Slow Dancing Off the Hill

As the CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville, I travel to Washington, D.C., each year and make the rounds as part of Foundations on the Hill, supported by the Council on Foundations and the Southeastern Council of Foundations. For most of us, this journey is a sprint, since we visit dozens and dozens of offices in just two days. Each office gives foundation staff representatives about 15 minutes, so we rush to get our message(s) across to our members of Congress.

While FOTH is critically important, it isn’t enough. This year, the two councils teamed up to try something new. They called it Foundations 101, but I like to call it “Foundations off the Hill.”

It’s a chance for us to take the lead and build community where we live and work. Last Friday, here in Louisville, local officials from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the State Auditor’s Office, and about a half-dozen legislative district staff—including staff from the offices of Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.); Reps. Geoff Davis (R-Ky.), Ben Chandler (D-Ky.), Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) and John Yarmuth (D-Ky.); and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer—joined us for a fantastic session about grantmaking and philanthropy. As part of a panel organized by Mason Rummel  (James Graham Brown Foundation) that included Carl Thomas (Gheens Foundation)  and Susan Zepeda (Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky), we provided staffers with a useful primer on the role of philanthropy in society, the history of philanthropy, its infrastructure, and its future.

I can’t say enough about how Foundations off the Hill opened the door for fresh conversation. It reminded me of the importance of cultivating relationships with elected officials, the slow dance that it is. With this local session, we felt more at ease to step back and help our congressional field offices get to know us and gain a richer understanding of the field and what it does to benefit our community. By next March, we’ll be old friends. These friendships will be important, since elections this fall may signal changes in Washington, D.C., that affect the philanthropic sector.

If your community gets the chance to host Foundations off the Hill, try it. You’ll like it.

Susan Barry is CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville