Meyer Memorial Trust

MMT is quite unique among foundations, because of your new email communications service and informative news releases. The tone is friendly and casual, yet the information is timely and very valuable. I appreciate being able to communicate with you in this way, and am pleased to see that you are taking a lead role in identifying needs and concerns in Oregon. Your generous support to both large and small organizations is quite amazing.

Universities have long since depended on Meyer for substantial support for buildings. The Meyer Trust's fingerprints are all over the infrastructure of the independent campuses of this region. So while we are very supportive of the project-based direction the foundation is taking, is there a place for a minor area of giving directed towards construction for non-profits? I'm thinking of a targeted fund specifically for challenge grants for bricks and mortar. Given the price of steel at present, this would be of immeasurable value for many non-profits in the area. Of course, this may not be what the Trust wants to do, and, at the end of the day, it's their decision and not ours. But we do need buildings to do our work in, and there aren't many options. Given the success of the Trust's involvement in building in the past, it would be a mistake, I believe, to give up this valuable legacy.

One of the most valuable things about Meyer Memorial Trust is your ability to give large, multiyear grants. It's so important for non-profits to have substantial, reliable funding and not have to constantly scramble to fund proven and successful programs, especially since everyone wants to see a great program continue for more than one year!

I would like to see more Oregon foundations offer multi-year grants. This would give non-profits time to develop a solid start for programs and adequate time to develop additional funding before the initial grant runs out.

An area that Meyer Memorial Trust leads in is with Program Related Investments (PRI's). These are no- or low-interest loans, secured or unsecured, with flexible repayment terms, as opposed to (or in conjunction with) grants. PRI's can be powerful tools, especially for housing. I believe that they can also be used effectively in other areas, such as economic development (micro-lending, job creation). PRI's provide better leverage for the foundation; allowing them to keep each investment rolling. I hope that the Trust expands these investments, and encourages others to do them also. Speaking of other foundations, one way that the Trust could dramatically expand its favorable impact on Oregon, and beyond, is: for ideas and programs that are proven to work here in Oregon, link them with other foundations--locally, regionally, and nationally. This could both recruit more capital to Oregon, and export our approaches throughout the country. It would help Oregon become known as an effective "incubator of innovation" for community development, while providing more linkage and leverage to Meyer and Oregon's non-profits.
By the way, thanks for asking.

I agree with Angela, multi year grants are a necessitiy for newer non-profits. Organizations need these seed type of grants to build upon. Too few of them are available. I also appreciate the "friendlier" manner and information availability that MMT is providing as of late. It does increase the feeling of reliance and accessability. What I like in grants are easy instructions, workshops for newbies and very clear expectations of what can be funded. I think the latest "Blog" effort will create an even closer connection between writers and givers.

The communication level is so helpful to non-profits and is much appreciated in an open discussion for others to learn from. Meyer Trust listens and discusses what is helpful to all with funding opportunities and grants. Thank you.

I am appreciative of the open communication, support of capital campaigns and the e-application process, like those above. We also recently had a site visit and follow up communication that was extremely thorough. We believe this involvement helped share our project with the board and pre-answer any questions that might arise. We were pleased to receive a nice award of funds for our community center renovation project. MMT is a key player in many civic improvements in our town, and we hope you will continue to emphasize funding for these causes.

Marie:
My 25-year association with MMT staff and trustees is one of deep appreciation. MMT staff relates with us as "colleagues working together to buld better communities." MMT's timely responses serve as a catalysis for other funding sources to follow. Staff and trustee participation in grant making workshops is admirable.

How MMT can be more effective:
1. Simplify the new on-line inquiry process. Requiring excessive 990 data over several years is burdensome for smaller non-profits. Suggest five years of total income and expenses; complete 990's could be attached to the full application along with charts and graphs.
As a fund development consultant, I, like most consultants, tend to work with small to medium nonprofits. Two current clients have no development or financial staff persons; they operate strickly by volunteers.
2. Adopt the Standardize Application Form, which the State of Washington employs (a growing number are adopting it)
All grant making entities want the same information. If additional information is required,categories can be added. The variety of complex application forms hinder small/medium groups. For example, MMT wants calendar year 990 data; Murdock Trust requires fiscal year data. For good and naught, Enron & Arthur Anderson have impacted community service organizations.
On-line applications require excessive re-typing on a colored background with a very small font which is hard to read.

Naturally, on-line blogs like this one offer unprecedented opportunities to help one another....to MMT's leadership credit.

Gratefully submitted.

We're happy to see our visitors already participating in this discussion. Thank you so much....

Just quick reminder that this is your opportunity to provide input about the BIG PICTURE decisions MMT will be making about its future direction. Please refer to the "big picture" questions in the original post to help indicate the kind of input we are seeking here to help us develop strategies for achieving greater social impact in Oregon and southwest Washington.

Volunteers In Medicine Clinic in Eugene provides no charge health care visits to working poor adults. Our number one diagnosis is diabetes and MMT gave us a grant to put into place a treatment and self management program for our diabetes patients. We have served over 300 patients in this program and have seen our patients regain their health through life style, monitoring and medication changes.
The coaching and encouragement we received from the staff at Meyer Memorial were extremely helpful and put us on the road to what is now a successful program. I believe this is where MMT shines, in developing relationships with grantees and coaching us through the application process.

As a recent recepient of MMT's funding. I know our small rural community is appreciative of MMT's willingness to fund ongoing programs and organizations. The practice of most funders to fund only "new projects" while we struggle to keep alive much needed established sevices is something we all deal with. Smaller communities, like ours, do not always have the business infrastructure and most certainly do not have the fundraising capicity of larger urban areas, from which to fund our programs. I believe this is one of the issues that MMT was concerned about when they started the dialogue about sustainability.

MMT has unique convening power and authority, especially given its current bold focus on "changing the fishing industry", as it were.

To that end, I would suggest that MMT take a macro systems level approach to identifying often inter-related social problems and convening those organizations and institutions that in any way "touch" those issues. MMT should consider facilitating a process by which these organizations and institutions collaboratively develop a long-term solution based on ongoing partnerships (including resources from MMT) starting with the key leverage points and proceeding from there.

The problem with this kind of approch is, of course, that it takes an enormous amount of time and patience to truly impact an entire System, but if any institution in Oregon can do it, it is my opinion that Meyer Trust - with its current leadership - can. (Here's a suggestion for where to start even: health care. John Kitzhaber's Archimedes Movement frames the questions pretty well; what it doesn't and shouldn't do is proscribe the answers. MMT could provide just the leaedership now needed to start that conversation.)

Oregon foundations have contributed to social change by encouraging and supporting non-mainstream organizations and those willing to indulge in systems change work. The Meyer Trust has been a bright light in this regard as you seem to value social change and are willing to take risks with new organizations and ideas. It is also extremely unusual for a foundation to be so open to looking at any kind of project.

So much of social change seems to involve motivating community individuals and groups. I don't think that foundations have done enough to support these kinds of efforts. Grass roots organizing, which is very hard to do, seems to have received minimal support- perhaps because so few are doing the work.

I'd like to see more neighborhood by neighborhood organizing to deal with local issues, then move on to broader change efforts.

I worry that action that seems long term and academically oriented slows community involvement.

Roles that the Meyer Trust plays well:
-funder (obviously)
-respected philanthropic leader
-convener

Roles that Meyer might play better:
-motivator of communities and groups; hands on involvement
-bringing more people with good minds and energy into community activism
-taking some political risks.

Musings on funding in general relating to lasting change:

-I agree with others that multi-year funding is important to allow for testing of new ideas, re-tooling them, and for time to secure further funding.

-I would love to see foundations funding more leadership/management development and infrastructure. Nonprofit leaders often spend so much time hustling for money that there is not adequate time to care and nurture staff. To truly ensure long term programs and organizations, time and energy needs to be spent creating/nurturing quality infrastructure & administrative staffing. Technology plays a big part in this and keeping up with this constantly changing aspect of our world is cost-prohibitive for many nonprofits. Although direct program support is needed if we don't have the proper equipment and support staff we are unable to perform as effectively and efficiently as we would like.

-A standard application form is an excellent idea.

Just my two cents!

I congratulate you on your commitment and willingness to consider adapting your focus and approach.

My key assumptions are that public systems are going to continue to struggle and community issues and problems are still with us if not growing. Communities and our state will depend on the non profit sector more and more and consequently there is a need for grantmakers and non profits to significantly raise their performance and effectiveness.

The non profit sector is also facing a serious workforce shortage due to demographics and the tension between the increasing actual cost of living in our state and the ability of non profits to have adequate capital to increase compensation.
Non profits are also squeezed for sufficient capital to meet their growing infrastructure needs to meet the increased pressures for accountability and demostrated results.

Oregon is also growing older and there is an excellent opportunity to engage their time and talent in more creative ways in the coming years in the non profit sector.

Potential opportunities for Meyer include investing and leading the development of an Oregon Non Profit Association, leveraging capital from out of state as well as in and aggressively sharing successful colloboration models elsewhere between government, private sector and philanthropy.

Finally a couple of people have commented earlier on the opportunity of being a convener. I would strongly support this idea with the key purpose of focusing on leveraging resources.

Again I commend you for the request for feedback.

Foundations in Oregon have contributed to meaningful and lasting social change by providing the startup funds for organizations which then hopefully go on to become self-supporting.

My pet peeves? Too many foundations concentrate their support in the Portland/Multnomah area (MMT has funded us and we are out of the area, but other foundations want to see Portland impact.) And obviously, there are fewer resources outside of Portland…

One major foundation in particular wants to see how a grant will help a program “serve more people�; they are not interesting in helping a non-profit serve their existing population better, and that sets up artificial expectations that we need to keep on growing to be considered for funding (when maybe it could be argued that capacity building activities will allow us to serve more people in the future, if not immediately.)

MMT is great in that your special teacher’s initiative allows for small special projects by schools (most foundations don’t fund schools), I appreciate the role this blog plays in starting the conversation of “what we could be doing better.�

I would hate to see MMT go to more multi-year support if that places too many restrictions on what can be funded “this year�, due to too many commitments into the future. Like other others who have written, our non-profit too would benefit from capital funds, so keeping this alive - maybe in combination with challenge funds - is much appreciated! And support of capacity building…Again, these are my org’s needs, so that’s what my perspective is.

Regarding FSG, I guess I am all for MMT getting good advice, and developing new ideas, and taking action, but I do admit that I get uneasy if I think that an increasing percentage of your funds will be absorbed into large new pro-active initiatives (like the Chalkboard project?) that support causes but not individual non-profits. I mean, and this may sound petty, but my organization’s needs are not necessarily served if yet one more project is created that draws resources away from my potential donors. I know, I know, projects like Chalkboard project are looking at the bigger picture and trying to focus attention on the needs of education in general, when I am just interested in the needs of my own little non-profit…If you can create increased awareness of what existing non-profits are doing and then encourage people to support these, I’m all for it!

As others have noted, thank you for being responsive to the changes in our social-political-economic culture. That spirit helps nonprofit organizations know that Meyer Memorial Trust truly supports them.

Funding for key services frequently needs long-term sustainable support, something that's not usually appropriate for foundations. Bringing MMT's experience and influence to key governmental leaders can guide and encourage that sustaining support.

Serving as a continued advocate and public voice for projects you've funded in the past can also provide ongoing support without additional dollars. Remaining active with those efforts is a way to demonstrate to the larger community the need for long-term, sustainable support.

Again, thank you for being such a rich blessing to our region.

1. Meaningful change: foundation funds are a crucial factor in grassroots agencies taking root and growing. Special population groups often find encouragement and support for their social services in contrast to the general public's hostility/prejudice, such as support groups for gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender youth. MMT can be proud of their past history in funding GLBT youth groups.

2. Could do better: provide feedback on why a proposal is turned down. I frankly don't understand why MMT takes the position of "no comment". If a proposal is good enough to pass the LOI and be reviewed, the submitting agency deserves feedback to help it succeed the next time, or perhaps with another funder. MMT staff know why it was turned down. Is it really such a burden to share that information?

3. What dos MMT do uniquely well? I think MMT does an excellent job of investigating community support and insuring that an agency has the administrative and personnel capacity to successfully manage an MMT grant. I think there could be more hands on follow up on multi-year grants though.

4. Important role in the region? The jury is out on this one. MMT is going through a period of self-reflection that may result in a shift in mission, priorities and funding process. Will this be limited to impact MMT's own giving/leadership or an impact on the region? Wait and see.

5. What to do to improve significant social benefit? There are many serious, important and competing social issues in our region. If MMT wants to have a significant impact, hard choices have to be made. A foundation cannot have an impact without a deep financial commitment to funding new models of social change. For example, will MMT address the critical loss of not only affordable, but low-income housing in our area? This is considered the first line of defense against increasing numbers of homeless families. Or how about the critical need for medical care for the uninsured? A problem that is growing expoentially. Will MMT make domestic violence prevention and rehabilitation services and/or child abuse a priority? How many more women and children will die before our community wakes up and does something more than shrug our collective shoulders about this? Of course there are other social problems of equal concern to other constituents.

To address any of them and bring about social change a lot of hard work lies ahead. MMT could make it possible by funding and convening regional planning groups with all the appropriate players to set their minds to come up with broad based cross collaborative approaches to any of these issues.

I would like to add that I completely agree with the more concrete, specific suggestions made by Gordon Dickey. If MMT did nothing more than lead the way in implementing a uniform application form within the Oregon foundation network that would be a major blessing.

In short, MMT is a major player in the network of social, educational and health services in the metro area. I congratulate you in seeking input. I look forward to hearing what will become of it.

I love your new website and the opportunity to provide input for your strategic planning. MMT has been a leader in funding significant social change programs.

I agree with several earlier post that MMT could convene nonprofits & other funders to impact the current health care crisis facing our communities.

As convener you could facilitate a process that brings all impacted constituents and stakeholders to the table to help develop the solution which i believe is universial healthcare.

Also, the people I work with are the one's with the least power in our community; low-income, former prisoners and people of color. It has been challenging to identify funders who believe these are the people most impacted by public policy decisions and that they should be the ones in leadership development and civic engagement programs that encourage their participation in public policy debates.

It would be great if MMT would dedicate some resources to this population. It's amazing what happens when these people are given the opportunity to advocate for their communities.

Thanks for asking!

As I contemplate the mission, values, and director’s message on your website, I am reminded of the idea that NPOs are either serving or solving. One thing that the MMT has done well over the years is to improve the quality of life in Oregon and SW Washington communities by partnering with NPOs to serve in ways that best meet the unique community needs. As I now read such self-descriptive phrases such as “deliver significant social benefit� and “achieve greater social impact� and “social entrepreneur� on the website, I wonder if this means that MMT now places higher value on solving than on serving. I also wonder if this means that the diversity with which individual communities approach both serving and solving their unique challenges will end up taking second place to a social change agenda with a predominant focus on solving. People are most definitely NOT fish. As one of the largest general purpose foundations serving the entire State of Oregon, please be sure as you “revolutionize the fishing industry� that you continue to honor the diversity of thought and approaches that nonprofits and communities, particularly in the rural/non-urban areas, have to offer.

I think it is crucial that we are willing to face the fact that our governance systems at all levels have not evolved to keep pace with changing demographics and increasingly complex problems. For example, when most of our key environmental laws were passed, you could relatively easily identify the sources of environmental damage – smokestacks, effluent pipes draining into rivers, large developments going right in over wetlands. Now, our greatest environmental problems stem from such complex issues as non-point source pollution from thousands of lawns and parking lots, mercury toxicity from multiple sources often miles and miles away, even global climate change. These are tough, complex issues that you cannot easily slap on one or even a dozen laws and truly solve. Health care has a similar example. When Medicare was enacted, it made sense. Elderly people were at that time the poorest segment of our society and we created an entitlement program to aid them. 60 years later, they are by far and away the wealthiest sector of our population and because of the entitlement program, we have poor families who can’t afford health coverage for themselves paying for the coverage of wealthy seniors. In the next 10 or 15 years as the baby boomers hit senior status, we will be facing entitlement payouts that make the social security funding issue look like peanuts. Meanwhile, our national debt is already at nearly $9 trillion and is funded in large part by China, who just became the world’s second largest importer of oil, right behind the U.S.

I truly believe we are at a point, where we must be willing to face the hard truths, fully acknowledge that there will be no easy answers / silver bullets and everybody is going to hurt a little bit. Those of us who have committed our lives and work in the social and environmental arenas must be willing to look at the big issues, must drop any turfiness and must come together collaboratively – we must be more concerned about making overall progress than protecting pet programs. And that’s not always easy as we are, after all, humans!

With all that said, I think the biggest issues of our time include the end of the oil era, global climate change, accelerating species loss. These are issues that effect every community in the world and that if allowed to proceed without major intervention, will have catastrophic ecological and economic impacts, further destabilizing national infrastructures and leading to an escalation in resource wars.

On the national front and for Oregon specifically, we must learn to create programs and institutions that turn out leaders who are more concerned with wielding power for the greater good than they are with the political game of acquiring and maintaining power by telling constituents pleasantries rather than the hard truths. I am a great believer in the need for state and multi-state efforts on the pressing issues of our time because I do not believe we will see any true leadership at the federal level.

Because of our relatively wieldy size, our natural resource base, and our track record of innovation, Oregon has a unique opportunity to provide models for the rest of the nation in a number of areas:
• fully developing our sustainable energy industry and resources,
• creating a strong, economically profitable approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (for what it’s worth, the entire international community has been interested in the western governors global warming initiative),
• establishing new health care models that invest our public health care dollars in a saner manner than the current system,
• dealing with the Measure 37 mess in a manner that pulls together strange bedfellows and requires all sides to face the real issues -- that we now don’t have enough natural resources to do everything, everyone wants AND that the inflexibility of the existing land use regulations led to the anger and frustration that caused the passage of the bill in the first place

I would encourage Meyer Memorial to look at these issues and conditions in its strategic planning effort. I would also like to add that one of the things I greatly appreciate about MMT is their willingness to fund proactive, sustainable development efforts, rather than just strict conservation, clean up and litigation efforts (which frustratingly is still the focus of most environmentally concerned foundations). Perhaps MMT could find ways to create / empower the forums in which the difficult questions and challenges are indeed brought to the fore, whether or not our political leadership is involved.

I think the column in the Chronicle of Philanthropy by Gara LaMarche (see at: http://www.ocpp.org/blue/2006chronyphilanLaMarchearticle.pdf)
about acting like a talent scout is something you should consider.

I also think foundations in Oregon have done too little to support those non-profits - 501(c)(3)s - who are working to change public policies in a way that will eliminate/reduce some of the problems that the foundations address through their grantmaking. Foundations need to be bold about exercising their rights to fund legitimate and legal advocacy.

Last,foundations in Oregon can play an important role in restoring Oregonians' appreciation of the important role of government in Oregonians' lives.

I appreciate this opportunity to share my opinion, and to learn from reading others thoughts, thank you! I see the work of shifting to a resource-need based economy being accomplished by the efforts of MMT, and so many who want to meet the needs of our world. To all of you, thank you. I also want to echo the thoughts of others in this blog, and encourage MMT to examine the role of being a convener for regional issues and for MMT to encourage collaboration among NPOs and grassroots activists. At this time of scarce resources it seems imperative to share information and streamline our efforts as much as possible. I also would like to express my hope and excitment at the emerging nonprofit programs in academia. I feel very fortunate to be a part of Southern Oregon's American Humanics Nonprofit Certificate program, and hope MMT can continue to support and interface with these programs creating infrastructure, and I hope MMT can benefit also from the students and faculty, especially in the areas of NPO/grassroots research.

Thank you for the invitation to add comment to your planning process. I write from the only private nonprofit that serves children and families in Wahkiakum County, southwest Washington. We are in something of a grants "rain-shadow" here with many Puget Sound area foundations setting boundaries that exclude this area, as MMT also does. I realize you need to set a boundary somewhere, but would ask that you reflect on the lack of funding resources in rural southwest Washington and extend your range of support for nonprofits that otherwise meet your funding mission.

I thought I would check in and let folks know that the Trust staff really does read and appreciate your thoughtful comments! As some of you know, I came to the Trust after 20 years as an art museum executive and 5 years as development director of a drug and alcohol treatment center serving low-income adults and children. Working on the giving side for the past two years has been daunting, eye-opening, and humbling.

One thing I can tell you is that nearly every proposal received by the Trust represents the passion and best efforts of committed groups of people seeking to make life better in their neighborhoods, cities, regions, and states. Another is that we are trying to tame the workload so we can respond promptly and thoroughly to your needs. My fellow program officers and I have the greatest respect for your work and feel the weight of our responsibility to partner with you through the grantmaking process. Regarding feedback on declinations, please call or email me or another program officer if you did not get a satisfactory answer the first time; we want to help.

Themes I'm taking away from this reading include the importance of Meyer's capital and multi-year grants, the importance of strengthening organizational infrastructure, a desire for a standard foundation application form, and for Meyer to become more active in convening NPOs when appropriate to address issues of common concern. Thanks for taking time out of your incredibly busy lives to share your thoughtful comments. I look forward to our continued conversation.

I think it is great that MMT is having this conversation, to provide the opportunity to do strategic planning in an umbrella-fashion, rather than the piece-meal approach. Although our non-profit has been in existence for some time, and very active after strategic planning 3 years ago, we, too, have had some aha! moments as we seek to improve our local communities. Thank you for providing an opportunity to give voice to the need for perhaps a non-profit summit to be able to share those aha! moments with other non-profits so we can move forward together in a more strategic manner, thus creating the greatest benefits for all.

As a non-profit with a mission of improved parks and recreation for increased quality of life, and addressing preventive health issues, we realized that when appropriate entities do not plan and pick up their fair (equitable) share of funding in the local community, then it is foundations such as MMT (and others) that try to fill the gap and meet the needs of the communities, thus creating a very competitive grant-seeking environment. We need to strategically plan and explore better ways of funding these needs. "Out-of-box" thinking may be required; status quo is going to be overwhelmed by the demographic numbers on the impending horizon.

A comment on the blog suggested aiding non-profits in fund-raising for building campaigns. One step further, I would like to see MMT provide aid in purchasing a small building that houses a non-profit. With the commercial market skyrocketing in Portland and elsewhere in OR and southern WA, rents for non-profits are becoming formidable, unaffordable. This is especially true when a building is sold. The new owner may have to increase rents as much as 25 to 50% to recapture the investment and earn a profit.

By owning the building, the non-profit can build its own equity over the years, while not having to endure rent increases that may drive it to insolvency, or force it to move to an area in which its services are not necessary or are a duplication of existing services.

Owning the building and the equity that it brings help in other ways. A non-profit can obtain a credit-line when it has collateral, which can provide a cushion during lean times.

I hope the Trust will consider this as one of the directions it utilizes to meet the needs of the non-profit community.