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.Because theword is becoming obligatory in many circles such that noplanning discussion is regarded as complete without it the useof STRATEGY needs to be treated with the greatest distrust.Itshould, in fact, be treated the way the U.S.Constitution treatsall generals subject, ultimately, to a civilian review, answerableto ordinary people who are less at home with the argot of thewar room and more likely to want their information in plainspeech.2Perhaps the giddiness with which foundations have rushed to em-brace strategy is understandable.It represents an overreaction to therecognition by many foundation decision-makers that their work hadlacked the well-ordered, data-driven, focused analytical framework thatproduced so many high-impact initiatives for the early foundations.Rather than strategy, the early leaders of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, andCommonwealth foundations regarded themselves as applying the scien-tific method to grantmaking.For them, the scientific method involved:(1) getting the facts right by research and/or surveys; (2) identifying theproblem clearly and precisely; (3) studying a number of potential optionsfor action; (4) identifying those whose help would be needed or whose op-position must be neutralized in order to achieve the objective; and onlythen (5) developing a plan of action that included a clearly defined ob-jective, benchmarks of progress, and methods of gathering data to evalu-ate accomplishment.This, in a nutshell, is strategic thinking.Why did the habit of applying scientific thinking to foundation workbecome lost in the first place? I suspect it was caused by the passingfrom the scene of the older generation of foundation donors and lead-ers, many of whom came from the business world and had been trainedin the philosophy of scientific management.3 They were gradually re-placed by nonbusiness generalists, usually from liberal arts backgrounds,who lacked the scientific management mind-set and strategic skills oftheir predecessors.As foundation staff, boards, and trustee leadership began to be drawnfrom the ranks of university presidents and faculty, the culture of scien-tific management gradually disappeared, except in those foundationsthat have continued to enjoy the influence of businessmen or their in- 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 119Foundation Strategy in Principle 119tellectual kin from academia, such as the Alfred P.Sloan Foundation andthe Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.The resulting period of nonstrategic foundation decision-making ledto some vaguely defined and highly ineffective initiatives of a kind thathard-nosed business leaders like Andrew Carnegie and John D.Rocke-feller Sr.would surely never have tolerated.ENDS AND MEANSEllen Condliffe Lagemann, a perceptive historian of foundations, hasdefined strategy in the following simple yet elegant terms: finding max-imally effective means to achieve agreed-upon ends. 4Notice the implication here: Strategy comes second in time and logic,not first.What comes first is determining those agreed-upon ends in other words, the objectives toward which a foundation or a specific setof programs shall be directed.Strategy enters only after the problem andthe goal have been selected by careful research of all relevant facts, andby using human judgment, informed by experience, intellect, and intu-ition.This is exactly the process one finds in examining the history ofhigh-impact foundation initiatives.In each case, the problem was se-lected for attention by a donor or program officer who had both priorexperience with the general area involved and the good judgment re-quired to identify and assess the ripeness of a particular target.Only af-ter this did the scientific management approach today s strategicthinking kick in.This sequence is important and, unfortunately, not intuitively obvi-ous.Many foundations make the mistake of calling in strategic con-sultants to help them choose areas of grantmaking focus.That s notwhat strategic consultants are for.A skilled consultant can sometimeshelp trustees figure out what problems they care most passionatelyabout, but it is the passions of the trustees that matter not those of theconsultant.So foundation leaders must choose the ends of their efforts forthemselves.The strategic consultant can then help find the most ef-fective means for achieving those ends or, when appropriate, delivera warning that the means required for achieving a particular end aresimply unavailable. 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 120120 the foundationThis distinction between ends and means helps explain why strategicthinking is harder for foundations than it is for grant-receiving non-profits.The typical nonprofit has a reasonably specific organizationalmission with easy-to-articulate, ready-made goals attached.The strate-gic challenge is to clarify and analyze those goals, and to chart a system-atic course towards achieving them.By contrast, the typical foundation has a very general mission to dogood for humankind, for example and no inherent goals.For example,the very practical and tough-minded Andrew Carnegie left the CarnegieCorporation of New York with the most general of missions to sup-port the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding, a vague pronouncement described grandly in the foundation s under-writing announcements on National Public Radio as a mandate fromAndrew Carnegie. In the same way, Robert Wood Johnson wanted thefoundation named after him to focus its resources on improving thehealth and health care of all Americans, but he named no specific goals,such as reducing infant mortality, finding a cure for cancer, creating pri-mary care clinics for the poor, or educating physicians.Of course, it makes sense that a foundation designed to operate inperpetuity should be given a broad, open-ended mandate rather than aset of specific goals.As conditions change, specific goals inevitably be-come obsolete.If a foundation is to remain relevant to today s problems,its trustees and staff must be free to make informed choices about pro-gram goals.As a result, foundation leaders enjoy the broadest imagina-ble freedom, having large amounts of money to spend on unspecifiedsocial problems that they are free to define as they see fit.It s an enviableposition to be in but also a frustrating one, since it places the burdenof choosing appropriate ends squarely on the shoulders of foundationleadership.Their near-absolute freedom makes it hard for most foundations tofocus on specific goals.Instead, most foundation trustees end up speci-fying program areas that delimit the fields within which they plan todo their grantmaking.But choosing a field for grantmaking is not thesame thing as being strategic.It is merely a threshold requirement.There s a very long road between choosing a program area and zeroingin on specific goals as well as the routes to achieving them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Because theword is becoming obligatory in many circles such that noplanning discussion is regarded as complete without it the useof STRATEGY needs to be treated with the greatest distrust.Itshould, in fact, be treated the way the U.S.Constitution treatsall generals subject, ultimately, to a civilian review, answerableto ordinary people who are less at home with the argot of thewar room and more likely to want their information in plainspeech.2Perhaps the giddiness with which foundations have rushed to em-brace strategy is understandable.It represents an overreaction to therecognition by many foundation decision-makers that their work hadlacked the well-ordered, data-driven, focused analytical framework thatproduced so many high-impact initiatives for the early foundations.Rather than strategy, the early leaders of the Carnegie, Rockefeller, andCommonwealth foundations regarded themselves as applying the scien-tific method to grantmaking.For them, the scientific method involved:(1) getting the facts right by research and/or surveys; (2) identifying theproblem clearly and precisely; (3) studying a number of potential optionsfor action; (4) identifying those whose help would be needed or whose op-position must be neutralized in order to achieve the objective; and onlythen (5) developing a plan of action that included a clearly defined ob-jective, benchmarks of progress, and methods of gathering data to evalu-ate accomplishment.This, in a nutshell, is strategic thinking.Why did the habit of applying scientific thinking to foundation workbecome lost in the first place? I suspect it was caused by the passingfrom the scene of the older generation of foundation donors and lead-ers, many of whom came from the business world and had been trainedin the philosophy of scientific management.3 They were gradually re-placed by nonbusiness generalists, usually from liberal arts backgrounds,who lacked the scientific management mind-set and strategic skills oftheir predecessors.As foundation staff, boards, and trustee leadership began to be drawnfrom the ranks of university presidents and faculty, the culture of scien-tific management gradually disappeared, except in those foundationsthat have continued to enjoy the influence of businessmen or their in- 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 119Foundation Strategy in Principle 119tellectual kin from academia, such as the Alfred P.Sloan Foundation andthe Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.The resulting period of nonstrategic foundation decision-making ledto some vaguely defined and highly ineffective initiatives of a kind thathard-nosed business leaders like Andrew Carnegie and John D.Rocke-feller Sr.would surely never have tolerated.ENDS AND MEANSEllen Condliffe Lagemann, a perceptive historian of foundations, hasdefined strategy in the following simple yet elegant terms: finding max-imally effective means to achieve agreed-upon ends. 4Notice the implication here: Strategy comes second in time and logic,not first.What comes first is determining those agreed-upon ends in other words, the objectives toward which a foundation or a specific setof programs shall be directed.Strategy enters only after the problem andthe goal have been selected by careful research of all relevant facts, andby using human judgment, informed by experience, intellect, and intu-ition.This is exactly the process one finds in examining the history ofhigh-impact foundation initiatives.In each case, the problem was se-lected for attention by a donor or program officer who had both priorexperience with the general area involved and the good judgment re-quired to identify and assess the ripeness of a particular target.Only af-ter this did the scientific management approach today s strategicthinking kick in.This sequence is important and, unfortunately, not intuitively obvi-ous.Many foundations make the mistake of calling in strategic con-sultants to help them choose areas of grantmaking focus.That s notwhat strategic consultants are for.A skilled consultant can sometimeshelp trustees figure out what problems they care most passionatelyabout, but it is the passions of the trustees that matter not those of theconsultant.So foundation leaders must choose the ends of their efforts forthemselves.The strategic consultant can then help find the most ef-fective means for achieving those ends or, when appropriate, delivera warning that the means required for achieving a particular end aresimply unavailable. 9781568487027-text:Layout 1 6/24/09 10:13 AM Page 120120 the foundationThis distinction between ends and means helps explain why strategicthinking is harder for foundations than it is for grant-receiving non-profits.The typical nonprofit has a reasonably specific organizationalmission with easy-to-articulate, ready-made goals attached.The strate-gic challenge is to clarify and analyze those goals, and to chart a system-atic course towards achieving them.By contrast, the typical foundation has a very general mission to dogood for humankind, for example and no inherent goals.For example,the very practical and tough-minded Andrew Carnegie left the CarnegieCorporation of New York with the most general of missions to sup-port the advancement and diffusion of knowledge and understanding, a vague pronouncement described grandly in the foundation s under-writing announcements on National Public Radio as a mandate fromAndrew Carnegie. In the same way, Robert Wood Johnson wanted thefoundation named after him to focus its resources on improving thehealth and health care of all Americans, but he named no specific goals,such as reducing infant mortality, finding a cure for cancer, creating pri-mary care clinics for the poor, or educating physicians.Of course, it makes sense that a foundation designed to operate inperpetuity should be given a broad, open-ended mandate rather than aset of specific goals.As conditions change, specific goals inevitably be-come obsolete.If a foundation is to remain relevant to today s problems,its trustees and staff must be free to make informed choices about pro-gram goals.As a result, foundation leaders enjoy the broadest imagina-ble freedom, having large amounts of money to spend on unspecifiedsocial problems that they are free to define as they see fit.It s an enviableposition to be in but also a frustrating one, since it places the burdenof choosing appropriate ends squarely on the shoulders of foundationleadership.Their near-absolute freedom makes it hard for most foundations tofocus on specific goals.Instead, most foundation trustees end up speci-fying program areas that delimit the fields within which they plan todo their grantmaking.But choosing a field for grantmaking is not thesame thing as being strategic.It is merely a threshold requirement.There s a very long road between choosing a program area and zeroingin on specific goals as well as the routes to achieving them [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]