Funder Focus: L. Robin Cardozo and the Ontario Trillium Foundation
May 5, 2003
By Nicole Zummach
This month in our Funder Focus, we feature the Ontario Trillium
Foundation, one of Canada's largest charitable grantmaking foundations.
It receives $100 million annually in government funding generated through
Ontario's charity casino initiative, and distributes most of that amount
through its community and province-wide grant programs. CharityVillage
spoke with executive director L. Robin Cardozo about the benefits
and challenges of being such a large government-funded organization,
the foundation's position as the lead funder of environmental and sports/recreation
groups in the province, and the importance of effective partnerships
and collaboration.
CharityVillage: Although the foundation has been
around since 1982, your budget was increased ten-fold in 1999 to $100
million annually. In what ways has this affected the work of the
foundation?
L. Robin Cardozo: We had a very dramatic change in
our operations
in 1999 when the government increased our funding. There were three
major things that changed. One was obviously the funding, which was
a very dramatic change in and of itself. In addition to
that, we introduced
three new sectors that we were not funding previously. The
Ontario Trillium
Foundation had been a funder in the social service sector
for many years.
With the new funding we also introduced arts and culture, sports and
recreation, and the environment. So, we then became a funder in four
sectors.
The other major change was in our method of operating. Previously, we
were largely a centralized operation in Toronto with some
regional input.
We became very much a regionalized organization in 1999.
So, what that
meant was that we now have 16 regional offices in the province. Each
of those offices has one or more local staff representatives, as well
as a local volunteer committee which reviews and recommends
the approval
of grants from that region.
CV: Since expanding your areas of focus, the foundation has
become the largest funder of environment and sports in the province,
as well as one of the largest arts funders. What are the challenges
involved in being such a major funder in the province? Does it affect
how you are viewed or approached by other nonprofit
organizations?
LRC: Being a significant funder provides both
opportunities and
challenges. The major opportunity, of course, is that it does give us
the chance to make a difference in the areas we fund. In
the first year,
we were not very well known in our new sectors of funding and I think
there were players in those sectors who may have been a
little bit wary
of us, or uncertain of what our role was going to be. Since
then, with
a combination of outreach from our own initiatives as well as ongoing
discussions, we have become better known, and in fact, our funds are
in considerable demand. Organizations in those sectors that
didn't know
very much about us three years ago are now actively seeking
opportunities
to be funded by us. So, one of the challenges really, is being able
to meet the demand in each of those sectors.
CV: Given that you are making significant contributions to
sports and recreation, and the environment, do you have sense of how
these areas are evolving in Ontario?
LRC: I think the sports and the environment sectors are both very
good examples of sectors that are changing and evolving, and I believe
that we have been playing an active role in that. Unlike the other two
sectors [social services and the arts], that perhaps have had more infrastructure,
more funding, more regional and provincial presence, the sports and
recreation sector and the environmental sector have been much more grassroots.
There are many small organizations that are entirely volunteer-run,
that have not had a long history of raising money, that have not had
a long history of relationships with funders, and have not had a long
history of building an infrastructure. The role that we've been playing
in both those sectors has been to help them build their capacity in
the sense of developing their resources, finding new ways to raise money,
lay down an infrastructure, and develop longer term planning, so they
are not just operating on a year to year basis.
CV: You recently released new funding guidelines.
What were the most significant changes to the process and why were
these changes made?
LRC: Some of the major changes have been around
clarifying our guidelines, and hopefully, simplifying them for the
small organizations. One of the criticisms that has been made of us
in the past, particularly given that we have an interest in funding
grassroots organizations, is that some of those organizations felt
our application process was onerous. And we have been listening to
that input. In our view, one of the major changes we've introduced is
a simplified application that will hopefully make it easier for
applicants to apply.
One of the other changes that we've made, again very much in response
to some of the input we've had, particularly in the smaller
communities,
has been to allow small municipalities to apply for grants
in the arts
and culture, and sports and recreation sectors. Our experience of the
last three years has been that, unlike the more urban centres where
there has been an infrastructure of arts and culture, and sports and
recreation organizations, in the smaller communities quite often the
only players in these fields have been the small
municipalities. There
just has not been the infrastructure of volunteer-run organizations
in these communities. What people were finding was that in some small
communities they could not appropriately access our
funding. By opening
up eligibility to the small municipalities we are hopeful
that members
of these communities will be able to access the advantages
of our funding.
CV: In 2002, you received a gold medal from the US
Council of Foundations
for excellence in communicating guidelines to potential
grantees. What
do you feel you are doing right in this area? What advice might you
give to other funders who are looking to improve their own
communications?
LRC: I think we have learned a lot in the last four years, and
I'd like to think we've come a long way. We certainly did
not have all
the answers. I think perhaps our local volunteers - having volunteers
across the province - has helped enormously because they
have supported
our local staff in being the eyes and ears in local communities. They
heard, particularly in the first year or two, that a number
of the small
groups found us to be somewhat inaccessible. I think
listening has helped
us a lot.
The other thing related to that, is that as we were
refining our guidelines
we benefited a great deal from testing our program guidelines in the
field. So we asked small organizations on a test basis to
fill out the
application form and talk to us in detail about what the process was
like, and what was difficult to understand. In some cases
we were using
language that may have meant a lot to us but didn't mean a
lot to grassroots
organizations. We were able to clarify language in cases like that.
CV: It's clear from your web site and other
publications that
the foundation values accountability and transparency. Why
do you feel
these qualities are important to possess as a funder, and
how can they
benefit the nonprofit sector as a whole?
LRC: As an agency of the government it is absolutely essential that the citizens of Ontario can see us being accountable and transparent. So, our stakeholders are the government, but also all the citizens of Ontario. We have always felt that, through our web site, our ongoing reporting, our annual town hall meetings in local communities, our media releases of our grants, it is really important that everything we do be right out there so that everyone knows where every penny is spent.
The majority of players in the sector have been doing a better job of public accountability. Donors and funders of all stripes are looking for increased accountability. I think it's incumbent on all of us as funders to make sure that the accountability requirements that we place on our grantees are transparent and meaningful, but also efficient.
CV: Aside from providing grants to charitable
groups, you have also distributed more than $1.2 million to community
foundations in Ontario, primarily for capacity building work. Why
did you choose to become involved in this type of funding?
LRC: We have funded a number of local United Ways
and community
foundations for their capacity building exercises. We have not funded
them for their annual fundraising drives or their annual revenue as
much as we have for either capital expenditures or seed
money for capacity
building. I think that comes right back to our mission as
an organization
- to work with others to make strategic investments to build healthy,
caring, and economically strong communities. United Ways
and community
foundations are two examples of organizations that work hard in local
communities to do exactly that. Our role in building their capacity,
we believe, in turn builds the capacity of the entire community.
CV: In 2002, in a presentation at the Community Foundations
of Canada Conference, you said "collaboration is something
that should
not be embarked upon lightly." What does it take to be a successful
collaborator? Does being a government-funded foundation
affect the nature
of the partnerships you engage in?
LRC: I think funders of all types, public and
private, have been working toward collaboration. Our experience has
been that it is not always easy, but when it works it can be
enormously powerful. When I made the comment that collaboration
should not be embarked upon lightly, I would express caution that one
should not go into collaborative ventures for the sake of
collaboration. You go into collaborative ventures for the sake of
having an impact in the local communities, if the eventual outcome is
going to be meaningful. I think where mistakes may have been made in
the past has been where funders have tried to collaborate where they
see collaboration itself as being the end result, as opposed to the
real outcome of the program.
I would certainly encourage funders to continue to try and
collaborate. We have worked with a number of local foundations and
with other government funders on specific collaborative ventures. We
have found that if we do our homework well up front in terms of being
clear on what our objectives are and making sure that we share the
same objectives for the initiative, that it can work very
well.
Every funder has their own individual issues, whether it's a United
Way, a community foundation, a family foundation, or a
government funder
like us; every funder has their own unique characteristics. So yes,
as a government funder we do have certain unique characteristics. But
I think when one goes into a collaborative venture with
other funders,
as long as we all acknowledge each other's unique characteristics and
make sure we are all going to work to build upon those
characteristics,
rather than see them as obstacles, I think they can still
be effective.
So in our case, for example, we would want to make sure that whatever
we fund meets the ultimate requirements of the memorandum
of understanding
that exists between the government and ourselves.
CV: Where do you see the foundation ten years from now?
LRC: Number one, I would like to see us build upon
our successful
collaborations with other funders in order to increase the
effectiveness
of what we do. I see us continuing to have a strong local
base and strong
local input into our decision-making, so that we're not making grant
decisions in a downtown Toronto office, but are making
granting decisions
based very much on local input. I would see us continuing to work to
build the capacity of the sector.
Like many funders, the Ontario Trillium Foundation provides shorter
term funding; our typical grants are in the range of one to a maximum
of five years. We do not provide ongoing core funding, and
I don't see
that changing. But in order to maximize the impact of that short term
funding, I see us sharpening our tools, if you like, to
make sure that
our funding results in longer term investment in the funded
organization,
and not just a one shot deal - funding something and then it's over
with and done. Rather, I see us moving towards looking at
how our funding
can achieve longer-term impact.
L. Robin Cardozo has been CEO of the Ontario Trillium Foundation
since 1999. For 11 years prior to that, he held progressively senior
positions in finance and human resources at the United Way of Greater
Toronto, culminating in his appointment as vice president and chief
operating officer. For more information about the OTF, visit: www.trilliumfoundation.org.
