ProInspire’s Research Featured by National Center for Family Philanthropy

The National Center for Family Philanthropy (NCFP), the only national nonprofit dedicated exclusively to families who give and those with whom they work, dedicated its latest monthly newsletter to the topic of fellowships. The newsletter’s feature story, Where there is community, there is fellowship, drew heavily on ProInspire’s recent fellowship industry benchmarking report to help readers understand the fellowship model and how family foundations are using it as a strategy to strengthen leadership and enhance the impact of their grantmaking missions. Since several family foundations are represented in ProInspire’s data set, the findings within ProInspire’s report are highly relevant to the work of NCFP.

The article features several aspects of ProInspire’s report Social Impact Fellowships: Building Talent in the Social Impact Sector. It starts by quoting the definition of a social impact fellowship, the first of its kind in the sector. It then outlines the key survey findings and how they are particularly relevant to family foundations, community foundations, and regional association grantmakers. The article then highlights three fellowship programs operated by family foundations, focusing on how each has promoted the goals of building new community leaders, enhancing diversity, and advancing the field of philanthropy and community development.

Read the full article here and an excerpt below.

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Where there is community, there is fellowship
By Angie Hong, National Center for Family Philanthropy

An increasing number of family foundations, community foundations, and regional associations are utilizing fellowship programs as a complementary strategy for meeting their charitable giving missions, while also seeking to expand local philanthropic leadership by building capacity in individual community members. Family foundations may decide to start a fellowship program for any of a number of reasons, including:

•          Honoring a loved one’s legacy or approach to philanthropy.
•          Advancing the foundation’s mission to create impact in the community, and
•          Building diverse new leaders to advance the field of philanthropy.

Through fellowship programs, family foundations can also deepen relationships with the communities they serve, while also inspiring and recognizing existing community leaders so they can further flourish in their roles.

But, what is a fellowship? In ProInspire’s recent benchmarking research study report,Social Impact Fellowships: Building Talent in the Social Impact Sector, social impact fellowships are defined as opportunities that “enhance the value created by talent in the social impact sector, as a structured, professionally-oriented, time-bound and selective program in which talent enrolls.”

From this definition alone, it’s very clear that a lot of time, energy, and commitment is necessary to build a successful fellowship program. In order to create a successful social impact fellowship, family foundations and other organizations must take the time to evaluate an individual’s personal and professional development needs, provide the funding to meet these needs, and to work with selected individuals for an extended amount of time to truly understand their potential and interests. The growth in fellowship programs is a fairly recent phenomenon; 76% of the 48 programs represented in the survey started in 2000 or later. Among the participants in this first-of-its-kind survey were NCFP Friends of the Family the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund.

The report includes a number of key findings that should be carefully considered by any family or funder thinking about establishing a fellowship program:

1. Foundation fellowships focus primarily on emerging leaders.

2. Few fellowship programs have reached large scale. Only six of the 48 fellowship programs represented in the survey had greater than 100 fellows in 2014.

3. Fellowships can be effective tools for enhancing diversity in the sector. More than half of programs that track diversity metrics indicate that 50% or more of Fellows in their program are non-white.

4. The fellowship industry approaches metrics and evaluation with inconsistency. Only 26% of respondents have performed a program evaluation. In addition, there is little consistency in metrics being tracked by programs in each category.

5. Fellowships desire more industry collaboration. Nearly 100% of respondents indicated they would like to find more ways to collaborate with other fellowship programs.

^{(Source: Social Impact Fellowships: Building Talent in the Social Impact Sector, ProInspire.)}

From the key survey findings, there are several points that ring especially true for families that give and those who work with them, including community foundations and regional association grantmakers. In this issue of FGN, we profile three fellowship programs from those in our Friends of the Family and Partner network that have focused on the three goals of building new community leaders, enhancing diversity, and advancing the field of philanthropy and community development.