Welcome to a new series we're trying out - "What to Expect". So you want that dream job, you work hard for it, you eventually get it, and *bam* - it's not at all what you expected. This series will hopefully help you avoid that. For our first attempt, I asked guest author Elizabeth Miller to write about one of the biggest and most time-consuming parts of her job, preparing for and attending meetings. Elizabeth is a Senior Program Associate for The Overbrook Foundation.
If you work for a Foundation, it’s inevitable that you and your colleagues will spend a lot of your time either preparing for, attending, or debriefing from a lot of meetings. Surely people working in corporations, for-profit businesses and the nonprofit sector all have meetings too, but it seems to me that the core meetings of the world of private foundations are pretty unique. What’s different about our meetings?
In order to answer these questions I’ve put together a quick crash course, I’ll call it Meetings 101. Of course, every foundation is different in the way it’s structured and the activities it participates in, but in my experience, the types of meetings we attend can be broken down into the following categories.
Board Meetings
Every foundation has a Board of Directors (each state has its own law about the minimum number of Board members that they are required to have). These Boards have several functions but fundamentally they are responsible for the overarching work within the foundation and are held liable for the decisions made. Most Boards meet in-person periodically throughout the year, some just once per calendar year or in the case of more active boards up to four times. Board meetings are attended usually by both Board members and by foundation staff. They provide a formal arena in which to discuss program priorities and interests as well as governance issues, and to formally approve decisions reached and importantly, to approve grants that are up for review. They also provide an opportunity for Board members learn in more depth about the grantees and their work.
Committee Meetings
It is fairly typical that in addition to Board meetings, many foundations have committee meetings throughout the year. Again, it can vary by foundation size and type, but these committee meetings are often made up of Board members, or individuals who serve as advisors to the work of the foundation. These kinds of meetings can include Program Committee meetings, where committee members (who are often Board members, or in some cases other interested individuals asked to participate) vet proposals to discuss projects before they come to the full Board, for interim updates on existing programs. In addition to Program Committees, there can also be Planning Committees which help set agendas for upcoming meetings and retreats. Often there are Governance Committees which deal with internal issues related to policies and procedures of foundations. Investment committee meetings are outlined too and they give members an opportunity to make decisions about the kinds of investments the foundation may want to make.
Funder-Driven Affinity Meetings
Funder-driven meetings can take several different tracks. For example, they could be oriented around a specific program interest. For example, The Environmental Grantmakers Association has a yearly gathering of nearly 225 foundations. These meetings bring together funders to discuss the latest trends in the field, problem-solve, or spend time brainstorming new ideas in the field. Later this summer, The International Human Rights Funders Group is gathering in California for its semi-annual meeting where it will focus on the intersection between human rights and climate change.
Meetings can also be organized around specific geographic interests. In New York for example, The New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (NYRAG) is composed of almost 285 foundations. NYRAG puts on nearly 100 programs a year that can focus on everything from how to understand financial nonprofit statements to strategies around disaster-related grantmaking. There are other kinds of affinity groups that focus around nationality or age-specific groups, and each of them hosts their own kinds of programs. Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (a FLiP partner) focuses on training the next generation of philanthropic leaders and has an engaging “Philanthropology” series which encourages new foundation professionals to participate in a series of interactive sessions.
One of the biggest meetings of funder-driven affinity groups is the Council on Foundations Annual Meeting, or as some of my colleagues like to call it, Philanthrapooloza! Council on Foundations’ yearly meeting is almost like several meetings within one, with separate tracks for family foundations, community foundations and corporate foundations.
Grantee-Related Meetings
There are also larger meetings that are hosted by those in the areas in which foundations fund that are often put together by affinity. For example, I just returned from The National Conference on Media Reform (click here for the link) hosted by Free Press. This meeting, which drew over 3500 people this past weekend in downtown Minneapolis, consisted of hundreds of nonprofit organizations, journalists, educators, foundations, politicians and citizen activists interested in reforming this country’s media landscape.
These kinds of meetings are often larger multi-day conferences which include panels, workshops, self-organized sessions and keynote plenary speakers. I find these kinds of meetings the most informative and inspiring and without a doubt, one of the best parts of working for a foundation. It’s an opportunity to see the work of a foundation’s grantees in action, and an opportunity to meet others in the field who are working on the same issues that care about.
The list above is hardly comprehensive. There are a lot of other kinds of meetings too, in our everyday work life: meetings around staff issues, meetings for x and y and z. All these meetings provide a framework around which our work is accomplished and are critical to informing it in important ways.
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