Grantmakers In Health Annual Meeting

Wednesday February 14, 2007 – Friday February 16, 2007  

InterContinental Miami (Miami, Florida)

Approximately 30 grantmakers in health gathered on Thursday afternoon to discuss how to cross boundaries.

The session began with participants reflecting and journaling on the following questions:

There is something in the nature and structure of how we work that is creating and reproducing boundaries or “silos”, both within the health field and within our larger social systems. Do you agree or disagree? If you agree…

• What in our current systems or work is reinforcing or reproducing boundaries?

• Is there a cost and impact associated with these boundaries? If so, what might we do to remedy the problem? 

• What would it look like to cross boundaries? 

• Is there anything from your experience that suggests boundary crossing is an effective strategy for overcoming fragmentation? If so, what can we do to encourage, facilitate, or cultivate boundary-crossing behavior in our work?

 What came up for you during the journaling exercise, or what are your current reactions or response to these questions? Please add your thoughts:

As funders, I think it is very important that we "create the space" for authentic, boundary crossing conversations; and that part of the challenge here is to create an environment that is not predicated on competition for grant funds.   This is  tough, but  I believe possible particularly when the conversation engages a group of funders who are able to share resources. 

Once they finished journaling, participants were asked to choose, from a set of four color photographs, an image that represented the theme of crossing boundaries. Here is a set of images that can be used for this exercise:

Color mini-photo.pdf

What were some of the images described in your small group? Please share:

One of the more interesting images that emerged in my small group was that of a seven lane highway packed with cars. For one grantmaker, this image was reminiscient of how we often drive in these single lanes in our work, how we aren't moving anywhere by doing this, and that there are enormous costs and missed opportunities to being stuck in traffic. 

Following the small group discussions, a group of conversation catalysts were asked to come forward and share their experiences in boundary-crossing work. Here is a link to their bios:

GIH_CrossingBoundaries_Bios.pdf 

Sandra Davis from The California Endowment (TCE) and Carmen Morgan from the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) discussed their partnership in creating an innovative boundary-crossing leadership development program. A few years ago, program staff at TCE began researching potential funding opportunities in leadership development and discovered a significant gap in leadership development programs targeting grassroots community health leaders. It became clear that this was a gap TCE needed to fill, especially given that one of the foundation's core beliefs is that the best strategies to improve health come from the communities who are most impacted. TCE also recognized that effective grassroots leaders needed to be able to cross boundaries of race, ethnicity, class gender and sexual orientation. The Foundation turned to the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) to develop their boundary crossing leadership development program, as it had a long history and commitment to this philosophy. APALC created the Leadership Development in InterEthnic Relations (LDIR) Program in response to the racial tensions and civil unrest occurring in Los Angeles in the late 1980s and the early 1990s. APALC has trained leaders in California and more recently in Flint, Michigan and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania using the LDIR model. Through their partnership with the California Endowment, APALC has been able to adapt the LDIR curriculum to focus on grassroots health leadership. The program is just a few months underway, but significant personal transformation is already occurring among participants. A major challenge for this program will be articulating the outcomes of these programs to funders. It is critical that foundations shift some of their perceptions when it comes to evaluating programs and recognize that this work takes time.

See a video TCE produced on boundary crossing leadership: http://www.calendow.org/media_center/boundrycross.htm

Carolynn Mambu from the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers and Chuck Bean from the Nonprofit Roundtable discussed their partnership in building a Regional Equity Network in Metropolitan Washington, DC. The idea for a local network emerged when a group of funders pooled their resources to send nearly 100 representatives from nonprofits, foundations and government to a National Summit on Equitable Development, Social Justice and Smart Growth hosted by PolicyLink and the Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities in Philadelphia in 2005. Upon returning from the conference, participants were convened and asked if there was interest in putting together a local regional equity network. so that nonprofits could weigh in on growth and development decisions affecting the region alongside more traditional stakeholders like the business community. There is interest in and commitment to forming a local network, but the big question will be how to keep people engaged over time. Cultivating honesty and trust will be critical to the process, as will tapping into each member's self-interest. It is also important to continuously raise up the value of working together toward the greater good.

Margaret O'Bryon from the Consumer Health Foundation and Kim Perry from the Alliance for a Healthier Generation discussed their partnership in putting together a Plan to End Childhood Hunger in the District of Columbia. The partnership and the plan got started when D.C. Hunger Solutions, a childhood hunger advocacy nonprofit, brought together a diverse group of stakeholders and raised the question, "What should we do about the fact that every night 35,000 children in the District of Columbia go to bed hungry?" By creating this expansive frame, everyone at the table (business, government, foundations and nonprofits) could see that they had a role to play in tackling the problem. And the solution that arose from the strategic planning process became much more far reaching than one policy or one program - it became a 10 point plan to end childhood hunger in 10 years. An important part of the success of this process was that there was a level of honesty and trust created by ensuring that everyone at the table was funded or supported. The value of really listening to each other's perspectives. suspending judgment, and truly respecting each other's ways of thinking and working also became very important.

The question of whether boundary crossing is actually the right term to be using also came up was also raised by a number of the conversation catalysts.

Participants then returned to small group discussions, where each conversation catalyst facilitated a discussion around a question of interest. Below are some threads from those conversations.

Please add your thoughts, comments, things you heard others say in response to the following questions:

Carmen Morgan: What boundaries are most difficult to cross and why?

Sandra Davis: How do we measure the success of our efforts to support boundary crossing?

A small group met to discuss evaluation looking at the current approach being undertaken by The California Endowment.  TCE grantees are using the Evalulead framework posted as a resource.  The grantees of TCE are being convened in a learning community to facilitate learning across six different approaches to supporting boundary crossing.  Each grantee has created a results map that looks at results at the individual, organization and social/political level.  An overarching map has been created to deepen our understanding of the results that boundary crossing seeks and would hope to benchmark.  We talked about the importance of qualitative approaches for understanding the quality of relationships being build across new boundaries and the impact of these relationships in joint action.  We acknowledged the difficulty of attributing larger scale systems change to these relationships or any one set of activities alone.    We will look for ways to share this evaluation work.

Visit the LLC website evaluation resource pool for the Evalulead and other helpful evaluation resources.

Chuck Bean: How can we help local leaders to lead collectively across all kinds of boundaries?

• One problem is that funders in the same geographic area working on different issues don't talk to each other. Forums of grantmakers need to convene those discussions and other affinity groups.
• Some grantmakers are bringing funders together to work on a joint project and convening grantees for advice and help. 
• Other grantmakers are looking to convene funders with groups like the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) to tackle health care and race issues at the same time.
• Are funders supporting opportunities to have boundary-crossing conversations?
• Some support networks of nonprofits. Some funders have helped jumpstart coalitions, but the question was raised if organizations participate in part because of self-preservation (if a funder is supporting it)? And, how do you move from funder-driven coalitions to joining together to work on much broader issues? One funder supported scenario planning, which helps everyone see the bigger picture.

Carolynn Mambu: How do you sustain a commitment to building boundary crossing relationships that endure beyond an immediate response to a crisis or specific issues?

To be successful, you need:

• An investment beyond time ($$$)
• A clear time frame
• A constant assessment and re-assessment of change - clear objectives, benchmarks – how will you know you’ve gotten there
• A Memorandum of Understanding and/or a statement of principles
• A champion
• The issues and solutions to come up from communities and these communities need to be aligned with people of influence, people in a position of power to make change
• Board education, so that boards understand how the issues are interconnected
• Boards representative of the communities being served

Here is an interesting article and framework on developing and sustaining cross-sectoral collective leadership by Alain Gauthier: http://www.leadershiplearning.org/creating_space/2007/GauthierArticle.pdf

Kim Perry: What do we believe can be accomplished by boundary crossing and why?

Margaret O'Bryon: What can foundations do to mitigate competition for funding that undermines boundary crossing among organizations?

• Try to foster an environment of possibility as opposed to one of scarcity
• When you're involved in coalition-building, everyone you invite to the table needs to be supported in some way