President's Note (From our 2009 Annual Report)
Dear Friends and Colleagues: The daunting financial and economic problems of the past year challenged everyone in the non-profit sector to abandon conventional practices, adopt new strategies and prepare for an uncertain future. It was relatively easy for non-profits to recognize the need to adapt. Finding creative, yet pragmatic, solutions in this rapidly changing and precarious setting was not. During 2009, the Foundation undertook a careful review of its grantmaking budget, focus areas and grantees. We found it necessary to adopt a short term strategy that balanced the preservation of our long term grantmaking capacity with our commitment to support the important work of our grantees. As we studied this issue, it became clear that our capacity to have an impact in our focus areas would be diminished for an extended period if our grantmaking was not meaningfully reduced during the year. To moderate the impact of this decision, we decided it was essential to be transparent about our implementation strategy and to provide as much advance notice as possible to our grantees about how these reductions would impact them. With the same interests in mind, we added new sections to our website to provide grantees with greater clarity about our position on grant renewals and grantseekers with updates on our perspective on new grant inquiries. Finally, we increased general operating grant support and launched a pilot technical assistance program to assist some of our smaller and mid-sized grantees. We recognize that our challenges were modest compared to those of our grantees. As we worked closely with them during the year, we became acutely aware of the significant difficulties they faced. While many had little experience with the type of contingency planning that was required in 2009, we are impressed at how well they worked through this uncertain time. Our 2009 investment results allowed our portfolio to recover from the lows of the first quarter. To offer some perspective, however, the portfolio’s value (before discounting for inflation) was only
marginally higher on December 31, 2009 than it was on December 31, 2003, although during this
period the portfolio funded more than $24 million of the nearly $28 million in grants we have made
since inception. Thankfully, the adjustments we made to our grantmaking in 2009 should allow us
to avoid further reductions in 2010. Looking forward, the “New Normal” will likely constrain our ability
to materially increase our grantmaking, but we hope to cautiously open the door to some limited
grant increases or new grantmaking as 2010 unfolds. In the interim, we will try to be as flexible,
transparent and creative as possible in our grantmaking and the non-monetary support we provide
to our grantees. We hope that these efforts will allow us to build even stronger partnerships with
Sincerely,
James D. Parsons |
