When a grantee suggested a landscape analysis of its field to identify barriers and best practices, our foundation questioned it. Our founders worried the analysis would take too much time, and wasn’t action-oriented. But we trusted the organization and moved ahead with about $70K to fund the study. When it was published, the report provided... Read More
Before becoming executive director of a small foundation in Binghamton, NY, Catherine Schwoeffermann worked in a museum as a cultural anthropologist and curator of folk arts. While at the museum, she also served on grants panels at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, DC, and at the New York State Council on... Read More
On a Friday in February 2015, I invited 24 organizations to apply for funding in response to letters of inquiry our foundation had solicited. The next day, our board held a retreat to evaluate the foundation’s grantmaking outcomes over its first 5 years. We knew the board wanted to talk about how to increase our... Read More
After Victoria Hewlett was raped at a fraternity party while attending Utah State University, she knew that healing would, at least in part, come through working for changes at the University that would help protect other students from abuse and assault on campus. Like many survivors of campus sexual assault, Hewlett sought to hold Utah... Read More
For most professionals who reach a nonprofit leadership position, the hard work is just beginning. As a leader’s responsibilities grow, more people depend on them for success in their own roles and the success of the organization. From managing resource challenges to the emotional demands of nonprofit work, leaders of these organizations often struggle to... Read More
I just returned from leading the team that successfully cleaned up the world’s most plastic-polluted beach as part of the multi-disciplinary Henderson Island Plastic Pollution Expedition 2019. From the first day of my involvement with the Expedition, as founder of Howell Conservation Fund and leader of the beach cleanup team, I had two key performance... Read More