Philanthropy Class: Paul Brest (10/14/2004)

Paul Brest, President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was a guest speaker on the role of strategy in foundations. Prof. Arrillaga started the class off with a quick rundown on the different factors that play into "accountability" (not just to the higher authority of "public trust" but also mutual accountability between donor and donee) and some of the factors of the relationship between donor and donee:

1. Honoring the donor's intent
   
2. Responsiveness
   
3. Accessability
   
4. Transparency
   
5. Disclosure
   
6. Honesty
   
7. Fairness
   

And all of these issues interact with considerations like: power, trust, cost, capacity, communication, culture, and management.

The class was split into halves representing either "Foundations" or "Grant seeking NGO'S", and a spirited discussion ensued, recapping most of the points from the reading, including:

• The desirability of measurements vs. the cost of obtaining them
  
• The request for "open channels of communication" vs. the reprisals that come when not all the news is rosy
  
• The need to fund operating expenses vs. the desire to be associated with innovative, effective programs
  

A quick wrap-up discussion highlighted some of the challenges in quantifying social ROI and arguing that evaluation should be viewed not as a freebie "add-on" but rather an important part of the overall program that is also appropriately funded.


At this point, Paul Brest led us through a quick overview of his process of planning for strategic change:

1. Start with a Goal
   
2. Create a theory of how to achieve that goal (aka a "Strategic Plan")
   
3. Evaluate the risks
   
4. Carry out the plan
   
5. Evaluate Progress: compare progress against milestones
   
6. Evaluate Outcome: Did it achieve goal? Did the intervention matter? (Compare to a control group)
   

Evaluation is an important part of the process, and needs to be considered at the beginning. What sorts of metrics will you use? What are the intermediate indicators?

He asked the class to participate in a 10-minute grant writing exercise, conceiving the goals, logic model, and evaluation metrics of a mentorship program pairing Stanford students with at-risk youth. At the conclusion, he mentioned that Wendy Kopp of Teach for America had viewed the most important outcome (moreso than improving quality of teaching) as the creation of a constituency that cares about education. In 10-15 years, these former TFA volunteers (recruited from top colleges around the country) will be in a powerful position to influence education policy and spending.

He also mentioned Innovation Network a non-profit that provide online tools and training to help other non-profits with the evaluation and planning of projects.