What to Watch: Trends in Funding Communications/Technology Capacity
This section of our site looks at current trends in funding for communications efforts.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Radio and Television Grants 1987-1997
Just as some grants use demonstration or research projects to advance a foundation's goals, the grants discussed in this chapter of an RWJ report use communications as a strategy. RWJ has experimented with a broad range of media approaches. Victoria D. Weisfeld shares their successes and failures, and includes tips for making media grants.
The Insider's Guide to Grantmaking: How Foundations Find, Fund and Manage Effective Programs (2000)
This practical yet humorous book by Joel J. Orosz is one of the first to outline a set of "best practices" for the program officer. Available from Jossey Bass or Amazon.Com.
Lessons Learned from 15+ Years of Grantmaking to Support the Organizational Effectiveness of Grantees (2000)
Barbara D. Kibbe of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation summarizes their approach to working with grantees to help them address organizational issues and outlines 10 lessons learned.
The Impact of Communications & Technology on Mission
What to Watch: Nonprofit Internet Use
A list of recent research on technology and Internet access and use in the nonprofit sector.
Grantmakers on Funding Social Issue
Media Projects
Staff from both the Ford and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations talk about the importance of funding communications efforts by highlighting initiatives their organizations funded, which incorporate multiple platforms in order to reach the widest audience possible.
Peer2Peer Learning
This section of Benton's Web site encourages nonprofits to share their lessons learned, and includes profiles of nonprofit use of communications technologies.
Affinity Groups
The following organizations represent grantmakers that focus on particular areas. A full list of affinity groups is maintained by the Council of Foundations. This set below represents those grantmakers that have demonstrated an interest in the intersection of capacity building, organizational effectiveness, communications and technology.
Related Resources
What to Watch
Leaders and innovators sound off on communications trends important to the nonprofit sector in this area of Benton's Web site.
The Drum Beat: Communication & Change News & Issues
Published by the Communication Initiative, a multi-sector partnership to advocate for effective communications for sustainable development.
Don't Cut Spending on Communications
This article, from the Chronicle of Philanthropy's April 19 issue,
discusses the country's economic downturn and the resulting budgetary
cuts some foundations will have to make. Joanne Edgar makes the
case that communications should not be among the budgets cut as
it is essential to effective grantmaking.
Evaluation Exchange: Ask the Expert- Two Top Foundation Officers Queried
Karen Lake from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Greg Oliphant from
The Heinz Endowments discuss how strategic communications can help
achieve the desired goals of a foundation and its grantees. Both
Lake and Oliphant outline how foundations and grantees can work
together to improve an initiative through the use of communications.
Ethics and The Manage a Trois
In a concise, four-page document, James Abernathy of the Environmental Support Center addresses the question: How do funders and capacity builders share information about nonprofit organizations receiving organizational development assistance without violating confidences or inhibiting honest confrontation of difficult issues?
Funders on Funding Communications Efforts
The funding of communication efforts, and understanding the breadth of these efforts, is critical to the success of nonprofits in achieving their missions and goals. The Communications Network has assembled a variety of opinion pieces and articles from foundation staff past and present that believe foundations need to integrate the funding of such efforts into all grantmaking.
Reports on Giving By
High-Tech, Minority Donors
Two recent studies regarding high-tech donors' attitudes towards philanthropy are summarized in this editorial by Ryan Turner of OMBWatch. The editorial was originally written for the NPTalk Discussion List.
Values and Voice: Advancing Philanthropy Through Strategic Communications
This 1998 working paper is a joint publications of the The Communications Network and the Benton Foundation. The paper outlines the belief of both organizations in the essential role of communications - integrated in program planning - in effective organizations, effective grantmaking, effective public policy. The paper outlines five basic principles of strategic communications as well as highlights six foundations that illustrate the impact of strategic communications on advancing grantmaking and public policy goals.
Last updated:
16 October 2001 mff
