Eos in the News
Making every donation count
Philanthropies coordinate efforts to get more done
By Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff | December 12, 2009
Larry Jones lived outside for decades, sleeping on Boston’s streets. Two months ago, the 67-year-old found a studio apartment with the help of the nonprofit Hearth, a group that works to end elder homelessness.
“I’m used to the outside,” said Jones, who regularly takes a host of pills to treat various ailments but decided to seek a more permanent shelter because “I don’t want someone to find me in the street dead.’’
The program that helped Jones is getting a boost from a new collaboration of half a dozen local philanthropies. The group has collectively committed $1.6 million this winter season - double what its members provided in a similar effort last year - to more than two dozen area nonprofits, including Hearth, the Greater Boston Food Bank, and Citizen’s Energy, which offers emergency oil assistance.
This year, though, the philanthropies are doling out the money in a new, coordinated way. Where each previously made decisions on its own, giving grants to any type of nonprofit that asked for aid, this winter the funders have divided the giving landscape according to basic needs. One foundation will give money to agencies that provide food for the hungry, for example; another will fund shelters; and yet another philanthropy will finance groups that help people buy fuel.
Jeffery Hayward, chief of external affairs at the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley, said he thinks the partnership will make it easier for nonprofit aid organizations to get money - and more easily provide services. That’s because they won’t waste time applying to multiple foundations when they know that a specific philanthropy is handling their type of request, such as food or fuel.
The goal, said Hayward, is “to not make it a guessing game of where they are going to get money. Let them plan.’’
Boston Foundation president Paul S. Grogan said by talking to each other, the philanthropies could “make the best use of the resources available to address urgent needs in a systematic way,’’ figuring out where their efforts overlapped and where there were gaps. For instance, Combined Jewish Philanthropies has put aside roughly $475,000 for emergency cash programs that help people buy basic necessities, and for family and career counseling; and the Highland Street Foundation has committed $300,000 for nonprofits like Hearth, that help people find housing.
“Knowing we’re going to direct $300,000 to housing means another group can really focus on hunger needs,’’ explained Blake Jordan, executive director of the Highland Street Foundation.
Other philanthropies involved in giving coordinated aidinclude The Linde Family Foundation and Eos Foundation.
Such partnerships are increasing as charities look to stretch their dollars, according to separate surveys by the Bridgespan Group, a Boston consulting firm, and the Foundation Center, a New York nonprofitthat tracks philanthropies.
“Most people are expecting 2010 to be another tough year for giving,’’ said Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center.
There is “a greater awareness that with tight resources, it makes a lot of sense for foundations to use the resources they have as effectively as possible, and part of that is avoiding duplication,’’ he said.
Bridgespan found that 80 percent of the more than 100 nonprofit leaders surveyed said their organizations had experienced funding cuts, while more than half also saw demand for services grow more quickly.
“The organizations are looking at all opportunities to maintain their ability to serve their populations,’’ said Alan Tuck, a Bridgespan partner. “They are asking, ‘Are there things they are doing now that perhaps they don’t have to do?’ ’’
The new local strategy may mean some nonprofits will get less money than in the past, according to the Boston Foundation, but only because the grants will go to another organization that was previously underfunded.
“The priority is emergency services to get through the winter,’’ said Elizabeth Sternberg, director of disabilities services and economic response at Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
At Hearth, chief executive Mark Hinderlie said the money is helping his housing assistance organization “breathe again’’ after making cuts earlier this year.
“We’ve been stretched,’’ Hinderlie said, so “this money is great. We can use it.’’
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.
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