CUNY had a conference on women and philanthropy that drew together scholars from the United States and from some developing nations like India and Brazil, to try and come to some conclusions about whether there were any common threads among the various kinds of philanthropic activity that women had been involved in. Elena raise the issue definitions, philanthropy is a dreadful term. There was one there was an organization a few years ago that did a poll a man and woman on the street interview to find out what people thought it meant and how many people were familiar with the term The majority decided that it had something to do with stamp collecting. And I thought it was an incurable disease. The way we define it at our center, we look at people who donate both time and money to the creation of nonprofit services or non governmental organizations in developing nations, and to try to affect social reform. So the donations of time and money for nonprofits and social reform movements. The results of the conference, one thing we could agree on, was that the common denominator whether you were looking at women's participation in the software to movies or social settlements, or third world Non Governmental Organizations, was that participation is donors and volunteers and organizational or North had historically provided one of the main ways in which women were able to exercise power in the public arena. What does that mean? Let me give you an historical example. In the 19th century, under English common law, the doctrine descended from their women could neither own nor alienate property, they couldn't control their dollars, they couldn't control their inheritance, they couldn't control their earnings. In many states, if a woman's hand. If a contract was signed by a woman, it was invalid. But when women got together and developed a chartered nonprofit organization, they could buy and sell property, they could build institutions, they could participate in public policymaking debates, they could help to engineer the allocation of municipal resources, they could conduct businesses under the rubric of nonprofit entrepreneurship. They could even change the constitution in an era before they have to vote. Which brings me very quickly to my second point, what kinds of strategies they use to achieve these ends. My most recent book, women's culture looks at three different ways in which women built institutions in the visual and decorative arts. One was to separate distort organizations, women working together with other women. Another was through assimilation ism. Women working within male dominated institutions and the weaving before 1930. Especially the major museums, like the Metropolitan were most certainly male dominated institutions. And then individual was mainly donors who had the opportunity to use their money to create new kinds of institutions that could change all sorts of things, including the way in which women, women artists were was regarded. Now, if you look at what women's historians have done, a lot of the research over the last 20 years has focused on separatist institutions, social settlements, nursing schools, Women's Medical Colleges, the suffrage and temperance movement. And we know a lot about women's roles as volunteers, but we know a lot less about their activities as donors and fundraisers. When I started the Center for the Study of philanthropy, a friend of mine who started a woman started the New York Institute for Research in the humanities. And Kathy, I just, I don't understand why things are written the way they are. It's like money arrives in the middle of the night, on the doorstep in a basket. I wish it weren't that. But scholars like Eleanor and some others are just beginning to look at the role of women and money. Now, one of the findings that I came up with in women's culture, this is no surprise, I don't think for any of us that women's organizations have historically operated on a shoestring budget.

Unknown Speaker  13:43
And the interesting thing is that when some of these groups began to amass some money, men began to pay attention to land tenure went up, and there was a real threat of takeover. If you got enough of an endowment, there was a chance that men would come in and say, Well, you know, you've got a great institution here, but the ladies can't manage all that money. And let us take it over for you. So it was a real double bind. My next book is going to be on women power and money. And I was interested in some of the things that people were working on. This will look at women philanthropist in the 20th century, from the turn of the century up to the present, and a whole variety of fields, including social worker, not just art. I'm finding that women made tremendous achievements in very badly underfunded, funded institutions. If you look at the software, some of them it's absolutely extraordinary. There were there were times when they didn't even have enough money to buy stamps, and they still managed to coordinate a national campaign. figures like Susan B. Anthony and Carrie Chapman Catt, who were leaders in the suffrage movement very often wound up subsidizing in auto pockets besides volunteering their time. If you look at Jane Addams, the Nobel laureate who funded founded whole house, she kept that thing Running with donations from from herself, and help from two friends primarily very, very few donations. Women have accomplished mirrors over the history of his countries with very limited funding. In fact, women built their asylums and settlements and national reform movements through small donations and heavy infusions of volunteer time, operating essentially and in an economy of time rather than money. While many, probably the majority of women participate in the separatist organizations in the late 19th, and early 20th centuries, some got involved in male dominated institutions. Instead, it's interesting to see the kinds of institutions that men and women found, at least before the 30s and 40s women are not very active in founding, the large museums like metropolitan, they find more specialized things like Whitney, the great research universities, like the University of Chicago foundations, think tanks, they're really applications from us, because these are the organizations that were setting the cannon, and we're setting professional standards. And it's very interesting in some fields, like medical education, where women had built Women's Medical Colleges in the 19th century, they get squeezed out when foundations come in and begin dumping money into medical education reform, because they can't raise enough to meet the standards that are being set by the foundations. And when they go in and ask someone like Abraham Flexner for grant, he turns them down because he doesn't believe in separate medical schools for women. And at the same time, women were not being treated very well in CO educational schools. The first woman on the faculty of the Harvard Medical School is appointed in the 1920s. It's Dr. Alice Hamilton. She's the leading expert in the United States on industrial medicine. She earns a reputation working out of whole house, when she comes in as an assistant professor, she is told not to expect any of the privileges as a regular faculty. And so it goes so there's there's a real there are a lot of interesting questions about the implications of the fact that women did not necess generally set up these legitimating institutions. And when they did, they usually turn them over immediately to the stewardship of male boards of trustees, Elizabeth Milbank, Anderson, who built this hall started the Milbank Memorial Fund, basically the systemized systematize for charities, but she put up points and all male board and after death, they not only take it over, but they run off in their own directions, going that things that she had not necessarily been interested in the beginning herself.

Unknown Speaker  17:38
The history of these organizations is once again of institutions, foundations, think tanks, research universities, organizations founded primarily funded and managed by man. For example, the first woman to sit on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is invited to do so in the 1950s. When I came to the Rockefeller Foundation in 1980, after graduate school, the foundation world was still overwhelmingly male. And the most striking thing about this assimilationist is that women gave money to institutions like the Metropolitan Museum or the University of Chicago, or Harvard or Yale, did very little to earmark their grants to use the money to make a change. Margaret Rossiter, who's another historian use coined the term coercive or creative philanthropy. And her example was, Mary Garrett, Johns Hopkins University in the 1890s, watched a $500,000 fundraising campaign for the medical school. They couldn't raise the money. So they went to Mary Garrett, who was railroad hours and said, Will you give us some money? And she said, Sure, I'll give you a lot of money with the proviso that you open the medical school to women as well as men, and they'll be allowed to take the same curriculum. And for $307,000, they said yes. And one of the best medical schools in the country, for women, but that's coercive philanthropy. in museums, for example, even the most fiery feminist and many of the donors and collectors were feminists, losing Havemeyer I don't know if you've seen the Havemeyer exhibit over the Met was a feminist. In fact, she, in her old age after her husband died, she actually managed to get herself arrested for helping to burn Woodrow Wilson effigy in front of the White House gave Olivia sage the founder of the Russell Sage Foundation, Bertha Palmer, Mrs. Palmer Palmer in Chicago, all strong feminist, but once they crossed the museum doorway, they very meekly handed over the money. They didn't ask for anything in return. They didn't ask for more wall space for women artists. When when Havemeyer donated that collection in 1929. She put it together with married facades help, there were two facades 14 day guys, about seven Manet's seven or eight Monet's but but very, very few works by women artists. They didn't ask for improved professional opportunities for women curators, who are basically generally at the bottom of the curatorial row. They didn't ask to be put on the board themselves, they just handed it over and said, Please take my money, or please take my collections. The third category that I looked at, and women's culture, and then I'll be looking at a lot more in this book are the wealthy women who had enough money to rewrite the rules of the way that the game was played. Once again, very few women, at least in the early part of this century started foundations or research, universities or public policy research institutes, which had very important implications for women's professional games and their ability to maintain this professional games. Instead, they often scattered their gifts to a large a lot of charities and institutions in which they were involved. And so some of the questions are going to be looking at in my next book, are, why this dumb standard? Why are women willing to bleed and die and then and, and donate large amounts of time to an organization that helps women, but when it comes time to give a large sum of money than handed over to organizations, that tend to bolster the professional aspirations of men? Now, the question is why these lingering prejudices against women running heavily capitalized institutions? And I would argue that these are prejudices that are just beginning to vanish. And what, what did all this mean, for understanding the amount of public and professional and political and personal power that middle and upper class women especially were able to wield in American society? Although these things are rooted in historical record, many of these issues, I think, still have residents today. I hope so I see some of you nodding in agreement. So this is my third point. In terms of assimilationist, in 1980, there were very few women in the big foundations. Today, over half, approximately 52%. And women often paid professional staffs of foundations capitalized with assets of 100 million or more are women. Why is it that so few foundations have made women's issues a stated priority?

Unknown Speaker  22:21
Women, after all, constitute the majority is talking about some isolated groups. What can be done to inspire more creative or coerce and philanthropy not just among women donors, but also among women professionals, including women professionals, and foundations. And I should add that that Ford is really one of the most advanced, Ford really does have a strong commitment to women's issues. What is what inspires wealthy women to give in ways to increase funding for services and opportunities for other women? For the center that I direct just received some grants for case studies of organizations that have managed to raise funds women's organizations that have managed to raise substantial funds from women, donors, like the Wellesley campaign, to look for what creates the culture of comfort that encourages women to give to women's organizations? I know that I'm my time is probably pretty well up. So I, very quickly by saying that it's important to emphasize that whether you're looking at politics or education, or social welfare services, one of the key questions is how we can begin to leverage the gains that we've achieved over the past 30 years. Almost every woman in here all of you are professional women, we've all benefited from the women's movement. How can we leverage this more fully? How can we encourage the women who are now enjoying increased educational and employment opportunity? Because of the women's movement? To as Susan B. Anthony, would it change the world now that we find control, of course, are beginning to control a person?

Unknown Speaker  24:13
Well, I knew Kathy would do the context setting. And I want to apologize to you because within 24 hours and feeling fine yesterday afternoon, when I left the Ford Foundation here I am today hardly able to speak and I think there's some 24 hour virus recall. So

Unknown Speaker  24:26
with apologies,

Unknown Speaker  24:28
let me share an anecdote with you. Eleanor mentioned that I had been Associate Dean of the Faculty of Princeton, I worked at the Ford Foundation from 1982 to 1990. As a program officer, as a staff member, recommending grants, that's the terminology program officer are the people whose has the people who are the frontline responsibility for grant recommendations. And then I left in 1990 to go work at Princeton for a variety of reasons. chance to teach which I miss deeply work on my book a number of other things. So I found myself on your side of the table, not on this side of the bed. And I had an idea that really mattered to make it had to do with women in the military. Because as Eleanor mentioned, my book was about American Indians during the Second World War. And I was very interested in issues of race, class and gender in the military. So I went back to my old philanthropic friends, and I started calling saying, wonderful to have a conference around this theme. Nobody called me back, that was the first thing. Once maybe philanthropy, I might as well have been dead in the water. I mean, it was a very important lesson to me is a quote, or philanthropy that somebody wants in. My friends whom I had worked with, and CO funded projects on, they were terribly busy. They didn't want to return phone calls, when they knew probably they weren't going to fund these projects. I was very frustrated. Two and a half years later, by some really odd sort of coincidence, I'm now back. And same people who were not answering my phone calls are calling me I want to play.

Unknown Speaker  26:05
And so I want to preface my remarks by saying that it is not easy for any of us to approach philanthropy, and succeed. And let me just say a few words about the Ford Foundation as a case study. And I'm very glad Kathy said what she did because of all the major philanthropies in this country, there is no question that Ford is exceptional in its concern for women's rights, and issues related to women, it is exception. Nevertheless, it is very difficult to get money for projects that I might call, if you will, the kinds of projects that we typically get for women. And so I'm going to give you both the kind of descriptive sense of what the Ford Foundation is and what it does. And then I'm going to give you for both provocative reasons. And also, for reasons of discussion, some observations I had about women, and how they approached philanthropy, with the understanding that they're not may not cultural in all cases, but it might give you some food for thought. First off the Ford Foundation, it is the world's largest philanthropy. The current corpus is about $6 billion, which enables us to spend and these are rough figures about $200 million a year in the United States, and $100 million around the world, largely in the developing world. We have one office in the United States, and 16 in the developing world, and we're about to open an office in South Africa. So it's a very, it's a very exciting time. Now, in the Ford Foundation, there are probably in New York, give or take that 125 140 program officers who are branch officers, and our figures are very much like Cathy's now, over half of those people are women, about 25%, or minority for foundation has had a very firm sense of diversity, and has had an internal policy of staffing and program development that emphasizes the diversity of the staff. And so when I joined in 1982, there was only one director among seven. Now there are 12, directors of whom have to limit that gives you some idea of the change in the Ford Foundation. There are probably six thematic themes areas that Ford funds, and that have a direct bearing on the roles and status of women. I'm just going to mention them very briefly, because Eleanor said you'd like to know that. They're the obvious suspects, so to speak. Women's legal rights. Poor foundation is probably one of the principal funders of the major national women's legal rights organization. Women's Health, especially reproductive health. We are not a science foundation, we don't do science funding, we fund in the social sciences primarily. So when we think about reproductive health, it is not basic research. It is about if you will practitioner driven, service providing, especially in the developing world, but also in the United States, and the public debate over reproductive rights. Third, what I call Women's Studies, and that was the arena that I had the most to do with in my first incarnation with the Ford Foundation. Instead of quoting from this, I'll just cite it for you. This was an issue of teachers college record, which I'm sure Kathy knows. And the title of this special issue was called philanthropy and education. And in this issue, there are several different articles about the role of philanthropy in education, one of which after we beat up on the woman editor, one of which was not was not was not originally planned. It's called Women's Studies and the emergence, emergence of women's studies in philanthropy. And it was an article I co authored with my predecessor at the Ford Foundation, a woman named Marian Chamberlain, who had a lot to do with the funding Women's Studies foundation. This is spring 92. And it's a good case study of how philanthropy works in a particular area of women's studies. So I've mentioned three, the fourth I want to call poverty alleviation, poverty alleviation for poor women in terms of new income generating activities. And that means that there are program officers at the Ford Foundation who are particularly interesting to poor and landless women here around the world, and how to alleviate their poverty and looking specifically at Women's Employment and women's economic position for what I would call gender equity in specific fields, where women are underrepresented in the 70s and 80s. Ford was one of the sort of pioneers in funding projects having to do with women and construction. women in the military, for example, women coal mines, in those fields where women had been underrepresented, and where there were structural and other discriminatory barriers to women's full participation. For a time before it was very involved in issues of pay equity, it's interesting to me the pay equity is sort of sunk beneath the waves. There's not even a topic here at this time.

Unknown Speaker  30:34
And last, but not least, I'll use the general rubric we use called work family issues. A whole nexus of work and family and how family responsibilities for women and for men relate to work responsibilities, and for spends a lot of time and some money, thinking about sort of enlightened policies in that region. Those are the six arenas before it has what I would call a substantial interest in. But by no means are those the only areas we work in. Nor is it the only way we express our concern for women. Because if you think about other areas, such as international peace and security issues with sustainable development, or issues having to do with housing, there is a gender lens at the Ford Foundation that asks a number of questions about what is the project? And what difference is it making differentially with regard to men and with regard to women, so that there are, if you will, I like Kathy's phrase, there are assimilationist themes that Ford, which are not women's specific, to which we bring a gender lens, those of us who work there, for example, of research in social sciences, and we ask the question, how much attention is being paid to the roles and contributions of women. But there are also women's specific themes, and I gave you the six that I think are largely women's specific. Okay. Having said all of that, and trying to give you a sense of what the Ford Foundation looks like, and how it works in our staffing, let me give you some more difficult observations about women and philanthropy and I want to give them from two vantage points. One is being a program officer, that is one of these people who had a staff responsibility to recommend grants. And the second one was that for a time, it was on my resume during the mid 70s. Through the end of the 70s, I was a program officer in a government philanthropy, Coke Pepsi fund for the improvement of post secondary education. So I've had an unusual vantage point in that I've been in both public philanthropy and private. And so when we look at them, they're very different animals. Let me make a point about public philanthropy, which is in fact that most government agencies that give away money, operate with a peer review system with some kind of, you know, established criteria for funding point systems when you submit your proposals, farming them out to panels, or individuals or experts or what have you. And then the program officer is basically a paper manager. In private philanthropy, the program officer is a much more creative individual in that he or she has the opportunity to negotiate grants with individuals who come with ideas, or send a proposal over the transom and get an answer. So I'm going to talk about my observations and some of these vultures, the boat sevens, okay? These observations are what I call glass, half full, glass, half empty observations. And I want you to realize that what may sound negative in the way I put it may also have a positive. Okay? And so I'm going to put it in phraseology that might sound negative, but I'm going to quickly countered by saying, there's a positive side to this. And Elena and I started talking about this. It has been my experience, that when women submit proposals to national philanthropy, to national philanthropic organizations, like the Ford Foundation at Carnegie Mellon really heavy, they tend to be really small scale, they tend to think small, they tend to have a very localized impact. They don't tend to sort of ask the ratcheted up questions of public policy. It is because they're principal and we can debate this, the principal experience is often a volunteer in a local setting. And the principal request is help us we don't have any money. Nine times out of 10 It's been my experience those kinds of requests, get a polite but firm term and national philanthropy. The obligation of the national organization is not to serve a local service responsibility. Those organizations, which all of us have been volunteers and locally, should first and foremost, address those kinds of questions to the local philanthropic community, to the corporate community, to the local and community funders to the United Way to those organizations who have a regional or local or neighborhood responsibility. But often in education, we get it all the time. The local Spokane Girls Club is looking to do something about math. For girls. It's a totally worthwhile I'm sure projects that the Ford Foundation will not fund the local Spokane world Girls Club to work on girls education. But in Spokane, I suspect at least I hope the otter be enough corporate interest, enough interest from a local United Way. So one is thinking small, based on immediate experience of local conditions, most national funding.

Unknown Speaker  35:23
Secondly, women are in one sense, and this is a gross generalization, but I'll say it anyway, in one sense, extraordinarily prudent in their spending of money. Another way of saying it is, they don't spend the grants they get, and worry a lot about sort of micromanaging those brands. It's very interesting to me, I've had more examples of projects that are not going well, when the money was available, because people weren't sure. And often it was women, how they wanted to spend it, getting money, and using it. It's not something that women are very comfortable around. And sometimes they don't really hold on to it. And I know that the positive side of this is that I don't see nearly the levels of sort of a wild, inappropriate expenditure. When I monitor a grant. My favorite example was a grant that I made when I was at 52, Sheila Tobias, when she was at Wesleyan University, this was in the early days of her deanship. There, she was looking at the subject of math anxiety. And I think the whole grant was maybe $23,000. And she kept it for five years. I mean, she really driven step by step. Now, the good news is, that kept her in business a very, very long time, because it didn't pay for her salary. And also, we've got probably $220,000 worth of PR and activity and what have you. But there's a there's a problem here, I don't know what to call it beyond the notion of familiarity with dealing with large sums of money. It's not something that most women who apply to grants organizations deal with. Now, there are always exceptions. And I should tell you, the MS Foundation's become pretty damn good at asking for big bucks, and having grand visions and wanting to spend a lot of money. Similarly, the Children's Defense Fund, I want you to know that junk defense doesn't have any trouble at all, with large and ambitious goals with large and ambitious visions, and so on. But in general, it's the case that women are much less likely to come up with those things that are beyond the local context. That's not all bad, but it is a phenomenal. Third, there is an incredible attention to detail in the projects that women run. So much so that I think there's some micromanaging, that goes on. And women themselves don't get them to ask some of the broader questions even after they get the money. And nor do they see themselves in the kind of bully pulpit that men often say once they get private philanthropy. In other words, they're mostly more likely women are mostly more likely, even when they have the grant, to have some men be the kind of principal PR person outside or the principal person to do all that. And I found that really an interesting phenomenon, all of which, by the way, I think is socially constructed. I think it has anything to do with biology, it's about our social roles. And last but not least, to now I work in education. So this is particularized education, and also to the arts, that women tend not to have regular positions. I mean, in education, it's very unlikely that our grants go, I mean, to tenured women professors, they often go to administrators who are not on tenure track, but people who've been hired to do special assignments or what have you. I mean, some person in the administration is fronting, but then the woman who's responsible for running doesn't have a line position. Now, in one sense, that's, that's, that's fine. And in fact, I would argue, you can do some leading from the margins every bit as well as you can do some leading from the so called mainstream. But when you ask yourself the question, what's going to happen to this grant, and what's going to happen to the principal investigator to the individual is the project director, that's a more difficult dilemma. Because they don't have the regular positions as frequently. Or they're in the number two slot, they're running the show, and they're not getting the credit, and they don't have the administrative spot. So those are my opposite observations. Now, let me just turn around and end with some observations about what women are like as philanthropists, because there are similarities and differences between I have to say women, philanthropist tend to be in the women's fields. They tend to be in education, social service, in culture, in the arts. And they tend to have that framework. And often many of us and I include myself in this as a historian are not terribly comfortable with technology, but the sciences and the public policy. And so it's interesting to me that many of my colleagues at the Ford Foundation who are women work in the arena of urban poverty, but when it comes to working on public policies related to urban poverty, it's the men and so the philanthropists who are women are tend to be in the quote Soft fields. And there's a lot more philanthropic dollars, by the way in corporate philanthropy around science, technology and engineering than women have been able to access and most of those philanthropies, I see Kathy shaking your head can be very male dominated. So the women in philanthropy are not necessarily in those corporate philanthropies nearly as much as they are in the kind of philanthropy for Rockefeller and Carnegie.

Unknown Speaker  40:23
Let me also just add that in some very interesting way, and I haven't quite figured this out, Ford is deeply exceptional in this regard. Women have become more prominent in philanthropy, there is no question that the field of philanthropy has more women in it now in 1993, than when I joined in 1982. But I don't think that's because they have an exclusively feminist agenda. In fact, I would argue that there's a very deep and I liked having to trace again, assimilationist trends, that is women are influential, but they're not necessarily advocating limitations. Now, Ford is an exception to this, I think, because we have a vice president for all programs. That is the single most powerful program person Ford Foundation is a a woman being made her career in part by supporting women's concerns. So Ford is not typical. But typically, I would argue, women are in philanthropy now. But they aren't in philanthropy in an explicit explicitly, if you will, feminist agenda, to work on women's concerns. And I don't know whether Kathy would agree with me. So what does how does this all wrap up for what you do? Final comments, one, I think it's very important to see yourselves if you're interested in philanthropy, both as a career but also in getting money for philanthropy to ask sort of the more fundamental, broadly based questions from your individual vantage points and think collaboratively, because individual projects for individual locations typically don't get funded at the national level, they may get funded at the community base level, they may get funded through corporate philanthropy or through individual, but they won't get funded necessarily, unless they are about a project or a program that has national demonstration possibilities built in from the very beginning. And secondly, I would say that, whatever work we try to do in philanthropy, increasingly, we're going a step forward, we're going to pay attention to the issues of differential impact on men and women, whatever work we're doing. And so you don't need to call this a women's project. If you're interested in housing for the homeless, for example, maybe this is just an idea about camouflage. You might be interested very much in women's housing. But the overall question having to do with homelessness needs to be seen and advocated in terms of a problem statement that has a gendered lens. And I think that might be a more successful approach than asking for funding for women per se. Let me stop. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  42:55
I have a presentation. But Allison has asked, Is that correct?

Unknown Speaker  42:59
Research. Before my voice

Unknown Speaker  43:01
goes, that'll leave me I will then do my presentation, somewhat condensed. But we'll still have 20 minutes or so. for questioning. I'd like to cut your questions off, however 25 past when you like, but in all fairness, Kathy and I need to have some time. Yes. All right. Well, let's see how it goes. Let's say until 20. Past. Okay, questions for the Ford Foundation. And we will save Cathy's in mind till later. Okay. How about it for Allison? Yeah. I'll start with this question. What is the average size for somebody? You ever? Well, no matter what you bring with, you never bring it off. Right? Where's my friend?

Unknown Speaker  43:55
I think that's probably right. I mean, I know so on you.

Unknown Speaker  44:03
That's the real, that's probably

Unknown Speaker  44:05
your low may not be our last point

Unknown Speaker  44:07
of clarification. Are you speaking internationally or domestic?

Unknown Speaker  44:12
I'm speaking domestically. Thank you. Yes, internationally is another matter entirely. But stick with the domestic agenda. I think it's a very good question. And let me see if I can give you my ballpark figures to be corrected by Kathy and Elizabeth. It almost doesn't pay the Ford Foundation to make a grant of less than $25,000. In all of the staffing costs to pull a grid off from that it almost doesn't pay. It's probably the case that in annual amounts, the average is somewhere between 75 and about $150,000 a year. We do have something called officer's discretionary grants when I left in 1980 90. There were $50,000 there now they're up to $75,000. But there are very few of those and they tend to represent new arenas that we're exploring as a possible next generation of grant making. So for example, let's take education just to give me a typical smallish grant is to invite a group of people who are interested in a topic such as funding inequalities with regard to school systems, and get them to spend some time together, commissioning papers and finding out what the state of the practice is, to see whether or not we want to get involved. Once we decide on a topic that we care about, then we will be making grants in the $100,000 range per year. We seldom make breads of more than three years of duration. In other words, you might get a grant for three years, and then a renewal for another three years, there are probably 100 organizations, maybe even less, that are continuing grantees of the Ford Foundation. But even those organizations, we try very hard to figure out how to finally step away appropriately from Children's Defense Fund The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc fund, for example, those adults that come to mind, Alvin Ailey, the Dance Theatre of Harlem in my program, there are no colleges and universities, whoever that get any money from down food for foundation, nor money to bricks and mortar. We don't do endowment funding and haven't for many, many years, we have what we call program related investments, which are loans, that they tend to go to community development corporations, and organizations that are not colleges and universities. I can't remember the last program Investment our office gave, and I've been in and around the education sector for decades. Next question, anybody just recapping, it was the largest

Unknown Speaker  46:38
grant block of grants Ford ever gave was $80.2 million for symphony orchestras in the 60s. And it did go for endowment and I should, I should say, now that I'm on the other side of the table, especially for women's organizations, endowments are tremendously important. That's not a criticism, don't just

Unknown Speaker  46:56
know. And in fact, it's sad. Historically, when Ford was in the endowment business, it was not funding women's organizations. It hasn't been in the endowment business in a very long time. But I should just win since the 70s, when feminism probably since the 70s. But I will say two other things historically, you gotta remember, I think it's true. The only organization I know know, that has been trying to get some help with endowment is the Children's Defense Fund. And Ford might do a special initiative, the Children's Defense Fund, but we'll never do a special initiative for women's colleges. Although in the 60s and 70s, it did when it was giving endowment money, places like Barnard and others were getting down on money, just like

Unknown Speaker  47:37
Harvard and Princeton money to really put in the bank

Unknown Speaker  47:39
money to really very, very endowment money from national philanthropy, not just from most national question. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  47:48
You just mentioned education as being an area of possibly discretionary funding. That sort of implies to me that there's some sort of measure behind the types of give out what other areas would you say, are areas that would be immediately areas to

Unknown Speaker  48:11
I think I might have been misleading, I didn't mean me to be I just gave you an example of what a discretionary grant activity is, generally means an A smallest grant to explore a topic. And, and each program areas of the ones that I mentioned, there would be programming, the programmatic topics that we may not be working in now that we might wish to work on in the future. And then so it's education isn't singular, in that we make discretionary grants, but smaller grants grants from 25,000 to 75, typically go to explore a topic that we're not currently

Unknown Speaker  48:47
working on. So let me ask you a question if I can. Because one of the questions that we always had, we were asking for grants, or that I've often been asked by people who are seeking grants is how much discretion does the program officer have now in the discretionary grant area is has usually been the place where I have found the program officers have some 1000s of dollars, where they have more discretion, or at least there's a lower level of approval, that would be required at a higher level? Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  49:16
In fact, let me just say something about discretionary grants, which means there's an implication there a couple of things. Number one, discretionary grants now at four do not require the signature and discussion of all officers, they only require the director and the program officers approval, but they have to be in categories the foundation's willing, at least to look at. So what does that mean in terms of some of the issues that you might be interested in? It means that you go to a program officer not with the proposal. In fact, if I have one categorical suggestion to make to everybody, do not send fully blown proposal on to any of the named major national foundations unless you currently have one of their grants and you're trying to renew it If you've never had a grant from any of these national foundations, your best bet is always to write a letter and say, Look, this is what we're engaged in. And this is the problem, we think, is generic. And this is why if you fund us, you're going to get some better answers to this, maybe. And then as the program officer to respond, the program officer has in 99, of 100 cases, a letter that says that's a great idea, but we're not funding from the sheriff. I mean, we have them like congressional offices, that's the first time I discovered these form letter rejects when you push a button, you want money to get an individual scholarship, sorry, we don't do individual scholarships. Foundations do have that. But every so often, a letter comes in that says, Look, we know the Ford Foundation isn't working on issues of domestic violence in the United States, but we know you are in Latin America, we want to try to understand what these issues are. We want to try to bring together the best thinking about it and see if we can persuade the foundation to pay more attention to it. In a situation like that a program officer might say, Uh huh. This is interesting, maybe at least I'll give it discretionary. It's a lower threshold of approval, which means there's more risk taking. That's the way

Unknown Speaker  51:15
I wanted to ask the question about women as philanthropist, you spoke a little bit about women's sort of proposal, money seekers, that they are not thinking big enough and micromanaging like from your point of view, is there is there a Do you see a difference in the way in philanthropy, lampposts are operating on a professional level between large and small foundations. And then the, between the professionals and the actual donors, let's explore foundation. Giving your way who may or may not be working with staff, and then you haven't had the Professional Program Officer people at the large foundations? How do those women function in a different way evolved, and then

Unknown Speaker  52:04
why don't have very good first hand experience of a new network called the network of wingspan I'm going to talk about that actually will give Eleanor that shot. My impressions in general are the following that women as professional program officers don't differ very much from men, as professional program officers. And what most of us worry about is a topic and how to make a strategic difference in that topic, if the topic we are hired to work on is women's legal rights, terrific. But if the topic is let's just say housing, for example, or education, there's a lot of discretion on the part of the individual to have a gender lens. So, you know, if a woman in philanthropy spent more time thinking more explicitly feminist, on the one hand, there might be more work around these days. On the other hand, they have to been quite important systems, which say, women's specific projects are not what we do. At Ford, that's not the case. But you know, there are very few philanthropies that have what one might call specific lines of work focused on women's work. I mean, I don't know if the Foundation Center agrees with

Unknown Speaker  53:17
12% foundations either have explicitly stated, women or girls in there have a substantial history of giving them to a project. It's a very small percentage that even identify themselves,

Unknown Speaker  53:36
I have actually to give out afterwards, which you can take home, something that came out of another study from women and philanthropy, women and fund but based really on some information from the Council on the foundation, so it gives a breakdown and actually indicate some of the patterns of giving, including women's causes help and a variety of others. So

Unknown Speaker  53:58
maybe answer but I'm interested in whether there's a difference in the size of the grants that when the program officers or donors are given as opposed to male programs.

Unknown Speaker  54:10
I don't have an answer to that. I really don't because it depends upon what your Portfolio A colleague of mine had for the female gives major grants to the Alan Guttmacher Institute or to Planned Parenthood and they are in the six and seven figures. But it depends upon the organization's relationship to the philanthropy. I wouldn't say it's better specific. Foundation

Unknown Speaker  54:37
report really we,

Unknown Speaker  54:38
we often say, don't think about for

Unknown Speaker  54:41
feature when

Unknown Speaker  54:42
you think about things because I taught my class or something. It's so big, it's so big. I think it's one a night of all time nations have no staff. And I'm not sure I'm very bad at remembering numbers, but most foundations have zeros. There's 34,000 by foundations, there's one four. And they have by far the largest foundation. Most foundations are run by small groups of people towards their volunteer, they receive no compensation. Sometimes they have people who are very knowledgeable in their subjects. Sometimes they have the donors is very knowledgeable, I don't mean to demean them. But they vary Incredibly, in terms of

Unknown Speaker  55:31
their large numbers, in short, a family what would quote family type foundation foundations

Unknown Speaker  55:35
where the decisions are based on you know, who knows what, they're not going at it in what we call philanthropy is organized giving, the ways you put it, they're not necessarily going to better organize giving.

Unknown Speaker  55:47
Can I actually, I didn't say this, but I want to say that the fastest, but I am going to ask you three minutes. Okay. All right. Well, let you go the 25 largest growing field, I believe in private philanthropy is Community Foundation's not major that is correct. And if you're asking where is where the money is going, or where the donut where the funding is, it is not in places like the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller, for individual projects, it's in your local community foundations, which are becoming less restricted in their donor activities, and more possibly available for these kinds of projects. But I will just underscore a point I made about camouflage, I think it's terribly important to try to understand what the Foundation believes with wants to accomplish and then look to see with a kind of gender lens, how you can both address that question and advance opportunity to

Unknown Speaker  56:42
take. Gallagher there. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  56:46
I'm curious to know about your own personal experience and your work? What are the what are the things that you feel?

Unknown Speaker  56:56
I play a mean game of poker.

Unknown Speaker  56:59
Well, that is anybody who's ever worked in a male dominated, actually, toss is changing, it's still there.

Unknown Speaker  57:07
I was gonna say a couple of things. First of all, whoever said that philanthropy careers are idiosyncratic. I cannot tell you the route to a philanthropy career. I can only say to you, some people get into philanthropy from the bottom up as secretaries as assistant research assistants and move through that has been the experience of the woman who was the vice president for Foundation. She has been there literally since she graduated from college with maybe one or two years in the Lindsay administration. For some of us who are in education, there is a kind of back and forth with the academic world. At the fourth edition at the moment, you cannot stay forever. If you come as a Program Officer, there's in fact a kind of five year rule that is fairly rigorously applied. So in the old days, philanthropy was seen as a career. Nowadays, I think it's fair to say that except for some of the old guard, we're not going anywhere. Most of the younger guards who go to philanthropy do not expect to spend their careers. How do you get involved? I think the single biggest way is to be involved in a project sponsored by the philanthropy to be known by the philanthropy who have your work understood by the philanthropy is often the first step into becoming a consultant. colleague of mine was working at Columbia School of Social Work that somebody knew of her work and asked her to be a consultant. And that's how she got the job at

Unknown Speaker  58:23
headedness. Okay, last question. We have available,

Unknown Speaker  58:33
and I'm wondering what their role would really be, at what point you know, conceptualize your project, you might want to push them about it would be appropriate to talk to them about I think it has to do with with following the initial letter, when the staff member calls or writes and says, Look, this looks interesting. Let's talk about it. There's much more if you will, negotiation and iteration of what to do and who to involve and how to do it at that stage. But the first step with with any foundation I know, which is a national foundation, is not to call because you won't get your phone calls answered. People are just swamped. But to write a brief letter trying to say does this organization care about this problem? We recognize that you know, there are a lot of people care about it, but here's why we think we can do it better. And then see what happens.

Unknown Speaker  59:24
All right, all right. This but this really is the last one. Okay, go ahead.

Unknown Speaker  59:29
Is there some kind of a resource or library? Find out information about what's happening

Unknown Speaker  59:37
1000s The Council on foundations in New York City. There are grant makers book a, you know, I was gonna do a list of this now. I'm sorry, I didn't. There is a grant seekers book for more liberal foundations, which is also available, but I'm sure you have it in the library. A first source would certainly be the Council on foundations library that should have At least enough leads to give you. I'm sorry, I'm saying Foundation Center. I'm talking about the counseling Foundation Center.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:10
By the way, the Ford Foundation just made a major grant to the Foundation Center to make sure that information was available to grant seekers. Yeah. So use older I'm surprised we'll get to hear you. All right. Good luck, everybody.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:24
Better. The Yes. Announcement. All right, once fine, but it is the Foundation Center, and it is in New York, and you put it on the board. So maybe that and it is a library, which is readily available.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:43
Literally 1000s of books on foundations, corporate corporate giving nonprofit management, volunteerism, history of philanthropy.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:52
I have to tell you that in the last talk I gave, I did a masterclass on philanthropy, and I Xeroxed everything in sight from the Foundation Center, and brought it with me. And yeah, even the forms on how to fill out how to track what kinds of organizations, that is, what kinds of grants you might get from which granting organizations and so on, because there are forms in which you can actually try to fit yourself into and they have those forms. So that there are systems by which you can look at really make a systematic cut of the interests you have against the interest of foundations, because I'm going to say something, and I'm sorry, Allison's not here because I want to say it in front of her and not behind her back. But it's on tape. So I guess it's alright, tape is still going no, I mean, in the up and fair thing. But in any case, there are ways and one of the things that the Foundation Center does have is selected files, that is to say, you can pull out by category of your interest, the kind of information you want, about which funding sources which foundations will be interested in your topic. So it's not just looking down a long list, starting with a bunch of what I'm going to say partly has been covered by Kathy. And because of the time, I want to leave you some time for questions. I'm going to talk serendipitously and not as organized as I did right out of talk, but I'm going to try to get some highlights in so I don't repeat material. But I think the one thing you should know is that it is very important to look categorically at what you are interested in funding. And that is what your purposes are. So it is a question As Alison said, of matching your interests with their interest. But you can't do that by looking at a long list, you really have to not only call other foundations and other agencies and talk to people, but you can also get the selected databases, which will tell you what the grants have been in your area. So I heartily recommend that. And as I said, I have actually a wonderful packet, which, you know, shows you the way to do that, but didn't bring it today. I have one slight difference with Alison, I don't think it's as easy now she didn't say it was easy. But I have been a person requesting grants when I have been unknown and I have been a person requesting grants when I am known. And I hate to say it, but it's a lot easier when you're not when it really is when somebody is interested in what you're doing already, you have a track record, you have a connection, that just makes your selling case your letter gets more attention, your phone call gets more attention. I don't know how you can eliminate that it is a particular problem for women's funds, I'm going to list or for women's organizations. I'm going to read just briefly not enough this whole thing, a recent report in a minute about that was put out by the Chicago Foundation For Women called short sighted, interestingly enough now the Chicago foundation for women, I don't know how much they're actually giving out. But they are at least a well known organization in Chicago. And they claim that they got very little publicity, they had a great deal of trouble getting attention to their own report on how difficult it is for women and girls to get funds. Now I heard them say this so that I believe that and they distributed lots of copies of this report. Unfortunately, I only have my own so I cannot give it to you. But the report is available and the barriers and resistance that they talked about, well, maybe I should just read it now since I said I'm not going to do the same kind of organized talk. Here are some of the things they say they surveyed 109 groups, or at least 109 groups responded small, large and old organizations included. An analysis of the revenue of women's organizations that they did shows that existing funding is at best fragile. Two thirds of budgets under 250,000. That goes with what's already been said. And the majority receive half of their annual operating budgets from a single source Horse. shortsighted also found that all women's programs and organizations face unique fundraising disadvantages over and over again spelled out by the women. And let me just read a couple of them to you. Many foundations and corporate funders lacking understanding about the issues and problems affecting women's and girls, they do not see a need to see their funding decisions in gender specified terms that goes over and over again, in the literature, I have been reading. In other words, the denial that there is a need to have gender lens.

Unknown Speaker  1:05:32
Another, you know, and that denial that women and girls have special needs. And I'm going to read you a few figures at the risk of being boring to show you how women and girls do have special needs. The competition's of boards of directors of nonprofit organizations serving women girls, honor a commitment to Women Helping Women and reflect the reality of most women's lives, which is guess what, they have less money than men to give less access to those with money to donate and less experience and asking for money for others. I'll give you one or two more funders increasingly want to see programming components that include men. Now this is just a recent study. Here we think women have made progress and there are real signs of progress. But funders, they found increasingly want to see program components that include men, but this compromises the very reasons that domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, women's economic development programs, and others were established in the first place. Most funders lack interest in supporting advocacy programs. That's a double edged sword. They also I'm gonna say this from my own knowledge without even they also are not too happy about funding small service projects. If it doesn't have it. What I wrote down was a big grab. I think funders like to do projects, I was a funder, so I can talk from my own personal experience in United Way I really wanted to fund projects, not that were the routine, everyday things we were funding, but things that would give us some real sex appeal, both for the organization and because I thought they were meeting new needs, they were really doing something important time and time again, in my interviews with corporate philanthropists, I have found that they want to do new things, they enjoy that part of their job. It's not just organizationally even it's really a source of satisfaction. But in any case, they found most funders lack interest in supporting advocacy programs, programs, programs seeking to change systems and policy. This impacts strongly ended firstly, on women's organizations, since most of the groups in that category work to change public government, and social institutions and systems that hurt women. I'm not sure again, how much this is just Chicago, but Chicago is a fairly large center of philanthropy. So I think it may have some ramifications beyond and the last one, I'll read you, the vast majority of foundations and corporations do not have specifically identified funding categories through which women's programs can apply and be funded. You heard the Ford Foundation is different. And I think to some extent that may have changed, you are tracking I know women's that didn't use to be tracked. That is correct. And in fact, I looked at a book on women sources in literature research sources as late as published about two or three years ago, it didn't even have a section on philanthropy or funding, or anything that you would call a like it and it had hundreds and hundreds of entries on materials. So I guess we're at a point where we're really changing rapidly.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:42
Okay, I just want to say one or two other things, maybe before picking up on one of the pieces in here. I have I'm very interested in the relationship between public and private sectors. And so I have been very concerned about the fact that we have a domestic violence and sexual harassment obviously growing. We have clearly issues of rape. I mean, you may know that more than 680,000 adult American women were actually raped in a given year. I think it's 9091. I turned the page too fast, which was over five times the official count. Poverty. I mean, I'm just picking some figures that are women related figures, poverty among women and children, the fastest growing group in poverty in America, over 75% of all poor people in our country under the poverty threshold. Little under $12,000 For a family of three, minority women clearly hit hardest people of color, over 50% of children in female headed households live in poverty and about 50% of Hispanic women who had households and 56% of African American women who had houses I live in poverty. We spent $25 billion on welfare for teenage mothers in welfare. Yet our policies are really in disarray. And you might ask me why I mean, I've gone on and on. I've got even more figures of why I bring that up in the world of philanthropy. And it's because I am deeply concerned with the question of how can we relate the world of the nonprofit, with the world of the public sector and the real change. And we're in a peculiar situation, because in the 1980s, indeed, we had a government which glorified the nonprofit sector did this thing of 1000 points of light. It did the thing also, however, of loadshedding, it shed the problems of government, to the extent that it could and you can't quite do it. But to some extent, the Reagan Bush Administration's did attempt to shift off of government and into the private sector, both profit making and nonprofit making problems, which really belonged in the public sector. So are you and I'll be personally have two views on breast cancer and everything else we didn't, we haven't funded until very recently, paid much interest may thank the new administration, perhaps for interest, in least in what is a major women's health problem of breast cancer. And you may ask me why I bring this up. And that is, because I, personally, I teach a course on women's policy, I teach two courses. One is an open WOMEN'S POLICY course. And the other is a social policy course, on families, women, single parent families and work. In the one hand, we're talking largely about public sector solutions. And on the other hand, I find myself talking largely about advocacy and private sector solutions. And I somehow think we need to keep that in mind and see the ways that they cross Because indeed, it is terrible. If what the Chicago study found out is true, that advocacy is very difficult to get funded. And we know that there are even guidelines in our federal IRS regulations, which have, from time to time been raised as barriers to advocacy organizations, and I think as feminists as women, as people concerned about social policy that causes some problems for us, which we need to keep in mind. Now one other thing that I'm reacting to what has been said by my colleagues, and that is, the changing nature of women in philanthropy, I have to tell you has been skeptically a skeptics have said, you may reflect the fact that the field is losing stature. That sounds funny, but I called the United Way. And I asked them, how are they making out in their balance, because United Way has been under great attack on a number of issues. But the women's role and women's funds in the United Way has also been a great problem. And it was extremely interesting to me that they said they started gathering in more minorities and more females in top executive positions, and that afterall is where it counts in the large metro United Way organizations. And then they began to worry that they would lose stature. visa vie the corporate world, they didn't say the corporate world they began to worry about their stature. So well here's our self esteem problem. Here is one of the roots so they immediately

Unknown Speaker  1:13:40
I gather almost put a halt to infusion of more women at the top levels. They didn't quite say it that dramatically. But I can promise you that that was the implication we will watch the balance of women and men you have your hands open and it's very hot in here. No, I would not mind at all, like whatever secrets I'm saying are on the tape. So okay, now, lest you think that I embarking on want to go back to the public private issue a moment let's do you think I'm barking up my own individual tree? Which, if that's a mixed metaphor, forgive me. I do have because of my nature in a school of social work and the issues that I teach. It's more than that a Julian Wilpert, who was a well known I guess, political geographer, economist at Princeton, when Allison would probably know recently did a report talking about the difficulties of a paper actually on decentralization, which is after all the way the private sector generally operates, it's not mostly Ford Foundation and large central foundations although they give money and then they give money to local organizations, even if it has a national impact. somebody somewhere is doing it. But when you get down to services and smaller foundations and Federation's like United Way you You are really talking about a highly decentralized nonprofit system of all kinds. And he pointed out in a very careful analysis, that the findings were in fact, just what I would have suspected, and not very palatable to many in the foundation world in the nonprofit world, that there isn't redistribution taking place. I mean, Terry Odin doll, who wrote a book on women and charity was correct. This is not a place where major reading majors forget major, we're redistribution of funds from rich to poor, for the most part takes place. That's a dilemma I want to leave you with, I'm not going to try to solve racism issues, which I'm not going to try to resolve. It is endemic to the system. However, I was at the Barnard dinner last night talking to Barnard fundraisers, and talking about this thinking about what I was going to talk about today. And I said, Now, what are you doing with this situation? Because do we want to withdraw funds from Yale or Barnard? Since we were at Barnard, when I raised this issue, some people who were from Yale said, well look at the situation of New Haven, which is become a very dangerous conflict conflicted city. And I said no, because that belongs to the public sector, what the private sector has to do is carve out a role in which it will influence opinion, and in fact, be an advocate for that kind of change. Now, how you do that, so that philanthropy not only funds, the opera, which I have to say, I enjoy as much as any wealthy woman does. And I don't want the funds withdrawn. But we have to think about how to increase the pie, I presume, so that we can get both the system, the nonprofit sector of the organizations, the foundations, which make it up depend for their livelihood, for their purpose, I should say, for their function. It's defined in terms of the variation and the choices, and we may not always like the choices. So what I propose is that we will consider working on the choices we are most interested in. And I personally, would clearly like to see not the opera stuff, but more money going to the advocacy organizations, which would affect my classic example is that nobody protested about a enact that took place on some of the welfare reform, which is I think, absolutely horrendous in New Jersey. And I think the now Legal Defense Fund will leap in on a basic issue where women are being deprived children are being deprived of money. But if the nonprofit sector doesn't do it, who will do it? If we do not get that kind of consideration on policy? Anyway, I had a slightly different definition of philanthropy.

Unknown Speaker  1:17:52
Then Kathy, and I had similar issues about who they are and where they are, which I just can't resist sharing with you before I kind of wrap this up, because I don't want to deprive you all of times. I'm very interested in the notion of empowerment of women through fundraising and allocation. That's been my tact. And I started thinking about also where women in philanthropy are located. And I just want to share with you, I also came up with rich women as individual donors, but then they could write a check to Smith, they don't have to have a foundation. I also came up with the Wellesley figure, hundreds of 1000s of dollars in a five year campaign, number one in the country for fundraising. So just on the side, you should think if Why is it so difficult for some causes, but for colleges, Wellesley was able to raise more than any other university taught for that period. I have some thoughts about why that is so rich, if you're interested, I will share later rich women with funds and foundations. That's a second category rich women who have incorporated for a variety of reasons in most small family foundations, women's funds and Federation's grassroots organizations. And here, social action organizations are a major player in a minor way. That is the national network of women's funds, which is an organization which has been created since eighth 1985, which includes now approximately 60 organizations of various kinds. Now, the thing is that some of those women's funds in the second category are indeed also in the national network of women's funds. There are literally organizations I went out to interview one in Minneapolis, which consists of a woman and a part time staff member who is her friend, and they give out grants as they wished but they are incorporated in the RF foundation on the other hand, you also have Ms. You have as Straya, which is the first national lesbian organization, you have women's way, which is the most famous federated organization. And that's not a fund. It is a federation. It is like the old united way in which the funds come to the table, and share in the divvying of the money and sharing the responsibilities for raising the money. But in a women's mode around women's issues, in fact, they beat the if I can say this, and politely, human on the tape, they beat the hell out of the United Way, in a number of campaigns, they really scared them because they were so effective, raising money in the workplace. And this is not a lesson on raising money in the workplace. But that's what women's way has done extremely successfully. The Sojourner fund in Chicago, I'm sorry, in Detroit, I wrote Chicago, but I know it's Detroit. The New Mexico women's funds, in other words, tremendous variety in place, geographic area, size, purpose, all around women's issues. And I have to say some of them even struggle with the issue of can we ever fundaments organization, even there, but they are, they are dealing with women of color. They are dealing with rich white women, they are dealing with lesbian gay issues, they are dealing with the disabled, an extremely rich, complicated group of people who is unfortunately meeting today in Dallas, Texas, it's the first conference of those I have missed in many years, I'm sorry to say. And they are concerned with not just raising money, but with something called unity and diversity. And they are very seriously dedicated to this. And it is not easy. I could go on because I have a number of anecdotes I've published already. And I'm working on about the relationship between very rich women who, on the one hand feel constrained in terms of their power, they feel in this in this playing field that they do not have the kind of power that they feel, in a sense, almost powerless, it sounds funny. On the other hand, you have African American women, Hispanic women, who also say we have been and they really have been oppressed in the world at large, we have never had our chance.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:23
People with greater wealth are not going to overwhelm the organization. So it's a very creative tension, which I'm happy to say has worked very successfully, despite moments of ups and downs, but which has increased its amount of money from approximately a million to 5 million in about eight years. That is the grants given which I have the exact figures but just to rush through national network of women's funds, I have something here, which I think at least refers to it, they are in Minneapolis, Minnesota, I personally have the great dream, there is none in New Jersey, there is no net, there is no Women's Fund in New Jersey, I'm trying to think of a way to get students to organize it without getting in terrible trouble. Anyway, these are funds moving on women and other foundations of staff. We've already talked about corporate community, private foundations will have kinds. And finally women raising money in all sorts of other organizations, as staff and as volunteers. And they do that in two different ways in these organizations. So the interest in of between what is the staff role? And what is the volunteer role? If any of you have had both roles as I have? It's kind of interesting to compare what is up and what is down? Okay, lots of questions. And in answer, I think somebody had asked about this before I have the Junior League down. It's an example of a traditional organization, which in fact, is trying to change its role but has always done some fundraising. And we know all about the variety. Very little studied, in fact, as we know, okay. I think I will stop here except to say that I had a slightly different figure about the location of corporate philanthropy because I had that the women CEOs, and maybe this was it, were up to about 43%. So they're obviously risen in the last year, which is very good, but that I had they were concentrated still largely in the under $10 million dollars, assets so that I had to locate it largely in the smaller organizations, which is what one would indeed affect, okay. 34 funds reported raising 5.5 million grants gave out 5.5 million grants is the exact figure for the National Network last year. All right, I think enough, because it's getting late and I want to give you some chances to to ask us questions and to Yeah, yeah, sure.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:01
History of

Unknown Speaker  1:25:05
our Have there been many examples of private philanthropy leading

Unknown Speaker  1:25:13
to or being Qabalistic for large public lands, or isn't usually public philanthropy which sets a stage. And it's followed by private philanthropy of an implementation.

Unknown Speaker  1:25:31
The whole idea of the development of the modern Foundation was that it would serve as a as a an incubator for new ideas of public programs. I mean, the idea that surrounded the development of the false sage and Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations in the 1910s Was that the best philanthropy defines a problem tests possible solutions, turns the best over to government and then moves on to new fields. Reagan, the Reagan administration was really the first attempt to reverse that and say, No, you're not going to spin off programs, we're going to cut back funding, and you should take up the slack and keep the organization's going. There are lots of examples, perhaps the most significant example is that of the Ford Foundation's gray areas, great cities programs, which provided the template for the Great Society programs with Johnson administration. And people like Paul, the soccer actually went down and wrote the legislation. Johnson wanted to do something significant really quickly after Kennedy was killed. And there just weren't that many models around for testing ways to deal with growing minority populations and cities and draw the draw people into decision making programs we've had start is one of the things that comes out of this just use a familiar example. These were being tested by Ford and the government just gobbled them up. But that's an old pattern. That the idea that private philanthropy pioneers, the solutions, and those solutions have been taken over by government.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:03
Today, I didn't realize how severe it was recommendations to win issues. And that's one of the things that's come out today. And so I'd like to share with the foundation framing that right now is to specific women.

Unknown Speaker  1:27:18
And it's, it's called sister, right? Hell,

Unknown Speaker  1:27:22
yeah, right. Right,

Unknown Speaker  1:27:23
we actually got a

Unknown Speaker  1:27:25
crash. That's an example where, you know, several rich women have established a very valuable fund. And it's

Unknown Speaker  1:27:32
they weren't they used to be funding different kinds of community these things. Was it needed decision to just strictly focus on women. thing that has to be said about the SR found though is that they are not capitalized at the level of a Rockefeller or a Ford certainly in their grants tend to be quite small. That's, that's not a criticism, it's just that the funding that does exist for women tends to be smaller. And just as a little follow up, because I know there were a lot of interest, there's a lot of interest in how you figure out where to go for grants. And I used to be on the Rockefeller Foundation staff and was going to have very long years with a corporate foundation. And besides going to the Foundation Center and getting comm search lists, which are the printouts for various fields, read the annual reports, it sounds I used to write the annual report from that life. But read the annual reports, look for signs that they are giving grants to similar sorts of organizations, read the copy very carefully, and then make your pitch for why your organization is the best one to do this. This grant. I know it sounds like an idiotically simple thing. But when Allison was talking about how people will come in and say, Please fund my girls club, they obviously haven't read the annual report. And I work for a corporation solicitations from more money.

Unknown Speaker  1:28:59
And I'm amazed at how they haven't done

Unknown Speaker  1:29:02
their homework. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:05
Before they come in before they even

Unknown Speaker  1:29:08
call me and they call right. You have to understand what the corporations what their their guidelines are, because they are not going to find the laws

Unknown Speaker  1:29:26
in Germany.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:28
But do you take the time? Sometimes to give them the help? I do? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:29:33
I do. Most populations wouldn't

Unknown Speaker  1:29:35
know. I don't know. That's my colleagues.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:39
I care about the general field. I tell them.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:43
Give them your address. Tell them how. They're not going to get anywhere with any company.

Unknown Speaker  1:29:52
My favorite grant request when I was at MetLife Foundation was someone submitted a proposal for the Hannibal project and wanted us to subsidize and pay for purchases so that he could take elephants?

Unknown Speaker  1:30:05
I hope you did. I always prefer to rich women.

Unknown Speaker  1:30:17
Okay, I took actually I use rich women, though had written in my notes not too because the the Tracy Gary, who has been very instrumental along with Helen Hunt in the National Network for women's funds. I mean, they're both deeply involved. Helen is always at these meetings usually talk about themselves as women of wealth. That seems to be the expression they use. And it is self defined, Tracy, Gary has a figure. And I honestly cannot remember but it seems to me it was a gift of over $5,000 A year and capability of doing that, but it may have been larger there, but it is basically self defined. And it is a group of women who are capable of giving large money. I have really used it in the loose sense in which it is used as women who give large amounts of money to philanthropic causes, the women who are donors in large amounts to colleges to the art museums. I would say if you can give $10,000 a year out of money, which is not coming out of your pocket that you have now you want to pick a figure. You know, we're at $200,000. Now, isn't that where the debate is? For the tax cut? For the President, that figure has sliced an individual who has over $200,000 in income doesn't seem very rich anymore. So you you know. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  1:31:52
Most trust companies these days, a million dollars in liquid assets more than private banks.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:00
You see, it's it's a sliding figure, I think, in terms of giving money, if you give $10,000 a year that's beyond what most I think of us in this room would give and would. But $5 million is a lot more.

Unknown Speaker  1:32:17
Yeah, one thing that I you know, the nice thing about being an historian is that you can be very particular aesthetic, and really look at individual cases. And when you're talking about wealthy women, you have to be so careful because someone like Isabella Stewart Gardner, for example, who started the Gardner Museum, built most of that was a money that she had inherited from her father, she ostensibly inherited a very large fortune. But when you begin to really dig into her records, you find out that the trustees, a bunch of male trustees owed the money owed the money, she couldn't get at the principal at all, she had limited access to the the income. So with women, you've got to be very careful when we talk about wealth, because they may, they may look good on paper, but they may not have absolute control of the money.

Unknown Speaker  1:33:04
Because I have a two part question. The first is that I think that something I haven't heard here, and that I think it's really important, and an area of activism for all of us, is the feminization of business. And the example of a Ben and Jerry's that able to be extremely successful Well, putting seven and a half percent in a damaged areas Fund and the notion of you get from the community and it gives. And I think, I guess I wanted to ask if you think that's a trend that we're going to see more of these are aberrational examples, I'm hoping that it's a trend that we all should be pushing for. Because I think that as long as women are marginalized, we're never going to get the big money. And the second question along those same lines is what has been your experience in terms of obtaining funding for, for example, within the existing legal curriculum, to have more of a sensitivity to women's issues, perhaps in a contract class, for example, getting overly legalistic that we have cases that bring into focus? Some gender I, as Allison was referring to, one of the problems is women are getting into positions, but they have no feminist sensitivity. I for one rest as someone as a horrible example of going through both five and a half years within the Justice Department in Washington, and five and a half years in the international legal arena, on the private side without any sensitivity to the fact that there were no other women in the office and work particularly when there were lawyers in the office, and other types of things. So I think we need to mainstream and I guess I'm wondering, is there any funding going on in that, in that field? Do

Unknown Speaker  1:34:59
In answer to your first question about the feminization of business, if you're talking about women starting businesses and then giving money, you need role models and you need a product because you need more and

Unknown Speaker  1:35:13
I apologize,

Unknown Speaker  1:35:14
the values that we would typically associate with the feminine, the notion of giving back to the community, the environment, or there would be money available more Corporation planning to establish foundation. So we ended up with more than just the existing foundation with the profit sector ends up financing the nonprofit as opposed to relying on public funds.

Unknown Speaker  1:35:35
Well, corporations do fund nonprofit organizations and corporate philanthropy until just a few years ago was the fastest growing sector of the philanthropic pie. But for example, if you're in an in an organization like MetLife, they were not interested in funding controversial issues. So they would not have gotten involved in funding, pro life or pro choice organization, it's not in the interest of business to do that. So if you're looking for money for advocacy of controversial issues, I think you have to look to individuals or foundations, but not corporations.

Unknown Speaker  1:36:16
But for non advocacy, nonprofit

Unknown Speaker  1:36:19
projects, well, it's once again, women are the majority of the population in the United States, but how do you convince people that they, that should be a major priority, as women get more earning power, they become more important, you will see a corporation trying to make an impact on the Hispanic community where they want to do more business. Suddenly, they're funding Ballet Hispanico with right, so if women become more important as consumers, and again, to make it apparent that there's socially conscious consumers, that's when corporations are going to begin to pay attention to women, as well as minority groups of various sorts.

Unknown Speaker  1:37:00
Let me just say that women's studies departments have really been thriving in a relative in a relative sense. They've had their ups and downs. But at Rutgers, for example, we have a very large women's center and a Women's Studies Department, which is actually not been a Women's Studies department, but which is thinking of moving in that direction, and which is getting larger grants. I mean, it's, it's a hard, hard row, but it can be done and is being done. We are certainly all being sensitized to gender issues in the curriculum throughout the university, along with minorities, I mean, that written response to changing demographics, I mean, you have to be aware that that's what is driving it in the academic world, as well as in the world of work.

Unknown Speaker  1:37:52
I just wanted to bring up Kim Klein, who has done a lot of writing on raising money for nonprofit organizations. And her research and her findings are that most nonprofit organizations make 95% or something or somebody like that, not from big foundation grants or wealthy people, but more just from the general community and from 10 and $15, donations, type of thing like that. And, you know, that's that's kind of my experience with now New York City that, you know, you really have to establish a fundraising base and constantly be looking for that type of support from a broad range of people to concentrate all your efforts on the major

Unknown Speaker  1:38:37
money, people.

Unknown Speaker  1:38:40
You know, well, yes. If you eventually get the money, certainly it's worth your time to do that. But I think more

Unknown Speaker  1:38:45
efforts will be

Unknown Speaker  1:38:48
done. Yeah. I'd like to comment on his personal the national network of women's funds has exactly placed great emphasis. I mean, they give out manuals, they actually have manuals, which are available. And they teach organizations, they train them, they do workshops, teaching organizations, how to do grassroots fundraising, and there is a growing, obviously, emphasis on that one organization, and I think this might be of interest to you. In New Brunswick, a woman shelter that had for years been dependent on a variety of sources, I think, including the United Way, needed money, very much this year had to cut back in funding. And when put an ad in the paper and said, We need help to raise money, and no kidding, and they got an answer from somebody who spent time donated time. And within a month they had raised $13,000. Now it's small money you have to remember, but it was an amazing story because it took place very quickly, all grassroots.

Unknown Speaker  1:39:48
Not one thing you have to realize is that approximately 90% of all the money that's given in this country was given by individuals, foundations gave about 6% and corporations about 4% And also, there's a great difference between the kind of money that you get from the broad base of small donations like that, which is operating money, which is what pays the staff. And the kind of project support that Allison was talking about. The big foundations will give you money for a first startup grant. But after that, it's project support. And I've got to tell you that my experience is a woman fundraising. I mean, I direct the only major center in my field that's run by,

Unknown Speaker  1:40:27
I never thought that's true. It's absolutely true. Sorry, I didn't say that in the introduction we

Unknown Speaker  1:40:32
get we get less money, even though our programs have been very successful and and are considered among the four best programs in the country. And, and the one thing, they always want to cut the money to the staff. You know, it's the idea that you're going to make up the shortfall. So anything that brings it operating funds is terribly important, and you're not going to get inadequate amounts.

Unknown Speaker  1:40:55
That by the way, is also why the workplace fundraising issue which we didn't discuss, although it's my real area of now did weigh has been so important. It has been, you know, once an organization got tied into the United Way, they could guarantee themselves year after year, but certain amount of money. And that was core support for the most part, which is also very hard to get not not only programs support. So that was another reason the women's funds have, to some extent picked up the slack in that area, too, because they are doing some core support for not just broken but they're they're struggling with both. But United Way traditionally major thing was core some progress. So the changes that are happening to them have ramifications for all kinds of organizations who had been depending on that money, their campaign is obviously down. Yeah. Donations,

Unknown Speaker  1:41:50
I think I've heard that they're on the road a little bit. We're willing to help underwrite the fundraiser, especially small organization, help them help themselves by making let's say, to underwrite a fundraising position for a couple years, so they can begin to grow their own? And

Unknown Speaker  1:42:03
I will tell you that many I know do not want to do that. Now, some are doing it. I understand. But that has been a very reluctant decision. Am I right?

Unknown Speaker  1:42:13
It's a very small number of foundations that fund that kind of activity. There is some but it's not very

Unknown Speaker  1:42:20
much United Way used to have a forum. Very interested

Unknown Speaker  1:42:23
in that they have here that there's a that's not the only thing they're interested in doing. These people are fundraising. They're also called Technical Assistance Grants. That can range from business and setting up fundraising programs to strategic planning that kind of thing. There there's probably a I don't know what percentage is a higher percentage of technical assistance than directly find

Unknown Speaker  1:42:51
some some I think Lilly Foundation has for example, given some grants that have caused capacity building but my guess is that they would be mostly to United Way organizations for their capacity building. It may have some spread, but United Way was always reluctant they actually had a form which we developed I mean, because I was the person in charge of doing that. Which shunted out the fundraising costs so we would be sure we weren't paying for them

Unknown Speaker  1:43:20
to help people

Unknown Speaker  1:43:23
absolutely, I mean she probably has the directory I was thinking immediately of to I know who have gone to work for organizations that are now the fundraiser for but there are Yeah, there are reputable consultants in this field Okay, other questions or we should bring those join in right yes, I also we don't want to take these home fact sheets and information about where the money goes. You may find

Unknown Speaker  1:44:04
things that we talk about no one is interviewing you right at this moment. I have written a book on The United Way by Columbia University Press. And that wouldn't be hard to find Yeah. There was another I had written a paper Yes, I certainly never okay, okay. Yes, I would be very this project I'm doing with a lot of nation and it isn't often but Well, I have no Truly

Unknown Speaker  1:45:03
I have the highlight of my life I'm very starstruck but I was really I was just super I'm gonna find everybody's carpet okay no no I have no I have I just have to say oh I have my master class for social work yeah, but you would have to call me I have to tell you I'm not reliable unless you're at the end of the year and I'm grading on it honestly I will respond I have them at home I thought about bringing them as they said Master last I'd have to change them was really it was a good question. Well, it was about the rich women I wasn't prepared because we used it as self identification and it's been a sliding

Unknown Speaker  1:46:14
right I mean

Unknown Speaker  1:46:15
now I want to know that because I'm doing this project very good companies and they're only interested in but you gave us two different it's a changing changing definition you know they're lowering the dollar amount and you can't get socialist Thank you no I was gonna get into an ideological discussion so I bet Richard is really common sense of the country the trends are the things everybody survey whenever you talk about tonight rather than come

Unknown Speaker  1:47:25
out we have the news yeah

Unknown Speaker  1:47:36
all right. We are together there was another found writers can do when you go into a board meeting maybe sometimes awkward or

Unknown Speaker  1:48:22
there is an article that

Unknown Speaker  1:48:23
by itself time of day

Unknown Speaker  1:48:34
look aside certainly not doing that

Unknown Speaker  1:48:52
I mean back because we haven't faced it and it comes right out of the tax calls where they come up

Unknown Speaker  1:49:04
I don't know whether it's time to rewrite it I don't know but I mean you have to look I think the best

Unknown Speaker  1:49:14
place to see

Unknown Speaker  1:49:26
whether when we're

Unknown Speaker  1:49:31
at we're still we're still recording Wait a minute, how

Unknown Speaker  1:49:42
do we do