By Joel J. Orosz
“BECOME A SUPERMARKET MANAGER IN JUST SIX MONTHS!” The
block letters of this notice, tacked up on a bulletin board at Grand Valley
State University, recently caught my eye. A well-known national grocery chain was willing to train anyone who
could dedicate half a year of their lives to learning this trade. It struck me as a reasonable proposition—a
modern supermarket is a complicated business—but it also struck me as sad,
because I teach at The Grantmaking School of Grand Valley State University, and
it occurred to me that it takes six months longer to learn how to run a grocery
store than to learn how to run an international charitable foundation.
Of course, that really isn’t true—learning how to make
grants, how to manage a giving program, how nurture social change, how to
affect public policy, and how to work with a foundation’s board of trustees is
a tough education for those forced to learn on the job—but in the world of philanthropy,
we have always pretended that smart people, with experience in other fields,
can just waltz in and make a grantmaking foundation hum. On rare occasions, someone like John Gardner
will come along, and pull the bunny out of the hat. Far more often, smart people make a hash out
of the charitable program that they are totally unprepared to lead, and many
conclude otherwise brilliant careers with the taste of ashes in their mouths.
I have been writing about good practices in grantmaking
for seven years, and teaching in The Grantmaking School for three years. During that span, I have talked with
literally hundreds of people who provide leadership to foundations as CEOs,
members of boards of trustees, program directors, and program officers, and the
comment I hear over and over again is: I
wish I had known this when I started out in foundation work. Indeed. And now I add this thought to their sentiment: I wish that charitable foundation boards were
as serious about training their key employees as grocery chains’ boards are
about training theirs.
Joel J. Oros is former Executive
Assistant to the CEO, and Program Director in Philanthropy and Volunteerism at
the W.K. Kellog Foundation. In 2004 he founded The Grantmaking School, the first
university-based training program for grantmaking professionals located at
Grand Valley State University. His book, Effective Foundation Management: 14
Challenges of Philanthropic Leadership—and How to Outfox Them
(AltaMira Press, Sept. 2007), is now available for preorder.
