How do you define your role in the economic crisis?

Deciding whether funders need to shift from "grantmaking as usual" in the ongoing economic crisis is probably a foolish question - clearly, grantmaking as usual just won't cut it in the months and years ahead.

But figuring out exactly how you plan to shift your focus in the light of so many new (and not so new) pressing needs is easier said than done. Just a few of the questions grantmakers are asking themselves:

How do we reach out to local providers, policymakers and state agencies to best understand the rapidly shifting sands of our region's support networks?

What advice and guidance, if any, do we share with these groups?

How do we think about the messages we send - and the forums we use to convey these messages - to our local providers, policymakers, or the general public?

And, perhaps most importantly: Can we afford to sacrifice long-term goals for short-term emergency fixes?

One foundation that is thinking deeply about this issue is the New Hampshire Charitable Trust.

Last week, the Trust's president, Lew Feldstein, sent out a letter to its broad network discussing the hard choices it is now making in its approach to the crisis and why, for the most part, it has chosen to keep to the long view. Lew writes:

I once likened the Foundation to an earthworm.

Some winced at this decidedly un-heroic metaphor. They would have preferred a lion or a hawk, a mighty mountain, Hercules manning the barricades.

I get that – I too hear the trumpets, the fife and drums. All of my instincts in times like these are to rush to the walls. To position the Foundation as a great and mighty force resisting the ravages of recession. Helmeted, with a huge fire hose in one hand, bags of cash in the other. Throwing ourselves into the breech, filling the huge service holes caused by imminent state budget cuts and reductions in private giving to our agency colleagues. A philanthropic “Walter Mitty.”

But that’s not who we are.

Yes, the Foundation can marshal emergency help in crises. We did it with the 2003 closing of the Berlin mills, the 2006 floods in southwestern New Hampshire, “Stay Warm NH” just this winter. We will do so again.

And yes, the Foundation was among the first in the state to fund programs to address AIDS, child abuse, homelessness, and payday lending – in most cases well before there was public support. And will continue to do so.

And yes, the Foundation does provide significant annual support to hundreds of nonprofits that provide basic human services, and we remain the largest single source of scholarships in the state. And will continue.

But the highest and best use of the Foundation – and the broader charitable sector – is not to underwrite basic services. This is not our role even in good times, and we certainly don’t have the resources to take it on in hard times.

The nonprofit sector simply doesn’t have the firepower to meet the overwhelming needs emerging in this recession. That job must be led by government.

Think of it this way. Nonprofits and government are in the same business – helping to move citizens to a better life. But if government is a bus or a train, we are a motor scooter. They carry far more people and do the bulk of the work. But we can start and stop faster, and take the turns more sharply.

At the same time – and here is where the earthworm metaphor works – the Foundation’s job is to build the soil, to enrich the ground in which the state’s thousands of nonprofits work, to have the truly long view that asks, “What will the ground look like when we come out of this? Still fertile or scorched and sterile?”

So what does that mean for our work in this deepening recession?

It means we must …

• Sustain our grantmaking capacity as well as we can
• Focus investments in high performing change agents
• Make changes to better support the nonprofit sector as a whole
• Encourage donors to dig deeper than ever
• Strategically advocate long-term public policy solutions to systemic
  problems.

And that’s what we are doing.

(Read the rest of Lew's letter: The Foundation's Role in Troubling Times)

While there are no easy answers to the challenges our communities now face, and while there are no easy answers to the most appropriate role for funders, we think that Lew's sentiments may provide a good starting point.

On March 4th, Funders Together will host an Audio Conference for its national network of funders to discuss the topic of "Responding to Crisis." If you're a funder and would like to participate, please sign up here. Others are invited to provide their comments and suggestions - rest assured, we are interested to know what you think.