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Funder Focus: Tim Brodhead and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation
January 7, 2002
by Nicole Zummach
CharityVillage is pleased to present the first in a series of interviews with some of Canada's leading funders. This month we feature the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation, which was established in Montreal in 1937, and is the country's largest family foundation. CharityVillage spoke with executive director Tim Brodhead about some of the foundation's current programs, and the challenges ahead.
CharityVillage: Could you explain the applied dissemination initiatives the foundation is working on.
Tim Brodhead: There is an assumption that good ideas and good projects somehow will prove their worth and spread. In practice that doesn't actually happen very often. Ideas don't just magically move from one place to another and even things that work well in one place may not work at all elsewhere. On the other hand, the payoff can be considerable. Why reinvent the wheel if you have some approaches that have proven their worth? It makes sense to test them out and see whether there are ways that they can be adapted. We felt this was a good idea in principle, but it requires a considerable degree of thought and planning and considerable resources.
You can talk about an idea, an approach or concept very quickly. The real challenge is in how you adapt it, because no two places are exactly the same. You have to understand it well enough to know the core elements that you can't change without fundamentally altering the nature of the activity or project, and the peripheral ones, which you can adapt depending on the specifics of the group you are working with or the nature of the community you are going into. We have been doing this now for five or six years and we certainly haven't got the solution, but we have worked with a lot of different groups, helping them to spread an idea from one location to many.
CV: Have you been pleased with the outcomes so far?
TB: It's varied, to be honest. Some have been very effective; with others it's too early to tell. A couple of the projects are described on our web site, for example the Planned Lifetime Advocacy Network (PLAN), a project that really aims to address the needs of the families of people with disabilities, particularly the concern of parents, who wonder, "what happens after we die, who is going to replace us as caregivers?"
PLAN, which started off as an organization in Vancouver, came forward with a way of doing this that really met a lot of different needs. As people began to hear about it, they said, "couldn't you help us, we'd like to do something like that in Calgary or Montreal?" The folks at PLAN never envisaged their program to be coast to coast so they didn't have the capacity to respond to these requests. It seemed to us that this was such an interesting idea, working very well in Vancouver, that it would be well worth trying to help export that idea to other parts of the country. Every local PLAN may be a little different from the original one but the basic idea is still there. So I would say that probably is a success.
CV: What do you think the impact of applied dissemination could be on the sector as a whole?
TB: The nature of the impact is the recognition that going beyond individual projects requires more than just a notion of replicating. There is a kind of overly simplistic assumption that the way to spread an idea is to do it in one place and then five places and fifty places. What we are finding is that you have to look at it a bit differently. You have to look at it in terms of what the specifics are which give rise to an idea. Then you begin to develop and implement it. You look for ways to increase the impact because, when we talk about dissemination, it's partly spreading it but it's also scaling up the impact. That requires thinking not just in terms of one particular project but more in terms of the nature of the system you're trying to influence.
In our case, we're saying we can't fund things on a huge scale so we want to try to find ways to increase the impact to the greatest extent possible. That means looking at the system in which these programs are imbedded. It's a different type of granting in a sense and it's a challenge for the sector because so many not-for-profits tend to look at their piece of the picture because they have limited resources and they focus in on one thing. They can become very good at a particular piece of work but not so good at seeing how that relates to the whole.
CV: There seems to be some similarity between this type of project and venture philanthropy in terms of scalability and replication. I was wondering if you could make the distinction.
TB: The distinction for me would be that the people who have taken up venture philanthropy with enthusiasm often are people who are very successful in business and basically think, "I used certain tools or techniques in business and they worked, now I want to apply them in the not-for-profit sector and see if they work as well." I think the jury is out on whether they do work as well. Some aspects do, for example the notion that you have to take risks, that you have to accept that not everything you support is going to be successful, that you have to take a longer view. You can't just say, "well I'll support this for a year and I expect to see results immediately." I think all of those are very positive. The thing that is less positive or at least needs to be tested is the very hands-on approach that venture capitalists take. They don't just give money to a company, they get right on to the board and steer it. It's not so clear that in a voluntary organization that necessarily is appropriate.
CV: Do you see venture philanthropy then, as being more of a flash in the pan?
TB: No, I think there are some parts of it that are going to stay. The notion that you take some risk, that it's not just the project organizers who take risk, you do too as a funder; that might be a more permanent legacy. Secondly, the idea that you can't just invest money and expect to see instant results. Typically a venture capitalist will invest in a dozen different ventures and only expect one or two of them to be really successful and that's okay.
CV: Speaking of influences on the sector, the McGill-McConnell Master of Management program is coming to an end. How has that played out?
TB: There has never been a program like this in Canada, which really focussed on the needs of people in the voluntary sector. It's the kind of thing that businesses have provided to their best executives for a long time, but there is such a culture of scarcity in the voluntary sector that nobody invests in the people, and that is what this program did. The focus wasn't on management, everyone says, "well the need is better management." I don't think necessarily that is the need. Given the resources they have, voluntary organizations do an extraordinary job. The challenge as we saw it was more in the area of leadership than management. Everything is changing so rapidly and you're asking the people who run these organizations to be able to understand what is happening in the environment and how to position their particular organization so it remains relevant and sustainable in five years time.
CV: What do you feel its impact will be on the sector now that these people are back, or will soon be back, in their regular positions?
TB: Apart from the way people will be able to use their leadership skills in their own organization, it has generated a much greater sense that there really is such a thing as a voluntary sector. It is now possible for us to transcend the differences we have in terms of our particular focus of activity and see ourselves as a sector. Unless you have the opportunity to interact with your peers, that is really hard to do.
CV: What do you think the biggest challenges facing the sector will be in the coming years?
TB: There are lots of challenges and probably some of them we can't even begin to understand or appreciate yet. There is much more emphasis on the individual. We are both skeptical of, and in some ways resistant to, relying on institutions. There has been a huge shift in terms of people taking responsibility or being expected to take responsibility, but it's not something people can respond to equally. Obviously, the more education you have and perhaps the younger you are, the easier it is to live in this new context.
I think one of the challenges to the voluntary sector is determining precisely where it fits into this. How does it on the one hand help individuals, families and communities to be more self-reliant and more able to meet a whole set of needs, but at the same time not fall into the trap of becoming just another service provider? How does the voluntary sector provide an avenue for people to engage, to feel that they are a part of a society and not just passive consumers? How does the voluntary sector help people to find both a sense of identity and a sense of being a social being?
The expectations of what government, private sector and voluntary sector do, is shifting. The notion of the voluntary sector as being something which essentially is funded by government -- that's not true anymore. On the other hand, there is no substitute immediately. The private sector is jumping in and saying, "we'll make sure that all these services will continue to be provided." However, many programs are aimed at people who would be excluded if they could only benefit by paying for the service. So there is a real challenge in finding a new long-term balance in terms of how the sector is funded.
CV: Finally, what direction do you see the McConnell Foundation taking in the next few years?
TB: There was a huge reorientation in the early part of the nineties, where we moved away from funding institutions and contributing to capital campaigns, toward much more community-based processes. We have a certain amount of experience in this but by its very nature there is no point at which you can say, "we've got that down pat." If you are focusing on change then even the challenges you're addressing are evolving. It's as much a challenge for us to find new ways of acting as it is for us to identify projects we can fund. The real thing is not to feel so comfortable, that now we've got it right, so let's keep doing it'. There is no right.Tim Brodhead has been with the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation since 1992. Previously he spent five years as executive director of the Canadian Council for International Co-operation (CCIC). For more information about the McConnell Foundation, visit: www.mcconnellfoundation.ca.
Is there a Canadian funder that you would like to hear more about? If you have a suggestion for a future Funder Focus interview, please e-mail help@charityvillage.com
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