Hello Everyone!

Well, as you can see, the trip became so intense and engaging that we all found it quite difficult to write on the blog to update all of you! 

Most everyone is now back in the US, following many days of emotional, informational, and challenging meetings with organizations and leaders in Liberia and Ghana.  There is far too much to cover in one blog post, so I will encourage others to write with their impressions as well. 

One of the overriding themes of the trip was to explore the linkage between funding women and development.  We met with many different advocacy and service organizations, in both countries, that seek to empower women to run their own lives and advance their political access.  Without exception, these women’s groups represent a bold future for W. Africa.  In fact, our own members came away from the trip with new songs and chants about women.  In restaurants and airports, you knew that TPW West was coming because you usually heard the call for “women helping women” before we arrived in the room.

BUT, one of the most interesting outcomes from the trip, was that many of the travelers started asking, “what about the men?”  We learned that men were as victimized by the Liberian conflict as the women – yet, we could not identify any solutions or programs for them.  And, it was from the most unlikely character, a former warlord named “General Butt Naked” that we heard of how men could easily bring down all of the advances made by the Liberian government if someone doesn’t step in for them now.  The “General” (as we called him) is now a pastor and seems to be working (some were skeptical) on the rehabilitation of former child soldiers.  He explained that the country struggles with violent and paternalistic traditions that encourage boys to fight starting in their early teens and throughout the rest of their lives.  He stressed that significant “enlightenment” is necessary to pull these boys (now men) out of their violent lives.  His strategy is to encourage faith, but other solutions may work as well.  Unfortunately, as we learned from two women leaders in Liberia and Ghana, the women’s movement does not seem to have much interest or plans for intervening in pro-male solutions.

This outcome from the trip was profound for many of the travelers.  Several are now trying to identify funding strategies to encourage skills development and other alternatives to conflict for young men.  Unfortunately, we learned that the developing conflict in the Ivory Coast is now a powerful incentive for young boys to continue a violent life.  The former combatants have disappeared from the streets of Monrovia, and some suspect that they have headed to the Ivory Coast to fight.  Recruiters from the Ivory Coast have been combing the streets of Monrovia offering $500 dollars to anyone who will fight and ex-combatants from Liberia are eager to join for the money and the opportunity to pick up where the conflict in Liberia left off.

We learned that you can only scratch the surface when it comes to development issues.  And, in some cases, the expectations you have for a visit to two countries like Ghana and Liberia can fall to a new set of realities that you had not considered. 

We concluded the trip asking, “what about the men” – and, I don’t think that anyone has any answers…

Hello again!

We just completed a full day of meetings with three outstanding Liberian organizations.  One of the standout features of this trip is the unique nature of Liberia for philanthropy.  As I have mentioned in the past, a country so low on the human development index would not have hit the radar screen for TPWW.  But, with the access we receive to the top NGOs and political officials in the country through the Philanthropy Secretariat, we are able to identify the most leveraged opportunities to move philanthropy in the country. 

Today, we visited the West Point Women for Health and Development inside Africa’s largest slum.  We drove to the community center of the West Point women through active markets and bustling streets.  Upon arrival, the women greeted us with song and dance and a presentation about the many security, sanitation, and empowerment programs provided through their organization.  Unlike other membership organizations we have visited in the past, the WPW require their members to pay an annual fee!  In a community where most survive on less than a dollar a day, the fact that this organization is so important to their members and the community that they would find additional income to pay for access says so much about the power of this group. 

We met earlier in the day with WANEP, the women who forced the warlords of W. Africa  (like Charles Taylor, the United Revolutionary Front, and the notorious LURD) to encamp in Accra in 2003 until a peace accord was signed.  These same women really amazed the group today with their power and determination to move Liberian women into full equality with men.  While speaking in front of the Minister of Gender today, they described, passionately, how they hold violent men to account for abusing women, lead teams of people to fight and prevent fires, and provide investigative services when women are murdered without action from the police.  They are also carrying the weight of the upcoming Liberian election on their shoulders, working around the clock to register as many people as possible before the end of the registration period in early February.  The early registration numbers are quite disappointing and the women are concerned that low turnout could delegitimize the election.

Many of us commented on the passion and determination of these women – and recognize that the model of funding women to advance development is best illustrated in Liberia.

At the start of the day, we met with a group of young people who have passed high hurdles to participate in the President’s Young Professionals program.  Upon graduation from college, they were selected to join a number of Liberian ministries to work directly with the Ministers responsible for all sectors of government.  Many of the travelers said that the stories of these people and their drive to make Liberia more effective were inspiring. 

All of this said, there are still lingering questions about Liberia.  Are the exciting and inspirational models we have seen connecting with the masses?  Do the people on the street, and there are many, benefit from the meetings, conferences, and plans generated by the Ministers, young professionals, and NGOs on our agenda?  Why aren’t we hearing more about the unspeakable violence in this country?  What about corruption?  How does it affect development here?  And, there is tremendous risk, with an expectation of high reward, but some are simply uncomfortable with the prospects for the future.

More to come – you will hear from our travelers as well!

Take care, Glen

Akwaaba Everyone!

We are on the run in Africa, so I don’t have much time to provide an update at the moment!  I will write again  - before lunchtime in the US.  The trip is going very well. Cohort 9 has had numerous meetings with women leaders, organizations focused on maternal mortality like Engender Health and the African Women’s Development Fund, and villagers working with CARE to create a sustainable cocoa community. 

Two nights ago, ten Network (alumni) members joined the group!  In addition to Cohort 9, our travelers include Christine Hemrick (C1), Elliott Donnelley (C6), Lisa Kleissner (C3) Teri Luchsinger (C3), Darian Swig (C5), Henry and Colleen Simonds (C5), Jan Birenbaum (C6), Tom Perkins (C4), and Francis Lee (C7). 

While you were sleeping, the group jumped on a plane and arrived in Monrovia, Liberia.  We moved quickly from the plane to City Hall to meet with the Minister of Planning and the head of the National Elections Committee with the goal of gaining an overview of the context of philanthropy in Liberia.  The country has already improved since our last group was here in February 2010, but much needs to be done.

We will meet today with the upcoming leaders of Liberia and then head over to the largest slum in Africa – West Point. 

I will write around the start of your day tomorrow.  Please send along any questions or comments.  It has been an inspiring trip so far, and there is so much more to do!

Take care, Glen

I am pleased to say that Cohort 9 completed a full day in Ghana last night with a frank and honest discussion with US Ambassador Donal Teitelbaum and Mission Director for USAID Cheryl Anderson.  The ambassador challenged the group to think outside of the box when doing philanthropy in Ghana.  While praising our program for covering all of the traditional avenues for support - he said that US philanthropists could do more to engage opportunities to leverage the US presence on the ground.  He said that, if he had the finances to set up a foundation, he would partner with the Peace Corps and encourage the volunteers to submit proposals for small grants for projects in the villages where they work. 

"For $1K, a peace corps volunteer to get a remote community to build a separate girls latrine, so adolecents would have a separate private, location away from the males.  We know that adolescent girls are most likely to stay in school when they have separate quarters and privacy.  Impact is guaranteed."

He went on to say that the Peace Corps volunteer would do the monitoring, scouting, due diligence, and follow up, so that you don't have to.  You save costs and could run a global program by yourself, utilizing the Peace Corps as a platform.  While he hasn't checked with the Peace Corps to see if this is possible on their end, he has always dreamed that a smart philanthropist would come along and make this happen!

WELCOME to GHANA!  

During our first day, we were exposed to several leaders - like the ambassador - that challenged the group to define our mission and seek innovation.  

Like your international trip, Cohort 9 started the day with an overview of the civil, political, and economic context in Ghana.  Rose Mensah, like the ambassador, stressed that Ghana is by far the most impressive and stable democracy in Africa.  No country comes close.  As a result, Ghana has a very rich civil society.  But, where the ambassador and the advocates we met on this day disagree is the extent to which advocates are having any real effect on the vote.  Because political space is open and free, advocacy is active and vibrant - however, this the cohort members had a difficult time understanding what the local advocates do.  

Toward the end of the day, we met with the leaders of three key advocacy coalitions in land management, oil and gas, and mining.  Each one spoke at length about the research, community organizing, campaigns, government engagement, and capacity building represented by all of their members.  But, each one struggled to identify specific outcomes for which they could take credit.  CARE Ghana has invested significant resources to coordinate the work of these advocates across sectors, which seems like a highly leveraged approach to policy reform, however they, too, struggled to define the agenda of the broader coalition. 

When asked about advocacy in Ghana, Ambassador Teiltelbaum said that he couldn't identify a significant campaign or movement that had any impact in the past few years.  But, he emphasized that Ghanian advocacy groups are only in the beginning stages of their work, and he expects that in the coming years, as these groups learn to connect their research and organizing to voting blocks, the elected officials will start to take notices.  He encouraged us to pay close attention to the work being done in the oil and gas sector, as these groups seem to have some leverage and credibility with the electorate.

Cohort 9 also had the opportunity to spend time with the staff and students at Ashesi University.  Ashesi is a Ghanian created liberal arts university focused on developing ethical and advanced leaders.  The theory of change for Ashesi is that only leadership can transform the corrupt corporate and political culture of Africa.  In addition to the a talk with the always impressive Patrick Awuah (founder of Ashesi), the group spent an hour with roughly 50 students in a seminar on leadership.  It turned out that the dynamic teacher, chose to use the visit of ten philanthropists to teach his class about selflessness and giving.  It was quite hard to leave the class when we were finished!

Today we begin our focus on the role of funding women as a target constituency and a strategy in Africa.  We are spending the day with one of the legendary intermediary organizations, African Women's Development Fund.  AWDF has supported all of the well-known women leaders from the region and built an infrastructure of services and advocates to advance gender issues across W. Africa.  We will visit with three of their grantees and end the day with the leader of the women's peace movement from Ghana.

We will report back tomorrow!  Please comment and send questions - I or others in the group wlll be happy to respond.  We are awaiting the arrival of nine members of the TPWW Network as well - Elliott Donnelley, Darian Swig, Lisa Kleissner, Henry Simonds, Francis Lee, Terri Luchsinger, Christine Hemrick, Tom Perkins, and Jan Birenbaum.  Feel free to email them and say hello - they start arriving today!

Akwaaba, Glen

Hello Everyone!

I am delighted to report that the TPW West team is on the ground in Ghana and preparing for the arrival of Cohort 9 and nine TPWW Network members.  Most everyone is arriving over the next three days, however the C9 program begins on Monday.

Leah and I have been touring Liberia and Ghana for the past six days meeting with speakers and others responsible for providing the highest quality experience possible.  You will hear more from the participants directly over the next few days - but, I am sure they will all agree that the people we meet in Ghana and Liberia are, to a person, heroic!

 The challenges are immense in these countries, more so in Liberia, but the women's movement, international NGO community, government officials, and many dynamic social entrepreneurs are determined to raise the standard of living across the region.  

I encourage all the entire TPW West Network to stay tuned and actively participate with your travelers!  Ask questions online and we will get answers for you!  

Have a great week everyone, Glen

Plans and Benchmarks for Haiti

The Interim Haiti Recovery Commission was set up after the Jan. 12 earthquake as a joint Haitian-international effort to effectively channel billions of dollars of donated reconstruction aid.

Like everything else about the recovery effort, the commission, led by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive and former President Bill Clinton, has been too slow off the mark. But we were encouraged by its second meeting in Port-au-Prince this month, where it announced dozens of new projects with clear benchmarks and the commitment of more than $1 billion to complete them.

The commission finally has its executive director, a Haitian, Gabriel Verret, a former economic adviser to President René Préval. About 30 crucial staff positions are still unfilled, a troubling sign. Without a full, permanent staff, the commission will surely have a harder time showing results and pressing donors to meet pledges.

The goals outlined at the meeting include clearing a million cubic meters of rubble in Port-au-Prince and building enough short-term hurricane shelters for 400,000 to 500,000 people — both by November. The longer-term plans include a two-year, $4.3 billion reinvention of Haiti’s public school system, a $200 million program for agricultural development, and a $15 million, 320-bed teaching hospital in Mirebalais, in central Haiti.

The hospital is a project of Partners in Health, an exemplary nongovernmental organization whose founder, Paul Farmer, has spoken forcefully about the need to break bad old habits of international aid, which in half a century has never reached the goal of creating a functioning country run by Haitians for Haitians. At a Capitol Hill hearing in July, he noted that only 3 percent of earthquake aid had gone to the Haitian government.

The low figure is understandable, since the government was weak to begin with and devastated by the quake. Dr. Farmer’s larger point is valid. Rebuilding Haiti requires building a functioning, responsive Haitian state. A hospital that teaches a new generation of Haitian doctors and nurses, meeting an aching need for medical care while spurring the home-grown economy, is a fine example of how to do that.

Commission members and supporters insist that by the standards of international bureaucracies, they are moving quickly and efficiently. Perhaps. But Haiti’s urgent and unmet needs are staggering.

The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies recently announced that it was distributing new plastic tarps to 80,000 families. They are replacing old tarps that have frayed in the last seven months while people have waited, fruitlessly, for homes. 

The Best Way to Really Give Away Money

Private foundations tend to sit on their pots of gold. They should be spending them down more.

By JAMES PANERO

When 40 of America's richest individuals signed the "giving pledge," a challenge set by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to donate half of one's wealth to charity, at least one philanthropist was not impressed. "My opinion is: So what?" says Lewis B. Cullman.

With a record of giving that extends in the hundreds of millions and throughout New York's cultural institutions, Mr. Cullman, who is 91, is alarmed by how the money donated to charity by the very wealthy usually ends up. Locked, he tells me, in private grant-making foundations that may only release a trickle of the billions of dollars squirreled away inside.

Mr. Cullman's argument gets to the heart of the different ways Americans donate to charity. Most of us write donation checks directly to needy causes. Those with greater means set up private grant-making foundations, which hold nearly tax-free assets in endowments—and often give away as little as the government allows.

Under current tax law, private foundations are only required to spend 5% of their endowment per year. Twenty percent of that may go to operating expenses. Since endowment investments historically earn more than what they must give out, foundations may never need to dip into their principal assets, yet are able to feed their own administrative bloat in perpetuity.

Mr. Cullman believes their recent track record proves that private foundations exist primarily for their own self-perpetuation. In the last year, during the economic downturn, many foundations cut their rate of giving because of losses in their endowments. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 foundations, the Foundation Center estimates an 8.4% drop in giving for 2009, in inflation-adjusted terms, the steepest yearly decline since the center began its tracking in 1975.

For Mr. Cullman, this decline in giving in a time of acute need means that foundation administrators are more concerned about the size of their nest-eggs than about their philanthropic mission. He says that foundations should have "released the pot of gold" and increased their donations, even if that means cutting considerably into their endowments.

To force them to action, Mr. Cullman believes, the mandated annual payout rate should be increased from 5%; or foundations should be required to enact "sunset clauses," for spending down their assets in an established time frame. His position, spelled out in his book, "Can't Take It With You," has not made him popular in the world of foundation management. When he mentioned the premise to Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation, he "almost dropped his glass," Mr. Cullman recalls. "'My God,' he laughed. 'You'll put me out of business.'"

In certain cases, going out of business might make sense. "Many foundations start out with the best of intentions," says Rick Cohen, national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly magazine, but "over time they tend to stagnate." Even foundations with built-in sunsets (the Gates Foundation has a 50-year spend-down) are not necessarily protected from administrative top-heaviness.

In the 1920s, Julius Rosenwald, the chairman of Sears, Roebuck & Co., first raised the alarm about foundation bureaucracy. While nothing in the law prevents private foundations from spending themselves out of existence, few big ones do. The Aaron Diamond Foundation was one example in the 1980s, giving away $50 million to AIDS research. The influential conservative John M. Olin Foundation recently completed its own spend down, put in place to prevent ideological drift.

Despite these exceptions, little ever changes in the broad landscape of foundation policy, and the cure may be as bad as the disease. "These are private organizations that ought to have control of the money," warns Leslie Lenkowsky, professor at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Sunset clauses, if government mandated, may have "unintended consequences," he says, and can not guarantee the money is used most effectively.

Even with diminishing resources of their own, many foundations are already working tirelessly to help their beneficiaries confront the economic downturn. Most experts agree that bad economic times call for increased giving by philanthropic organizations. "We ought to make the payout rule more flexible," says Mr. Lenkowsky. "In down times it should go up. In good times it should go down. It should be a counter-cyclical rule." Adds Rick Cohen: "They have endowments that are rainy-day funds. This is the time to tap them."

According to Fortune magazine, if every member of the Forbes 400 list followed the Gates "giving pledge," the total would be $600 billion--equal to the assets currently in private grant-making foundations. Should these perpetual monuments to yesterday's donors make their own giving pledge and spend down their endowments?

Just ask Lewis Cullman: "When you set up a family foundation and turn it over to bureaucrats, it is not human nature to vote yourself out of existence. It's time to end that, for the good of us all."

Mr. Panero is the managing editor of The New Criterion.