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Boldly Forging a Philanthropic Path

Farhad Ebrahimi & The Chorus Foundation

Farhad Ebrahimi feels com- fortable with the label “next generation” because he feels it recognizes a natural tendency for younger people to be attracted to new approaches. His advice to other potential next generation philanthropists is simple and positive: “It’s easier than it sounds.”

Very few of the activists at the Occupy Boston encampment in late 2011 controlled a foundation which had tens of millions of dollars in grantmaking capacity. Even fewer wore a t-shirt that said: “I am the 1 percent and I fully support the 99 percent.”

“I wasn’t going to be there and not be transparent about who I was,” says Farhad.

The 30-something activist and donor is at home with irony. He takes bold stands—and big risks—as a funder and yet adopts a self-questioning style around the resources which enable his giving. Very public as a champion of social change, he is soft spoken in conversation—very aware of the “power dynamics” that come with privilege.

Farhad’s giving began as a result of his family’s generosity. His dad, Fred Ebrahimi, helped grow Quark into a publishing software leader as a partner with founder Tim Gill (creator of The Gill Foundation and other organizations). Farhad received significant wealth from his parents before he was 21. It was both a responsibility and a burden.

“I feel very strongly that I was given more financial resources than I would spend on myself and, frankly, more than I could spend on myself without being abjectly wasteful,” he says.

His eventual response was to create a foundation that focuses on building relationships. “One of the things that makes the funding community dysfunctional, to be blunt, is a lack of real engagement and a lack of authentic listening to people doing the work,” he says. “It’s not enough just to support them financially, but we want consider ourselves part of the movement as well.” He not only works as an activist on issues he believes in, he frequently goes on site visits with grantees. “To do anything effectively,” he says, “it really helps to know the folks you’re going to be working with.”

Here are some key points in his journey so far:

Mission Evolution

In 2012, after an 18-month strategic review, the Chorus Foundation decided to adopt a new mission: “to end the extraction, export and use of fossil fuels in the United States.” Based “on the belief that an economy and society founded on fossil fuels is unsustainable,” the foundation’s radical approach is strategic as well as principled. “Sometimes you get a good compromise by being the person at the table who says we shouldn’t do this at all.” Farhad is the first to admit that the mission won’t be achieved overnight and that he would be happy with a “just transition” away from fossil fuels. “But there’s also a part of me that wants to have that alternate ask delivered on—stop mining it, stop shipping it, stop burning it. It’s deliberately big and radical in its branding and I think that’s also something that worked well for Occupy.”

The Marriage of Story & Strategy

Farhad’s social change work is built on narrative—in his words, “a crisp analysis that’s morally grounded.” That’s why the new mission statement doesn’t hedge when it refers to fossil fuels. Farhad believes that story-telling is equally important when it comes to the actual work of social change. He believes in sharing the stories of those people whose lives are impacted by mining or “fracking.” “We think it’s ultimately very important that the front line community get connected— that their story gets heard by the rest of us—to crystalize that this isn’t just an issue about climate, it’s about climate and health and inequality and democracy.”

Family Involvement

Farhad believes his parents “raised him with the right values.” Discussion and debate were welcomed at home. “There was really no subject we didn’t talk about.” Farhad says family members “enjoy challenging each other with healthy doses of skepticism,” but that his parents are fundamentally supportive of both his giving and his activism. His sister is a trustee of the Chorus Foundation.

Farhad encourages potential funders to be confident in blazing their own path and to feel comfortable building things—whether they are organizations or relationships. “It’s actually okay,” he says. “It’s pretty safe… Get out there and take some risks and learn from them … Give it a shot.”

Redefining next generation philanthropy

Jaimie Mayer Phinney

At the age of 29, she’s a next generation anomaly—a young philanthropist with more than a decade of experience.

Jaimie Mayer Phinney is a trustee and committee chair on the Nathan Cummings Foundation board. She also advises other next gen philanthropists in her job as program director with the peer giving fund Slingshot. As a teenager, she helped found and run an independent spend-down philanthropic fund, the Buddy Fund. When asked to speak at conferences on the subject of next gen philanthropy, Ms. Phinney says she wants to move beyond the concept.

“I’d like to be remembered for getting rid of the term ‘next gen,’” she says, “and really creating an ethos at family foundations of the importance of multi-generational philanthropy, the importance of different generational personalities sitting side by side at the board table and how much stronger and richer the family, the foundation and the work being done in the world will be.”

Her emphasis on multi-generational philanthropy is so strong that when asked recently to tell her own story in philanthropy, she began by quoting the morals taught by her ancestors.

“I was raised with the idea that ‘with privilege comes responsibility’ [her grandma’s favorite saying] and ‘nothing will ever be accomplished if all objections must first be overcome’ [the credo of Nathan Cummings, her great-grandfather and founder of the Sara Lee Corporation].”

Family heritage provided more than roots for Ms. Phinney, though. It gave her philanthropic wings.

She was in college when the trustees of the Nathan Cummings Foundation offered the proceeds from the sale of a property (about $1.5 million) to all the fourth generation members of the family to distribute as they wished. With the help of philanthropic advisors, the “cousins” agreed on the issue areas they would address—arts, women and gender issues and social justice. They also found unity within the framework of the Buddy Fund, which would take risks and give in areas that the big family foundation did not.

The Fund offered her generation a “proving ground,” a place for experimentation and learning and the chance to build a sense of unity for the next generation of the family. But she paints no pictures of perfection at her family foundation. In fact, she takes pride that the foundation “celebrates failure,” learning from mistakes and doubling-down where necessary in spite of limited progress. “For most foundations it’s about being polished and looking good 24/7,” she says. “You learn so much more by really staying the course and putting all of your eggs behind one strategy that nobody else is doing.” She points to the foundation’s early and longterm support of the Affordable Care Act as one example of such committed giving.

Ms. Phinney challenges next gen philanthropists to be clear about the results they seek: “What is the change you actually want to see in the world? And then…given the capital you have—financial, relationship and intellectual—how to leverage all of those to try and achieve that goal?” She recommends developing a theory of change and vision statement. “You know, I started as an actor so everything in my life goes back to that,” she says. “What does your character want? What’s your objective? And what are your tactics and strategies to get there?”

Ms. Phinney acknowledges that family dynamics can create obstacles to next generation givers—“in the philanthropic world so much is heated, so much is about who can scream, who can talk loudest.” Yet, she says that philanthropy’s potential can outshine its problems. The key is to be clear about your direction, she says, and light on your feet. “Agility … that’s so important in next gen work … To never lose sight of the goal you have, but to [be able to] shift your thinking and bring others on board to leverage what you’re doing.”

The art of listening

Katherine Lorenz

“I would go in with something to teach and come out realizing I had more to learn.”

For six years starting in 2003, Katherine Lorenz ran Puente a la Salud Communitaria, a nonprofit she co-founded in Oaxaca, Mexico. Puente seeks to improve rural nutrition by reintroducing the cultivation and consumption of the ancient grain amaranth. But while Ms. Lorenz worked to improve the diets of the people of Oaxaca, she was also learning a deep personal lesson— the best strategy for success begins with listening.

Now, in her mid 30s, Ms. Lorenz is president of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation. Her grandfather, George P. Mitchell, was a billionaire credited both with pioneering the extraction of shale gas (fracking) and launching a philanthropic effort in Texas to enhance energy sustainability through better regulation.

Straddling both sides of the shale gas controversy gives Ms. Lorenz ample opportunity to use her listen-first strategy. That diplomatic approach also comes in handy as she leads a family foundation where there are 10 children and 23 grandchildren and everyone over the age of 25 is invited to participate. Ms. Lorenz says she spent her first year as president (she started in 2011) just listening to family members and doing research. She had three main goals: 1) maximize the foundation’s impact in the world, 2) be the authentic legacy of her grandparents, and 3) “have the most positive impact internally with the family.”

All three goals depended on her ability to build engagement—and enjoyment—among family members, especially those of different generations. “How do we do this together and have fun?” she says of her challenge. “Family philanthropy can be an amazing experience but it can also be a place where family drama and discord plays out over the board room table … Part of [our preparation] was … making sure that everyone is involved in the decision-making, that there’s a place for everyone to voice their opinion and passions.”

Engagement also brought flexibility. Ms. Lorenz says the family has reached initial agreement on a proposal that would see the devolution of funding decisions. In the future, two-thirds of grants “would be focused on the issues my grandparents cared most about and one third on what each family member cares about … One of the key things for my grandmother, who’s no longer alive, was the family element, having this be something that brought the family together. So my hope is that the discretionary funding is also a part of that legacy.”

In 2012, Ms. Lorenz embarked on another project with massive potential, connecting with five or six of the most powerful next generation philanthropists on the planet. All of them were members of the Giving Pledge initiated by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet. (Ms. Lorenz’s grandfather was also a member.) Her mission: to see what they thought about creating a high-level network for next gen philanthropists. Working with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she says she would like to see the project become a learning network, with peer support and educational resources to enhance impact. “But,” she adds, “as with my family, I think it’s important that any group have buy-in and so I think the first step is getting the key people who are interested … to start talking about what it is that we want and how we can shape it.”

Balancing act

Kimberly Leilani Myers Hewlett

For Kimberly Myers Hewlett, philanthropy is all about balance. She honors family legacies (on the boards of two family foundations) yet manages to exercise considerable independence to support causes that she personally cares about (e.g. ocean conservation). Ms. Myers Hewlett has had to do a fair amount of learning, adapting and just plain juggling to find and maintain her philanthropic approach. And though she speaks softly, she is ambitious.

The Stanford graduate undertook a two-year MBA program at Indiana University while caring for two children under five years old. That’s in addition to her board work and her role as a steering committee member for the Black Women Donor’s Action Group, housed at the Women’s Funding Network.

“At first I thought I could manage it all with just a calendar,” she says. “A block of time for studying, for reviewing board documents … and then I realized that little kids don’t stay in boxes … And so it’s been a balancing act. Sometimes sleep is sacrificed … But I have these two kids that I really love and I want my life to involve all these things, so I make time for them all.”

Ms. Myers Hewlett remembers her two physician parents “always giving, always helping people” as she grew up. So her own desire to “do good” developed naturally and early. When she married Billy Hewlett, grandson of one of the founders of tech giant Hewlett-Packard, she found herself in line to join the Flora Family Foundation. This foundation was created so William and Flora Hewlett’s children and grandchildren—and their spouses—could participate in grantmaking.

She attended her first foundation event in the spring of 2004, got married that July and joined the Flora board by autumn of that same year. She was 26 years old. The very next year she worked with her parents and her brother to lay the groundwork for the Myers Family Foundation.

With both family foundations, she feels she has “enormous flexibility” on the types of organizations she can support. About the Myers Family Foundation, where she holds the board office of Treasurer, she says: “I really got to help shape what it looks like. So I don’t feel like there are established rules that I have to follow.”

That flexibility proved important when her parents divorced in 2011 and her father remarried. Facing the prospect that the family foundation might break apart, she and her brother took leadership roles. “You have to deal with reality. My mom was very gracious in saying that she wanted the family foundation to keep going … so she actually stepped down.” The way forward then centered on getting everyone else together with a white board and “making space so everyone could talk.” The family has agreed on broad goals: “keep doing good and give everyone in the family an equal vote.”

For next generation givers, serving on a board can be “a great opportunity to discover where you really fit in your family philanthropy and an alternative way to be a leader in your community,” she says. But she emphasizes that new givers should make sure “they know where to go to get help” in terms of mentorship on how boards function and how to advise on grants. She’s adamant that potential next gen board members should not proceed unless they feel “confident in the idea that your voice is actually going to be heard and paid attention to on the board.”