Assessment to Action: Creating Change
Preliminary Agenda
March 8-9, 2007
Renaissance Chicago Hotel

Click here to view the final program (pdf).

Selected handouts and presentations are available for conference participants by clicking here. Please email Alyse d'Amico if you require a password reminder.

Thursday, March 8

Friday, March 9

Wednesday, March 7 (pre-conference seminar for CEP's assessment tool subscribers)

Thursday, March 8 (Day One)

8:00 am to 10:15 am
Registration
A continental breakfast will be available.

10:15 am to 11:45 am
Opening Session
Phil Giudice, Board Chair, Center for Effective Philanthropy
Valerie Lies, President and CEO, Donors Forum of Chicago
Phil Buchanan, Executive Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy

Findings from the Field: Foundation Strategy
Kevin Bolduc, Associate Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy

How do foundations make decisions – and to what extent do strategies guide their choices? How do foundation leaders define, implement, and assess strategy? Hear the first-ever public presentation of results from CEP's Foundation Strategy Study.

12:15 pm to 1:30 pm
Foundation Effectiveness: The Promise and Pitfalls
Jonathan Fanton, President, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Fanton discusses the potential – and risks – of focusing on foundation effectiveness, drawing on his experience as CEO of one of the largest foundations in the country. Lunch will be served.

1:45 pm to 3:00 pm
Breakout sessions (4)

What Grantees Want: The Role of General Operating Support
Heidi Frederick, Assistant Director of Research, The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University
Judy Huang, Associate Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy
Carol Silverman, Research Director, Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management, University of San Francisco

Foundation and nonprofit executives have long discussed and debated how grantmakers can best support nonprofits, and many have argued for an increase in the provision of unrestricted – or general operating – support. Missing from the debate has been data about current foundation practice and what informs that practice, and data about the grantee perspective. This session features results from new Aspen-funded research on the provision of general operating support to grantees.

Understanding Foundation Impact: The Academic Perspective
Peter Frumkin, Professor of Public Affairs and Director, RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, University of Texas at Austin
Peter Dobkin Hall, Hauser Lecturer on Nonprofit Organizations, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
James Allen Smith, Waldemar A. Nielsen Chair in Philanthropy, Georgetown Public Policy Institute
Moderator: Susan Bell, Vice President, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Those who have studied foundations closely have much to say about the opportunities and challenges they face. Three leading academics, who have researched and written extensively about foundations, discuss the practical implications of their findings for those who lead foundations.

Creating Change in the Boardroom
Helen Burstyn, Board Chair, Ontario Trillium Foundation
Robin Cardozo, CEO, Ontario Trillium Foundation
Lisa R. Jackson, Associate Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy

Foundation governance has emerged as an issue of critical importance over the past several years. Jackson, who leads CEP's Foundation Governance Project, presents new results from CEP work in this area. The Ontario Trillium Foundation, one of Canada's largest grantmaking foundations, is using data to transform its board and increase effectiveness. Burstyn and Cardozo share the story of the Board's change process, speaking frankly about its successes and the challenges of moving from data to planning to achieving real results. A facilitated discussion builds upon the OTF story, and the stories of participants, to identify practical tips for enhancing board effectiveness.

From Data to Insight: Using CEP’s Assessment Tools to Create Change
Stephen Heintz, President, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Jim Hoolihan, President, Blandin Foundation
Moderator: Phil Buchanan, Executive Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy

Foundation leaders have few resources to help them assess – and improve – their foundations’ performance. This session offers an opportunity to understand how CEP’s assessment tools can be used to take stock of strengths and weaknesses and chart a path of improvement. Heintz and Hoolihan share their experience using CEP’s assessment tools.

3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Radical Change: Two Foundations' Stories
John R. Healy, Chief Executive Officer and President, The Atlantic Philanthropies
Greg Avis, Board Chair, Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Moderator: Barbara Kibbe, Senior Consultant, Monitor Institute

Foundations face little pressure to change – enjoying a freedom unrivaled by other institutions in our society. But motivated by a desire to achieve the most impact possible using the charitable dollars with which they have been entrusted, a growing number of foundations are exploring new models or redefining and clarifying priorities. This session explores two particularly radical examples of foundation change, surfacing common themes and challenges and drawing broader insights. Healy will describes his foundation’s transformation process as it prepares to spend itself out of existence by 2016, and Avis explains the decision to merge Peninsula Community Foundation and the Community Foundation of Silicon Valley.

6:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Reception

7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Dinner
Speaker: Bill Shore, Founder and Executive Director, Share Our Strength, the nation's leading organization working to end childhood hunger in the United States; Chairman of Community Wealth Ventures, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength, which provides consulting services; and author, The Light of Conscience: How a Simple Act Can Change Your Life and The Cathedral Within: Transforming Your Life by Giving Something Back.

Friday, March 9 (Day Two)

7:30 am to 8:45 am
Breakfast buffet and roundtables

Conference participants host conversations on issues related to foundation effectiveness.

7:30 am to 8:45 am
Bridging the Gap: Evaluators and CEOs
Patricia Patrizi, Patrizi Associates

This special session for pairs of evaluators and CEOs from the same foundation explores the challenges of developing evaluation data that is useful to foundation leaders in assessing performance and informing improvement efforts.

9:00 am to 10:15 am
Foundation Strategy: The Challenge of Maintaining Focus
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
John W. Murphy, President and CEO, Flinn Foundation
Moderator: Phil Buchanan, Executive Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy

Lavizzo-Mourey and Murphy speak about the challenge of devising, defining, implementing, and assessing programmatic strategies. These two foundations, both focused in health, have taken sharply different approaches. What informed their decisions? What have been the challenges in strategy development and assessment? What lessons can be learned from their experience? Buchanan will moderate this session, drawing on findings from CEP's Foundation Strategy Study.

10:45 am to 12:00 pm
Breakout sessions (4)

Using Data to Affect Change
James Knickman, President and CEO, New York State Health Foundation
Edward Pauly, Director of Research and Evaluation, The Wallace Foundation
Moderator: Fay Twersky, Senior Impact Planning and Improvement Officer, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Assessing foundation performance is notoriously difficult. This session focuses on the challenge of marshaling and presenting data to assess overall foundation effectiveness, exploring a number of questions. What are the key choices and presentation challenges -- and human dynamics -- that drive the ways data are used to assess foundation effectiveness? How can boards and CEOs benefit from candid performance assessments of the foundation's organizational and programmatic effectiveness? What does a foundation-level performance assessment system look like? Knickman and Pauly discuss these questions, drawing on their experiences developing foundation-wide performance "scorecards."

Race in the Boardroom
Iris Gomez, Board Member, The Hyams Foundation and Attorney, Massachusetts Law Reform Institute
Ricardo Millett, Board Member, New Partnership Foundation and Consultant, Millett and Associates
Beth Smith, Executive Director, The Hyams Foundation
Luz Vega-Marquis, President and CEO, Marguerite Casey Foundation
Moderator: Beverly Daniel Tatum, President, Spelman College

What are the dynamics of race in the board room? How can foundation boards ensure that each of its members contribute fully to board discussions and decision-making? What are the skills board chairs need to create healthy board dynamics?

Fostering Program Officer Success
Kevin Bolduc, Associate Director, Center for Effective Philanthropy
Jan Jaffe, Project Leader, GrantCraft
Moderator: Stephanie McAuliffe, Director of Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness and Directed Grantmaking, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Program officers are central to successful foundation-grantee relationships. But how do foundation leaders know how their program officers are performing? And what steps can leaders take to help program officers excel? Bolduc will present new analysis of program officer-grantee interactions that will be featured in an article in the spring issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Jaffe provides practical recommendations.

Influencing Public Policy
Ron Gallo, President and CEO, Rhode Island Foundation
Teri Kook, Senior Program Officer, The Stuart Foundation
Moderator: Lucy Bernholz, Founder and President, Blueprint Research & Design

This panel centers on the variety of ways foundations can use public policy- related tools and activities to advance their missions, how they generate and maintain internal and external support for those activities, and how they assess progress toward their goals. Gallo, Kook, and Bernholz discuss the opportunities and risks in funding and assessing public policy work.

12:15 pm to 2:00 pm
The Leadership Challenge
Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ernest L. Arbuckle Professor, Harvard Business School

Leadership expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School, discusses the challenges facing foundation leaders in creating change. Lunch will be served.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007 (Pre-conference Seminar)
This is an intensive one-day pre-conference seminar tailored to CEOs, trustees, and senior executives of the 140 foundations that have commissioned The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) assessment tools.

10:00 am to 10:30 am
Welcoming Remarks

10:30 am to 11:45 am
Breakout sessions (4)
These sessions will provide an opportunity for candid, confidential conversations about interpreting and acting on assessment tool results and will include small group discussions on topics such as: overcoming resistance; communicating GPR results; revamping selection and evaluation processes; and acting on board self-assessment results.

12:00 pm to 1:00 pm
Lunch

1:30 pm to 3:00 pm
From Data to Action: Moving Beyond Assessment Tool Results
This interactive, facilitated discussion will focus on the leadership challenges of moving from data to action. A survey of seminar registrants will be conducted in January to ensure that the session focuses on the topics of greatest interest to attendees.

3:15 pm to 4:30 pm
Breakout sessions (4)
Participants will explore key implementation challenges identified during the previous session.

5:00 pm to 6:00 pm
Reception

CEP's next conference will be held in 2009. If you would like to receive updates on the conference and its agenda, please contact Alyse d'Amico at (617) 492-0800 ext. 206.