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Third Quarter 2006
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 Maurrasse Speaks in China
Marga CEO, David Maurrasse is speaking in China this summer. In Beijing, through a partnership between Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Beijing University, Maurrasse will speak on “Private Resources for Public Ends” to an audience of Chinese public officials. As private wealth in China grows, and public administration increases in complexity, how will Chinese society leverage private funds to complement public initiatives.
As Marga’s work with the philanthropic industry promotes strategic and deliberate approaches to grants and donations, a number of questions arise. How can grants and donations mutually serve the needs of grantees and donors? How can these approaches be applied in societies where philanthropy is earlier and emerging stages? Even in a United States context, how can philanthropy be coordinated across donors and philanthropic institutions as well as between philanthropy and government? These questions are in no way fully resolved in the United States. Maurrasse’s lecture will address these questions and other issues around the kinds of links that can be forged between private resources and public initiatives.
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 The Duke Endowment
The Duke Endowment has been supporting Duke University’s Neighborhood Initiatives for over a decade. Whereas many universities create community partnerships periodically, with clear endpoints, Duke University and the Duke Endowment have taken the pains to build long term relationships with local neighborhood organizations, and allow the ideas of communities to determine the content of programs. In December 2005, the Duke Endowment contacted Marga to assess the possibilities of Marga’s involvement in assessing the impact and value of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Initiative.
As a result, Marga, in partnership with the Philadelphia-based firm, CAPD, has been interviewing key representatives in Durham and at Duke University to identify the various ways in which the effort has been affecting the local community as well as the University. Once data collection is completed, a report will be prepared, capturing findings and recommendations that can influence the effort’s future directions.
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 Marga Advises the Earth Institute
Marga Incorporated will serve as a “Strategic Advisor” to Columbia University’s Earth Institute’s new Urban Design Lab. Marga will assist this new effort in forging its strategic direction, bringing research, ideas, facilitation in order to inform how this Ford Foundation-funded effort will become a core component within the Earth Institute. Marga;s outside informed eye will be able to provide the leadership of the Urban Design Lab with critical feedback on its overall strategy and two of its emerging projects.
The Lab seeks to bring a design element to community and economic development in various New York City neighborhoods. For example, it intends to advise the development of a plan to extend green space across the northern end of Manhattan alongside the Hudson River. In an effort of this sort, Marga can conduct helpful research, poll key participants in the effort at the University and in the City, and help conceptualize a rationale, goals, and objectives that can inform future proposals for additional funding.
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The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven
Marga’s advice to philanthropic industries takes many forms, from directly advising grantmaking to assessing the value and impact of grants that have already been made. Community foundations play unique roles in the cities and regions in which they are separated, extending their role far beyond grantmaking. As Marga increasingly works closer to the ground in localities, community foundations are becoming likely partners. The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven has periodically called upon Marga for strategic guidance around the Foundation’s role in building the leadership capacity of and strengthening philanthropy within communities of color in Connecticut.
The latest manifestation of this Communities of Color Initiative is in diversifying leadership in the philanthropic and nonprofit industries in the Connecticut. Marga has assisted the Foundation in planning the development of a new leadership institute that enhances the skills of and opportunities for local, early to mid career people of color interested in careers in nonprofits and foundations. Marga will continually work closely with the Foundation on the implementation of this effort, providing meeting facilitation, career planning advice, coaching, and technical assistance. |
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W. K. Kellogg Foundation
As the Kellogg Foundation ponders the way it approaches higher education in its future funding, it is called up Marga to lead internal strategic conversations with Program Directors. Marga has been interviewing Kellogg Program Directors about how they would like to see their Foundation approach higher education, especially as it relates to African Americans and Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
The results of these conversations will inform the internal strategic conversations that Marga will facilitate. As the conversations progress, Marga will continually provide Program Directors and the Foundation’s leadership with various resources and information that will be required to inform ultimate decisions about how the Foundation will approach this particular dimension of higher education in its future grantmaking.
Kellogg has been one of the leading supporters of higher education. With new leadership and the need to reflect on the impact of previous funding, the Foundation can turned to a neutral, informed party like Marga to guide future thinking and engage key internal stakeholders in a process that can adequately incorporate the ideas of Program Directors, trends in the field, and the overall direction of the Foundation.
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 The Annie E. Casey Foundation's Equity Priority
Over the course of the last four years, Marga Incorporated has been assisting the Annie E. Casey Foundation in shaping its strategy to become as diverse and inclusive as possible. Marga conducted a scan of practices in other Foundations, so that Casey could be informed about how their industry has been ensuring a diverse staff, a welcoming internal climate, an inclusive approach to grantmaking, and other key practices.
Casey’s internal dialogue, open to all staff, called “Respect” has continually provided an open forum where all staff could discuss concerns and raise ideas about how the foundation can address race, culture, ethnicity, inclusion, and other related issues. Marga has been assessing the progress of this work, and evaluating the impact of various efforts to enhance cross-cultural understanding and sensitivity.
As a result of Respect’s years of work, it became clear that the Foundation’s management should develop a process by which diversity, race, and inclusion could be addressed in the foundation’s policies. Subsequently, the “Priority Group on Equity” was formed. Marga advises this newer formation as well. Presently, Marga is assisting the Priority Group on Equity in setting goals and a strategy by which to meet them, particularly with respect to staff and vendor diversity. Marga is researching practices in supplier diversity and employee diversity in order to inform this goal setting.
Marga is communicating with major corporations with a track record in diversity about how they have been setting goals and going about increasing their staff and managerial diversity, and ensuring an inclusive array of suppliers/vendors.
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Client Examples:
The University of Memphis is collaborating with institutions in the city of Memphis to develop a comprehensive partnership that uses entrepreneurial thinking to address the critical social issues facing the city. The University called on Marga Incorporated to provide advice on the most appropriate next steps the institution could take to be of value to the community, the institution itself, and to attract outside resources.
The African American Leadership Forum of Westchester County is a coalition of leaders of all types, which is seeking to enhance the role of major institutions in the county in addressing the challenges confronting the area’s significant and growing African American population. The Forum is seeking to enhance the representation of African Americans on the boards of such institutions as hospitals and universities to improve the chances of these issues becoming a priority decision-making. The Forum called on Marga Incorporated to facilitate a series of meetings between African American leaders, and the leadership of the County’s major institutions and industries in order to develop strategies to improve ongoing partnerships between the institutions and African American communities and ultimately address the health, education, and other challenges being faced in the community. Counties such as Westchester, which hold significant wealth and resources, alongside pockets of poverty are interesting cases to test what can be done when resources are leveraged to appropriately tackle important social concerns. Overall, Marga is helping leaders in the African American community and local institutions arrive at a collective sense of the priorities to be addressed and the strategies required to be effective.
The Abyssinian Development Corporation rests within the rapidly changing environment that is Harlem. This organization, which was created by the well-known Abyssinian Baptist Church, has focused on affordable housing in an environment that is increasingly focused on real estate development that is unaffordable for the majority of Harlem residents. As a major institution in the Harlem community, the Corporation has also been attempting to meet a variety of needs in the community, including a variety of types of human services, as well as education. They called upon Marga Incorporated to help them navigate this changing environment, and craft the most appropriate possible paths to meet the needs of the community and remain focused enough to be effective in all areas of its work. Marga is facilitating an extensive strategic planning process that will ultimately provide the context in which Board and staff members can collectively develop a vision for where the Corporation should go and steps to get there.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation, Marga’s most frequent client, support comprehensive approaches to improving the lives of children and families in particular cities around the United States. Casey’s strategy has been to focus on these particular cities with significant resources, and demonstrate progress. The foundation has been pondering how to most effectively leverage the assets in these various cities to complement and enhance the potential of their grants. Along these lines, Marga and the Foundation have been finding ways to engage the resources in institutions of higher education to be beneficial to communities. For the foundation, Marga wrote a technical assistance guide on higher education’s role in communities (insert title and link). Currently, Marga is researching the institutions of higher education in these various cities, attempting to match the needs of Casey grantees with the programs and initiatives at various universities or colleges. Marga is also helping the foundation bridge relations between the institutions of higher education and grantees that can lead to partnerships. Outside of broadly assessing institutions of higher education, Marga is also giving some particular attention to the role and potential of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s).
The Annie E. Casey Foundation is seeking to become an exemplary institution in understanding and acknowledging and addressing race, culture, and power. Its “Respect” initiative, which is a diverse coalition of staff, and its “Equity” effort, which seeks to ensure that all aspects of the foundation prioritize a focus on race, culture, and power both work with Marga Incorporated. Marga completed an extensive survey of how the foundation community as a whole addresses race, culture, and power. This has helped to inform some of the current directions of Casey. Marga is also beginning to conduct an in depth internal assessment of the foundation’s programs.
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