Executive Summary
Communications professionals at many of America’s top foundations will be the first to say that when it comes to reaching an audience, we live in a very different world from just five years ago. With the advent of Web 2.0 technologies on platforms like Google Reader, Facebook and YouTube, mass communication has never been so interactive, networked, or user-driven. While it’s hard to know where the next innovation will land us, it’s safe to say that sitting on the sidelines is no longer an option for those that want to remain relevant.
With that in mind, in the fall of 2007, the Communications Network commissioned Brotherton Strategies to explore the opportunities and challenges presented to private grantmaking foundations by new media. This included taking a sample of what the field is thinking, doing and learning in these relatively early days of Web 2.0. Our method included an extensive literature review and one-on-one phone interviews with professionals selected from the Communications Network membership. We also spoke with several private consultants well-versed in both philanthropy and technology.
Web 2.0 tools offer a number of obvious opportunities for foundations because they are often free and accessible, allow for focused convenings and conversations, lend themselves to interactions with and among grantees, and offer an effective story-telling medium. Most exciting of all for foundations may be the newfound ability for a feedback loop where none existed before. Still, with notable exceptions, some in the field remain skeptical.
Foundation concerns are, by no means, insignificant. They include the worry of losing control over the foundation’s message, allowing more staff members to represent the foundation in a more public way, opening the flood gates of grant requests or the headache of a forum gone bad with unwanted or inappropriate posts. Additional challenges include the perception of a daunting learning curve, the work required to make an effort relevant and targeted to particular audiences, and finding the staff time required to keep up with a medium that runs around the clock. All this within a longstanding penchant among foundations toward privacy and caution about how they communicate.
It’s worth asking whether these concerns and challenges outweigh the opportunities. If foundations want to remain in the background and yield the spotlight to grantees, they might. In fact, our findings suggested that grantees are ahead of foundations in their use of Web 2.0 technologies simply because these tools allow grantees to meet so many critical needs not central to foundations like fundraising and recruiting volunteers.
Still, if foundations want to sustain influence among key audiences, traditional communication channels simply won’t suffice. To decide not to join the myriad online conversations and networking opportunities is to cede territory to others who may have less means, knowledge or experience. In fact, the loss of ground may already be occurring if we regard a recent survey by the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative that found that more than half of Americans surveyed—who hold a leadership, committee, or board-level role in an organization working on community or social issues—could not name a foundation on their first try.
Beyond just sustaining influence is the need to circumvent criticism in an era of increased skepticism. By opting out or continuing to wait on the sidelines, foundations risk appearing even more insular, perhaps inviting scrutiny by the new vanguard of citizen journalists busily blogging on the “outside.”
Ultimately, it may come down to the fact that foundations have the ability to innovate, experiment and explore in a way few other institutions can. Many we interviewed felt that communicating those innovative efforts through these new technologies makes sense. Of course there are risks and challenges. But there is also the sense that whatever is “lost” in message control will be more than made up for by the opportunity to engage audiences in new ways, with greater programmatic impact.
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