May 28, 2014
Five community foundations in New Mexico said Thursday they are entering into discussions that might lead to a merger.
Brian Byrnes, director of the Santa Fe Community Foundation, said the goal is to better leverage the foundations’ combined $185 million in assets, build resources and make philanthropic capital available everywhere in the state.
The challenge, he said, is “how do we get more for places that don’t have much?”
The discussions on how best to mobilize charitable capital are set to start immediately and last approximately six months. During that time, the foundations will be looking into the advantages and consequences of moving to a new philanthropic model.
A statement from the foundation leaders said, “Donors, grantees and community members could all benefit tremendously if our organizations came together in a more formal manner that creates efficiencies, enhances community giving and delivers great impact for the people we serve.”
A merger might also may draw even more attention from major national funders interested in New Mexico, they suggested.
Jenny Parks, director of the New Mexico Community Foundation, said the groups will be exploring what is and isn’t possible and listening to concerns of their constituents.
Committed donors tend to have big emotional investments in the programs they fund and might fear the loss of local identity.
In a “Dear Friend” letter dated Thursday, Byrnes addressed these concerns, assuring donors that current operations and grants won’t change.
“I would like to assure donors that your contributions shall continue to be safeguarded and the worthy projects you have invested in shall remain funded,” he wrote. “However, if our foundations work together, we may be able to do more with your contributions and realize your dreams in a much more efficient way.”
He said Thursday that corporate and business leaders have long asked whether there are ways the state’s community foundations could work together, especially given that they have many donors in common.
A number of community foundations in the U.S. — there are about 730 of them — have been looking at new models for being more effective and meeting the goals of their donors.
New Hampshire, for example, has a statewide community foundation with affiliate offices.
Out west, the board of the Peninsula Community Foundation and the Community Foundation Silicon Valley merged in 2006 to become the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The new body has more than $2 billion in assets and is the largest single grant maker to San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits.
Silicon Valley serves both local and global interests of the donors. Locally, it has focused on closing the racial achievement gap, developing mobile applications for immigrants to access legal services and supported successful efforts to put moratoriums on new payday lending establishments. Globally, it has created a Donor Circle for Africa to support nongovernmental organizations there.
Founding CEO Emmett D. Carson wrote in a 2013 article in the Stanford Social Innovation Review that for nearly 100 years, community foundations have “defined themselves as place-based organizations concerned exclusively with improving a specific local geography.” But for many donors these days, he said, community means the people of the whole planet, raising the question of “whether traditional definitions of place and community can or even should remain constant.”
Byrnes said the foundations will be looking closely at models from around the U.S., but he believes “New Mexico will require something different.”
However, New Mexico’s community foundations have almost a moral obligation to consider the ways in which they overlap and how they could be more efficient, Byrnes said, given that they have long been urging the nonprofits they fund to do the same.
A Zen Buddhist priest, Byrnes is stepping down from the Santa Fe Community Foundation in July but will stay on as a consultant for this process. Each of the boards has designated three people to participate in the discussions, along with the CEOs and the directors.
As an example of the power of working together, the foundation leaders cited the recent success of Give Grande New Mexico, a collaboration of many New Mexico nonprofits, which raised more than $853,000 in donations in a single day.
Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or [email protected].