How Would Your Foundation Face Its End?
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As the number of foundations choosing to sunset increases, the learnings from which all foundations can benefit are increasing as well. Even foundations choosing to fund in perpetuity often have programs, strategies and grants that come to a close. There is value in examining these lessons and we are thankful that many of them choose to share their experiences as they sunset. The Orfalea Foundation recently embarked on a thoughtful spend down path and is sharing aspects of this journey. Dean Zatkowsky, Communications Manager, sets the stage for this journey and cites resources with details on the process as well as key lessons from their core programs. Kim Bluitt, Member Relations Director, Council on Foundations |
Although the Orfalea Fund was created as a limited-life entity, the daily pressure has been mounting since we publically announced our sunset two years ago. Publicizing our end-date brought a new level of focus and urgency to ensuring the sustainability of our efforts in early childhood education, school food reform, and community disaster readiness.
Fortunately, we always tried to weave sustainability into day-to-day activities – aligning partners on values, not activities, influencing policies that will outlast personalities, and building sturdy platforms for partner ownership and an ongoing exchange of ideas. (Key lessons from our core programs are outlined at www.OrfaleaFoundation.org)
But the sunset itself dramatically changed the way we work: How we set priorities, how we bolster coworker motivation, how we interact with the press and social media, and even how we interact in a community that deems us increasingly irrelevant. Most of all, as the months flew by, our once broad range of interests narrowed to the crucial few programs and projects of greatest leverage and impact.
Sunsetting the Orfalea Fund and Orfalea Family Foundation was an exercise in letting go, and led us to make tough choices we simply didn’t have to face in our earlier years. And “exercise” is a good choice of words, because the process has made us stronger and more confident in taking action on the most important things. (A more detailed story about the sunset process and the foundation’s style of work is available in a supplement to the fall issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review, called The Power of Philanthropic Partnerships.)
How would your daily activities change if you had only two years to complete your foundation’s work? What would you do differently?
Dean Zatkowsky is Communications Manager for the Orfalea Foundation.
