Will We Regret it in the Morning? Investing in People Feels So Good Now.
Investing in people feels very good. Carrie Avery of the Durfee Foundation, the moderator of the session “Supporting Individuals as Innovators and Change Agents,” described these types of programs as the “R & D” of the nonprofit sector. How do foundations invest in people?
Foundations support specific leaders or experts, hopefully to get some product. In the early years of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), it gave grants to “great men” without research proposals. These grants were unrestricted hunting licenses to work on issues that were of interest to the researchers. It turns out these researchers were highly productive.
Also, foundations give grants to people to improve the nonprofit sector. Two speakers described foundation efforts to provide them with leadership development activities and mentoring. Other foundations, including Durfee, provide sabbaticals for nonprofit leaders to find time to refresh and re-energize.
Many foundations provide training to encourage scholars to switch fields to those of interest to the foundation. At RWJF many of our human capital programs attract scholars to new fields and give them skills to compete in new areas. The Clinical Scholars program attracts physicians to health services research; the Scholars in Health Policy Research program attracts political scientists, economists, and sociologists to health topics; and the Health and Society Scholars program attracts researchers to population health issues.
Finally, some foundations give awards to recognize very successful people. The MacArthur Fellows program is for “exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work.” The RWJF Community Health Leaders program recognizes leaders who work in their neighborhoods and communities to address difficult health problems.
I must confess: I have benefited from RWJF’s investment in people. I was a fellow in the Health Care Finance program in the 1980s. The fellows program that gave me great value and changed my career was judged a failure by RWJF. That doesn’t bother me. Indeed, I’m proud that RWJF was willing to make that judgment. All funders should ask similar tough questions about the value of investments in people, because we want to use our precious philanthropic dollars in the most effective ways.
Do those investments in people have a positive impact, different from what would have happened without the investment? What is the value added from these programs? Are the careers of people changed? Have foundations developed new leaders? Is the nonprofit functioning better because of philanthropic investments in people? Have we influenced the development of new fields? These investments feel good, but we must ask if each one of them is worth it.
David Colby is vice president of research and evaluation for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
