About This Episode:
In this episode of the Social Change Diaries podcast, Vanessa is joined by Jen Ford Reedy, President of the Bush Foundation. Together, they discuss Jen’s new book, Please Be Good at Philanthropy, exploring challenges for nonprofits today and how foundations can best support them. They touch on the importance of long-term thinking, following breakthrough ideas, and taking into account the risk of foundation work to protect partners. Through the discussion, it is clear why communications and strategic narratives are central to effective foundation impact. If you are curious to better understand the role of communications as program in foundation work, don’t miss this episode.
About Jen Ford Reedy:
Jen has been the president of the Bush Foundation since 2012. Before Bush, she led strategy for a community foundation and was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Jen is the author of Please Be Good at Philanthropy and teaches on philanthropic history and strategy in a variety of settings.
In her words…
“We think of communications as program at the Bush Foundation…advancing our purpose and our mission. And, we make sure that we are not only talking to people who already believe what we believe.”
“There is a lot of narrative work for Bush and for other organizations like us, where we need to say ‘this can’t be political. We can’t let this be political.’ We can’t just argue a different side of a political argument, we need to depolarize the issue.”
“We will have more impact if we don’t say ahead of time what impact we want to have. You’re way more likely to have good things happen if you are more open to opportunities than if you’re more prescriptive.”
“When you look at the greatest hits in philanthropic history, what really made a difference in most cases was a pretty long-term vision —a willingness to work toward something over a long period of time.”
“The reason we are able to fund” amazing programs like the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance, “is because we were just truly open to other people’s ideas rather than valuing our ideas more.”
Transcript
Vanessa Wakeman: Hello and welcome to the Social Change Diaries. I am your host, Vanessa Wakeman, and today I am joined by Jen Ford Reedy, President of the Bush Foundation and author of the new book, Please Be Good at Philanthropy. Jen also teaches philanthropic history and strategy in a variety of settings.
Prior to coming to the Bush Foundation, Jen led strategy for a community foundation and was a consultant with McKinsey & Company. Jen, welcome to the Social Change Diaries, and congrats on the new book!
Jen Ford Reedy: Thanks, Vanessa. It’s great to be here with you.
Vanessa Wakeman: Thank you. I want to start with the book, Please Be Good at Philanthropy. Like, that’s a statement in and of itself, which I think would only be made by someone who has spent a good deal of time in philanthropy.
So tell me, why did you decide to write this book and write this book now?
Jen Ford Reedy: Well, I think that a lot of the opportunity we have in philanthropy to be better, to make more of the impact we want to make in the world, comes down to whether or not we really understand: Are we good at philanthropy?
And it’s a strange part of the culture of our field that we don’t really talk about our work in that way or think about our work in that way.
And I feel like just thinking, asking more people, “Are you good at philanthropy? How do you know?” can lead people down a different kind of reflective practice of philanthropy and get to better ways of doing philanthropy, more impact, and less harm in the world.
Vanessa Wakeman: So, I guess we’re going to explore the book for a little bit before I get into some other questions. Based on that statement, in the book, I recall you talked about how there is no regulatory body judging the quality of the work. Organizations are responsible for setting their own standards.
What does that responsibility look like? In this moment, when things are changing swiftly, and our democracy is under attack, what does that responsibility look like?
Jen Ford Reedy: Yeah, I mean, we are remarkably free to set our own definition of success and hold ourselves accountable to it because there isn’t that regulatory body. There isn’t a certification to get to be in philanthropy.
And so, regardless of what’s going on in the world, it’s always up to us to set that standard and hold ourselves accountable. In a time of great need and great change, for an organization, an institution that is getting a tax benefit because we’re intended to serve the public good, I think the pressure is and should be on for us to really be thinking hard: Are we fulfilling our purpose in the way we should? Is our purpose even the right purpose, given how much things have changed in the world?
There are a number of foundations that are having to switch strategies in really fundamental ways because the operating environment is so different. So, I think there’s a general call to make sure you have a clear and useful purpose, make sure you have an approach that works toward that purpose, and make sure you have a way of knowing whether that’s working or not.
That’s sort of a general explanation of good practice in philanthropy. And in times like this, when the world is really changing, that should be our test. That should be our test of whether our ways of operating hold up and whether we are able to shift in the ways we need to shift or hold fast in the ways we need to hold fast in order to make the difference we say we want to make.
Vanessa Wakeman: So, how much of that difference sort of leads with money?
Of course, whenever we’re talking about philanthropy, the first sort of picture, the bubble over all of our heads, is the money, right? The money bubble. Like, how much money are we going to throw at this? How much money?
But in the book, you talk about how money has limitations, right? And if that’s true, I still always think about, like, well, how much money can we throw at it? And how helpful will that be?
I want to talk through, when we think about, like you said, what is the intention, what is the purpose, and the idea of money having limitations. When we think about some of the counter-narratives and actions that are hindering progress on social issues, if we know that lots of money is being funneled into narratives that sort of distort the reality of what is happening, do we then need to rethink the role of money?
So, recognizing that money has limitations, but also knowing that if the opposition is throwing a lot of money at it, should we then be returning to leading with money?
How do we need to pivot? What should we be thinking about money right now, given the state of affairs?
Jen Ford Reedy: Well, the part of the book that you’re talking about, where you talk about the limitations of money, isn’t an argument against spending money. It’s saying that you have to be really thoughtful about what the money goes to and ask: Is it actually having an impact?
So, in other words, you can’t, as a foundation, say we’re having more impact because we spent $100 million versus spending $50 million. It depends on what you’re doing with that money.
That part of the book is really a recognition that change happens through humans. And so, change can only happen at the pace at which humans are able to absorb and advance whatever that change is.
And so, you can’t always do really neat ratios to say X dollars equals Y number of people overcoming opioid addiction, right? It’s a very complicated thing to think about. What does it take to support any person to overcome opioid addiction?
That part of the book is definitely not an argument to spend less. It’s saying, whatever amount you spend, you’ve got to make sure you’re spending it on something that is designed to be effective.
I mean, we all know examples of, you know, when you’re talking specifically about narrative change, we have heard of many, many, many millions of dollars put into different kinds of campaigns that didn’t have much impact.
So, you’ve got to get the money, for sure. Money matters, but you also have to make sure that you’re doing something that’s going to make the difference that you mean to make.
Vanessa Wakeman: And so, as a foundation, how do you reconcile that? Like, the idea of making the difference. So, what I guess I’m asking is, what does stewardship of those dollars look like in these times, recognizing that the playbook is constantly changing and the need is constantly changing?
How does that inform how you’re thinking about philanthropy and the responsibility?
Jen Ford Reedy: Yeah. Well, it would differ a lot for different foundations based on, you know, what it is they’re trying to work on, right?
For foundations and funders who are working on democracy, you know, this is an all-hands-on-deck sort of time because you’re in this moment where these big questions around citizenship, around voting, around the First Amendment are being raised. So, I mean, this is core to the work you’re doing. You go all in.
That is different for different foundations. You know, if your foundation is working to cure Alzheimer’s, I suspect that the changes in the federal government are making a difference on that strategy because there are changes in science funding and health funding, but it will look different.
It will look different to say, what does it mean for us to operate now in this environment? Are there areas where we need to actually put in more money to compensate for a federal cut? Or is there actually a way where we need to go on a totally different path because this path is now closed, but there’s another path over here?
I mean, we, for example, last year had a process of going back to every grantee and sort of saying, “What’s changed in your work because of funding cuts, because of funding shifts, because of policy changes coming from the federal government?” When it was just a time of enormous change, whether you as a person liked those changes or not, it was an incredible amount of change for people working on almost any issue in the country to figure out how to navigate.
So, we went back to say, you know, what’s been cut? What’s shifted? And to be able to put more money into their work to help them overcome whatever new hardship or challenge had been created from federal policy or funding shifts.
And I know we’re not alone in that. I think a number of foundations did that with existing investments.
And then it’s thinking, okay, so now what’s the next, the best next investment, given this environment?
And whenever there’s incredible change, there are challenges and there are opportunities. So, it’s sort of making sure you don’t get so overwhelmed with meeting the obvious challenges of the moment that you aren’t thinking like, “Well, wait, is there an opening here? Is there an opening for people to think about an issue in a different way? Or for, you know, people in our country to understand a challenge in a different way?”
And then, how do you make sure that you’re both being responsive to what’s urgent in the moment and still looking ahead to say, like, what do we want this community to look like? What do we want this country to look like? What do we want this world to look like next year, 10 years out, 100 years out, you know?
So that you’re trying to not completely lose one of the great benefits, actually, of a private foundation, which is that ability to think long-term.
Because businesses can’t, government can’t, like most nonprofits can’t. One of the ways we can be useful in the universe is to try to invest in things that, you know, are controversial or not well known or are really long-term thinking.
And so, for a foundation like ours, we’re doing a whole lot that is definitely in-the-moment funding and problem-solving.
But we try to think, and we talk about, what’s the balance? How do we make sure we’re still investing toward a better future at the same time?
Vanessa Wakeman: So, that makes me think about history. I know that you are both a student and teacher of philanthropic history.
As you talk about being in the present and looking toward the future, I would like to think that some of that is informed by what you understand and know of the past.
What lessons from the past do you think are important for us to keep in mind today?
I know we’ve heard people say so often, “We’re in unprecedented times. We’ve never seen this.” And yes, in our lifetime, we’ve never seen this, but there are historical instances that we can pull from and draw from to be like, “Well, this is fairly reminiscent of this.”
Looking at it through a philanthropic lens, what do you think is important to keep in mind?
Jen Ford Reedy: Yeah. Well, when you look at sort of the greatest hits in philanthropic history, like where it really made a difference, I think in most cases it was with a pretty long-term vision, like being willing to work toward something over a long period of time.
I think a lot of the most significant philanthropic interventions have been kind of what I would call “hearts and minds,” like changing how people think about an issue or how they think about other people on an issue, that then changes so many other decisions that they would make.
I think there are a lot of examples, particularly in conservative-oriented philanthropy in the 1970s and 1980s, where they really worried that the government was, you know, anti-capitalist, anti-free market, and in a variety of ways invested in people and institutions to try and change how people thought, particularly judges.
So, like the Olin Foundation funding the Federalist Society as a student club. It was a student club in 1982. And the long-term vision of thinking, you know, if we—they liked the way this group of people was thinking, right? Investing in their capacity and their connectivity this early in their career could pay dividends for the long term.
I mean, that’s like a big-thinking vision and a willingness to make grants that are about the capacity of people and the capacity of institutions to advance ideas.
It’s remarkable philanthropy when you think about, I mean, the Federalist Society investment in particular, the fact that now, you know, the majority of the Supreme Court is affiliated in some way with the Federalist Society. They could not have known that then, but they were willing to do philanthropy with that long-term view and a capacity-building orientation that has had, I mean, just a remarkable effect on our society and in a whole bunch of dimensions.
Vanessa Wakeman: How does that play out when we think about the ideas of innovation and disruption, which are not necessarily things that the field leads with, right? And particularly the nonprofit sector.
When we talk about a long-term vision and commitment, which I think is really important, it sort of affects how organizations are funded and how they feel like they have the runway to do the work.
But does that also allow—and I know each foundation and sort of their model is different—does that allow enough space for innovation?
So, if I’m, you know, walking down this road and we see another opportunity, do you think that there is enough spaciousness for innovation and disruption within the long-term sort of approach to things?
Jen Ford Reedy: For sure. And, well, one thing is, I mean, foundations can be doing, like, root-cause stuff, or they could be doing media needs stuff, or they could be doing innovation stuff, or they could be doing “spread what works” stuff. Like, there are all these different ways that you can, you know, make a difference in the world doing philanthropy.
So, you know, individual organizations can be positioned in different ways strategically and be trying to, you know, be good at doing different things.
But even within that long-term view, I think some ways having the benefit of a big, broad, long-term view is that you can spot those opportunities because that’s what you want, right? To say, like, “Okay, we care about, you know, this big vision that we have. My gosh, do you see what’s going on here in Tennessee? Do you see this group that’s come together and they’re doing this a different way? Let’s get behind them.”
You know, like, there’s—you can, if you know the big picture of what you’re trying to get, you can, if you keep your head up, get good at spotting those opportunities where there’s a breakthrough idea, where there’s emerging energy.
You know, not being prescriptive necessarily about what the road’s gonna look like or what the path’s gonna look like to get to your outcome, but actually looking at those breakthrough moments and then adding what you can to them, which, you know, by and large, for foundations, it’s money.
You know, all over the world, there are people who have amazing ideas, energy, and people bought in. What they need, you know, is money to really make it go.
And being a good spotter of those sort of what I would call “money-ready opportunities” is a core skill in doing philanthropy well.
Vanessa Wakeman: The idea of pattern spotting and sort of paying attention to the signals—I think it’s important across philanthropy, nonprofits, across all sectors, quite honestly.
What is the relationship with risk? I wanted to speak about your foundation specifically because you’re best to answer that.
What is the relationship with risk around, “We’ve never seen this before”? Like, we see maybe a grantee or a couple of grantees bubbling it up, and there’s something different.
How does that work within the model? And I know in your book you referenced this idea of, like, sometimes there’s a potential for tension between a funder’s purpose and a grantee’s purpose.
How do you reconcile the tension within those two purposes when there’s an opportunity for change? And, like you talked about the pattern spotting, how do we think about that?
And particularly through the concept of what we’re talking about in this conversation of, like, righting, correcting history, and authoring history, how do you make sense of that?
Jen Ford Reedy: Yeah. Well, I mean, you opened your question with the angle on risk, and I think there’s a lot there that informs this larger conversation.
In terms of risk to the foundation—like to the Bush Foundation—grantmaking risk is so low. I mean, right now it’s probably as high as it’s been because we have a federal government that’s interested in seeing funding flow to particular issues, and there are concerns about that.
But even in this context, even in this moment, the incremental risk to the Bush Foundation of any grant we would make is very low. We are giving the money away. You know, if we give the money away and it doesn’t work, we’re disappointed, right? We want to have a good impact. But there’s no organizational harm to the Bush Foundation. There’s no incremental cost to the Bush Foundation. So a private foundation like us is, I think, one of the most risk-absorbent entities in the world.
But there’s still a ton of risk in philanthropy. It’s just that it’s not the foundation that bears it. So if we go all in on this criminal justice reform effort and it doesn’t work, it doesn’t harm us anymore. But some communities, some individuals, may be profoundly harmed. So doing risk management well in foundations means holding, at the same time, that you’re trying to take the best advantage you can of your own capacity for risk while managing down any risk to other people.
And making sure that anybody who’s affected by what you’re doing actually wants it. They think, “Okay, the risk is worth it.” Because there’s a risk in not intervening on anything, too. But for a foundation to be cavalier about risk without fully appreciating the impact it could have on other people—and whether those people actually want this intervention or this work to happen—is a basic way that we fall short regularly, I think, as a field. Understanding what people value and what people want to have happen is really, really core.
So, in some ways, when you move to the idea that a funder’s purpose may be different from a grantee’s purpose, I think a foundation exists for some reason. It has a purpose in the world. It has a mission statement. Every organization it funds has its own purpose and mission statement.
You’re always trying to find where those things overlap enough for there to be a partnership, but they don’t have to be the same thing. When a foundation thinks, “I want the nonprofit to just do the thing that I want to do,” that’s a problem. That’s bad practice. On the other hand, if nonprofits say, “I don’t want foundations to have any purpose other than giving me money,” well, they’re missing part of the foundation’s reason for being and for making that grant.
So I think the art is having really good communication to say, “This is our purpose,” and “This is your purpose,” and recognizing that they overlap. One of the examples I use in the book is that a nonprofit may be thinking, “I care about addressing diabetes in my community.” The foundation may be thinking, “I want to find great interventions that work for addressing diabetes in communities.”
That overlap is enough for the funder to support the grantee’s work. But what the funder is trying to do—or what the funder is trying to learn—is just a little different. So it’s really about having enough dialogue to be honest about what each of you is trying to accomplish and then making sure the partnership works well for both of you.
Without that honesty and without that real conversation, you can get misaligned, and that’s when people get really frustrated.
Vanessa Wakeman: So what I hear from some nonprofits sometimes is that, because they’re desperately trying to raise money, they feel the pressure to fit into the funder-purpose box.
How do we make the box larger? Or, like, what can we do, right? Because ultimately everyone’s trying to do the best work that they can. So, like, what’s the solution here, Jen?
Well, I mean, some part of it is always going to be a math problem, right? Any single foundation is giving a certain amount of money, and there are always going to be more people who could use that money than the amount they have available.
So there’s always going to be some point where some people aren’t going to get funded. And then it becomes a question of: On what basis are those decisions made? And are those decisions being made in ways that are good for society?
Jen Ford Reedy: You know, and I think the danger of having a nonprofit try to contort itself to get the funding is that it doesn’t end up working well for anybody involved. So there’s that question of: How are you honest and clear about what you’re looking for and what you’re doing, and how do you have as much honesty as you can in that conversation?
I think there’s another aspect of this, which may be sort of what you’re getting at, and that’s how prescriptive a funder is. How much is a funder saying, “This is our idea of what should happen, and nonprofit, you have to fit into our idea or you’re out,” versus having a little more openness to say, “You know, we have a general idea of what we want to do, but we’re willing to be inspired and get behind other people’s work.”
There are a number of things in philanthropy that have made that harder. I think over the last couple of decades, foundations have been coached by consultants to be really, really narrow. They’ve been coached to have a strategic goal, make it narrow, and do everything they can to get to that goal. That’s been what’s been spread as good philanthropy: be super narrow, know what you want to do, and try to get it done.
And that’s had all these effects on the relationship between funders and grantees, where it’s sort of like grantees are vendors for funders trying to do their thing. It becomes about the funder’s thing versus the nonprofit’s thing.
There are certainly examples of funders who work that way and have done good things in the world. But in my book, I would argue that you’re way more likely to have good things happen if you’re more open to opportunities than if you’re more prescriptive. Because setting a very narrow target where you want to have impact requires that there are enough other people who also want to have impact there.
Funders aren’t implementers. I mean, funders give the money, but we don’t do the work. So for us to have any impact, there have to be groups of people who are really excited, equipped, and ready to do that work for it to be successful.
So, as a funder, you can either say, “I want to work there,” point to a particular space, and then try to get people over to that spot. Or you can look around and say, “Wait, over here people are fired up about their idea. There’s community ownership. There’s energy.” If we put the money there, that’s probably actually a better chance of success than trying to make it go in this particular place that we set.
I don’t know if that’s all making sense, but it’s really a way in which the dominant coaching and instruction in the field over the last couple of decades has led to a much more foundation-centric view of the world: What impact do you want to have, and then how do you have it? I think there’s an opportunity for more foundations to see the value in not doing that.
One of the things I’ve talked to the Bush Foundation board about is that we will fund on any issue. We will fund any challenge that a community cares about. If they come to us and they’re fired up to work on it, we will fund it.
What that required was getting the Bush Foundation board to see something that’s conceptually difficult, which is: I believe we will have more impact if we don’t say ahead of time what impact we want to have.
It’s very counterintuitive because most people come in with an organizational mindset, like a business mindset, where that’s not how the world works. But philanthropy is different because we don’t have control. We’re giving money to somebody else. I believe that, for Bush, we will have more impact if we don’t define ahead of time exactly what impact we’re going to have.
That takes some brain-bending for a lot of boards, but I believe it. And I feel really, really proud of the grantmaking we’re doing.
For example, we’re funding something called the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance. All of the tribes in North Dakota came together and partnered with the state’s Commerce Department to develop tours of each reservation. Through those tours, they tell their own stories. They have control of the narrative of their tribe and their nation. And they’ve structured the tours so that Native-owned businesses benefit, meaning the economies of Native communities benefit as well.
I love that grant. I think it’s a brilliant idea. The money we gave was startup funding for something that could become economically sustainable if it works.
If we had just sat in the Bush Foundation boardroom and asked, “What issue should we work on?” we never would have come up with, “We should work on tourism in North Dakota.” And even if we had, if it had been our idea that this is what should happen in North Dakota, it probably would have been impossible—or at least taken years—to get buy-in from every tribe, from the state, and to do all the work required to make it happen.
I think it’s an amazing project, and I’m so proud that we’re funding it. But the only reason we’re able to fund it is because we’re truly open to other people’s ideas rather than valuing our own ideas more.
Vanessa Wakeman: I think that’s a wonderful perspective, and I’m sure that your grantee partners are excited about that sort of approach.
What were you going to say?
Jen Ford Reedy: Well, but it’s like any funder. I mean, if you get the money, you’re excited about it. For those who aren’t being funded by Bush, they may be less excited about it.
But that’s one of the realities of our field. We’re only funding a small number of organizations. So, like I said earlier, you have to feel good about your process, your purpose, and your decision-making.
There are so many good things happening that we are not funding. I know that for a fact. But do we feel good about the things that we are funding? And how can we be sure that we’re funding things that will be meaningful to the people whose lives will be affected by that work?
Vanessa Wakeman: So, in thinking about what you just shared and your approach to grantmaking, I know one of the cases that we’ve been making—and trying to help organizations think about through the lens of narrative—is that all social issues are, in some way, related to our democracy.
Like, is liberty and justice available to all? Is there equity built in? Are communities able to thrive?
Is this a moment when nonprofits should be communicating about their work differently through that lens?
I know you mentioned that there are organizations specifically focused on democracy. But in many ways, you’re also focused on democracy and making sure that people are able to sustain their communities. It feels like all of that is wrapped together.
Should we be broadening how we’re thinking about democracy? And would that, in turn, potentially shape or shift how we think about what organizations get funded?
Is there an opportunity there? I know the money may not match, but is the opportunity there?
Jen Ford Reedy:I think there are a number of ways to take that.
One way nonprofits could be thinking about this moment is realizing that a lot of people in America don’t think government works, right? They’re frustrated with government, they’re alarmed by how much government is spending, and they feel like it’s not making a difference.
So many nonprofits that have had federal funding cut are examples of where government funding actually does make a difference. And one opportunity I think we have in the nonprofit sector—that’s all of us, so foundations, human service nonprofits, anyone trying to make the world better in some way—is to tell more of the whole story of an issue.
I talk about it as using the whole pie chart. So, say we’ve got housing. This percentage of people in our community is being served just fine by the market. The market is working for them. This percentage of people has good housing because of Section 8 and other government programs. This group of people is being supported by nonprofits that are doing a great job of providing wraparound services. And then this is the group that’s left.
I think that does a few things. First, if you look at the group that still needs help as just one slice of the pie, I think it can build energy around the idea that we can take care of that. Look, it’s just part of our community that still needs help. We can rally, and we can solve that.
But I also think explaining which parts of what could be a much bigger problem are already being addressed—or at least partially addressed—by government programs or nonprofits helps people think, something is working. Some of these things are working, so if we expand the things that are working or do more of what’s working, we can solve the problem.
I think, in our field, we tend to say, “We have a problem with X, and it’s bad, and it’s getting worse.” Then we say the same thing next year. And then we say the same thing the year after that.
It’s good for short-term fundraising and energizing people, but I think the long-term effect is that people begin to feel like nothing is working. Government isn’t solving these problems. Nonprofits aren’t solving these problems. Nothing is working.
And I think that makes people less willing to get excited about or support government intervention. But over time, it also makes people feel like nonprofits are a racket. You’re hearing more negative rhetoric about nonprofits than I’ve ever heard in my lifetime.
I think it’s related to this sense that, “They’re just a jobs program for the people who work in nonprofits. They’re not actually making a difference.”
I really believe that some part of that is because we spend so much time talking about the problems without lifting up what’s working.
This is working. This is working. This is working. Come on, guys, we can do this. We just need to do a little more of what’s working.
That kind of optimism and problem-solving can help the American public stay engaged with us as we work together to address these big challenges.
Vanessa Wakeman: Yeah, I would absolutely agree with that. I think we need to address the lack of consistent communications infrastructure and narrative infrastructure, which is really what you’re talking about. And to your point about the rhetoric, there’s so much disinformation that people are increasingly unsure of what to believe.
I also think we need to be focusing on narrative resilience. Are organizations prepared to adapt, respond, and react to the harmful counter-narratives that are emerging, especially during a time when many are also navigating the risk of being targeted? As a result, many organizations are choosing to remain silent.
One of my biggest concerns is that when organizations are ready to reenter the conversation, will we have already lost the narrative? Will people be so unsure of what is fact and what is fiction that we no longer have the opportunity to bring people back to the facts and the evidence, and help them believe that there is a path forward?
Jen Ford Reedy: That’s interesting. Are you thinking particularly about race as you’re talking about that? Like things related to racial justice?
Vanessa Wakeman: Racial justice, but also just social issues like climate, immigration, voter registration, and fraud — for every social issue, there is a harmful counter-narrative. Think of it like a domino effect: it just keeps getting bigger as it rolls down the hill.
Prior to the attacks that started happening last year or the year before, I feel like we had a good sort of guardrail of, “No, no, no, this is the truth. This is what the facts are.” And now, as organizations feel like they need to be silent in order to continue doing the work, that silence is giving more momentum to the lies and to really distorted narratives.
Jen Ford Reedy: Well, I certainly hope that nonprofits aren’t walking away from facts. I mean, I understand that we have to — particularly if nonprofits receive federal funding or have other ways in which they are especially vulnerable to being investigated or attacked — follow the law and preserve their organizations.
There are certainly organizations that are in a really difficult position of saying, “This is the work we do,” and then trying to find a way to talk about it that doesn’t put them outside of what they feel they can safely do from a legal perspective or with enough support to continue operating. So I want to acknowledge all of that.
As a private foundation, we have it easier, right? We have not had to change much of what we say or what we do. We don’t think anything we do is illegal, and we can operate with that understanding. We also know we have the resources to get good communications support, good legal support, and other forms of assistance that many other organizations don’t have.
Setting that aside, I hope that in this moment, when people are having to think differently about how to talk about a whole range of issues, the orientation is toward asking: What is the way of talking about this issue that will help more and more people understand it?
Because, for whatever issue you care about in the world, we live in a democracy. You need more than half the people to agree with what you want to have happen for it to happen. And right now, we live in an environment where different words are constantly being labeled as toxic or political. One word is considered political, then another word is considered political. We live in a moment where people are intentionally making it harder to talk about almost anything.
But I think we need to ask: What is the deeper message here? What is the different way of talking about this that helps more people see how this issue impacts their lives, their communities, and this country? What are the opportunities to not just be in message retrenchment or in a caution zone of, “Can I say this? Can I say that?” but instead ask: What is the new way of talking about this work that we believe in and know is important that will help more people understand its value?
That means helping people see that these issues aren’t, and shouldn’t be, partisan issues. They shouldn’t be politicized. This is a basic human rights issue, or this is a basic civic issue.
I think there is a lot of narrative work for us at Bush and for other organizations like us around how we say: This cannot be political. We cannot let this become political. And that doesn’t mean simply arguing a different side of a political debate. It means asking: How do we actually depolarize this issue?
It can’t be true that caring about any particular community in our country suggests that you are either a Republican or a Democrat. We need everyone to care about everyone. And then the question becomes: What are the different strategies that can actually make a difference?
Thinking particularly about racial justice, what are the conservative strategies that could actually help make America work better for everybody? What are the progressive strategies that could work? But we cannot let it be true that simply saying you care about racial justice is a partisan statement.
Vanessa Wakeman: So that’s where we are. Yeah. Yeah, right. It is a partisan statement. And I think that many organizations are interested in talking about these issues, but they are very concerned — deeply concerned — about what the potential threats are and how they can navigate this moment if they do speak out.
There’s also a question of capacity. Do we have the ability to sustain this for the long term? It’s not just about issuing a press release or making a statement, which is what we saw a lot of. It’s more about: What is the investment in communications and communications infrastructure so that organizations can engage broader audiences — the general public, as well as critical community audiences — in understanding these issues? How do we put the audience first?
And so there are tensions there. There are fears there. One of the things that we’ve been talking about as an organization is this idea of communications as an institutional behavior. No matter what is happening, how do you make sure you are consistently communicating?
And from a foundation perspective, we see organizations like United Philanthropy Forum coming together and saying, “Here’s how we’re thinking about this as peer organizations. Here’s where we stand, and here’s how we’re going to support organizations.”
Where do you see the distinction between how a foundation should talk about its work, its portfolio, or its areas of focus, versus the role of grantee partners? What is the handoff or the difference between how a foundation communicates about the work and how grantee partners communicate about the work?
Jen Ford Reedy: That’s an interesting question because it would really depend on the nature of the relationship with the grantees, what the issue is, and what a foundation is doing. I think that, in general, sometimes foundations — particularly private foundations — could be more pointed and less careful in what they say because they don’t have to have donors. They don’t have to have, you know, the same kinds of considerations that other organizations might have.
There is a freedom that any organization that doesn’t have customers or doesn’t have donors has to say what they want. Nonprofits might say, “Well, we can’t say it that way because we need to have a broader base of appeal.” I think there are differences there.
But in general, your points about the importance of communications and communications infrastructure are right on. We think of communications as program at Bush Foundation, right? There’s no other reason for us to do communications except that it is advancing our purpose and our mission.
What we really try to think about in our communications is who we’re talking to and making sure that we are not only talking to people who already believe what we believe.
We’re in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and 23 Native nations, so politically we’re very split — about 50/50. We want to be a trusted partner and do relevant work in every corner of the region we serve. The things that we believe strongly in and that are rooted in our values, we want to be clear and central to the work that we do, but we also want to do that work in a way that invites more people in.
So we have a lot of emphasis right now internally on building our own skills around bridging and making sure that we are learning how to talk about issues in ways that don’t otherize anyone — in ways that people can actually hear, and in ways that show that we are listening to and understanding the experiences of people all around the region.
We’ve had a commitment to racial equity for a long time now — explicitly in our work for maybe 12 or 13 years. We’ve always thought about it as developmental. We use the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) as a framework and think about the fact that we’re not trying to say who is in and who is out. We’re trying to think about how we can engage with more organizations, hopefully have the opportunity to explain why these things are important to us, and see if we can have more and more organizations in our region engage with us on issues of racial equity.
We also care about rural equity. We care about equity in other forms as well. But certainly racial equity is a particular commitment for us and a particular challenge in terms of how to do communications that are real, that are authentic, but that also don’t alienate people before we have a chance to have the conversation.
Vanessa Wakeman: Jen, give me the Reader’s Digest version, if there is one: How do you do that when it could be argued that, for an organization that has been doing work in racial justice for over a decade, you know this firsthand? If there is a group that is part of the audience that has been harmed, and other people’s thinking continues to perpetuate that harm, how, as a foundation, are you thinking about: We want to bring communities together, but we don’t want to cause more harm?
How do you know if it’s the right entry point or the right place to have that conversation?
Jen Ford Reedy: I don’t know the right answer, but I can tell you that the way we’ve thought for a long time about communications around equity — but particularly around race — is that whenever we’re talking about it, we talk about our larger organizational purpose.
The purpose of the Bush Foundation is to make the region better for everyone. So anything we are doing that is race-conscious or race-specific, we are doing because we believe it is in the interest of making this region better for everyone. We care about the whole region, and that is why we are doing this work with a particular community or working on a particular solution related to a challenge.
So we are always framing it in this larger sense: We care about everyone in this region, and that’s why we are doing this focused work.
The other part is to always ground it in data — and by data, I mean literally facts and figures, but also stories grounded in something real. We want to make sure it doesn’t appear that we just care more about some people in the region than others, or that we are simply driven by a passion for equity without a broader purpose behind it.
We try to say: No, we are grounded in our whole organizational purpose, and we are motivated and guided by good information to say, “We believe this is the smart thing and the right thing for us to be doing given our mission.”
Vanessa Wakeman: Yeah.
I think that’s a great approach. And I think facts married with some emotional framing will always help drive change. So, well done. Well done on that.
I know we are running out of time, but I have two hopefully brief questions for you.
The Bush Foundation has been involved in a variety of philanthropic efforts, and based on this conversation, it’s clear that you’ve really tailored your work around both correcting history and authoring history — thinking about how to build the future of our country in the areas that you fund and work on.
As a foundation leader, when would you say you saw most clearly the importance of that connection?
Jen Ford Reedy: Hmm. I mean, luckily, I think I saw it before I was a foundation leader. If you only start thinking about that when you’re leading an organization, that’s hard.
Honestly, I go back to something I think about a lot, which was the moment that I realized it didn’t make sense that I had been taught that Columbus discovered America. I felt embarrassed that I hadn’t been able to see that it was just not logical. You can’t discover a place where people are already there.
I felt kind of angry at my teachers. I felt, like I said, embarrassed that I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. It was upsetting to me to feel like I could have believed something that was so clearly not true.
Now, I understand that the teaching of that came from a particular perspective, right? But as a kid, I wasn’t a sophisticated enough consumer of history to understand that it was being presented to me as one story — one way of thinking about things.
So I think about that a lot, even though I was a kid when I had that realization. It sticks with me always. One, because it reminds me of the simple truth that everybody is bringing their own perspective, and that perspective is part of the story.
You and I are having this shared experience, but we are also having very different experiences. You may be really disappointed that I’m misunderstanding the questions and not giving you good answers. I might think I’m saying really interesting things — or vice versa. But we’re having a shared experience that is also two different experiences because we’re coming to this with two different perspectives.
That ability to think about history being improved by multiple perspectives — that it’s not about replacing one narrative with a different narrative, but recognizing that having more narratives gets us to a richer, better, more complete, more useful, and more real understanding of both history and the present day.
The practical application for a foundation is: How many people are we talking to about any issue before we make a decision? How many perspectives are we bringing into our grantmaking — through our due diligence, through who is on our board, through who is on our staff, through who we engage on advisory committees to help make decisions?
It’s this belief that, particularly given the work we do — although I think it’s true for decisions in lots and lots of settings — we are better when we have more perspectives informing our work.
Vanessa Wakeman: Yes. And I love the example that you gave about Christopher Columbus. I think we are all being a little Christopher Columbused in this moment, right?
For people who don’t know, or who don’t have access to the resources to get the facts, it again makes the case for why we need to make sure nonprofits are continuing to tell their stories, sharing their data, and taking advantage of the fact that they are among the most trusted institutions — beyond government and corporations.
I think that is a really important and positive thing for organizations to lean on. So thank you.
And then my last question: You are a writer. If you had to describe what the foundation is writing into the history of our country today, what would you say? If there was a page dedicated to that in your book, what would you say?
Jen Ford Reedy: Yes.
You know what? I think you’re the first person to call me a writer. The book hasn’t come out yet, but I still don’t think of myself that way. I did write the book, but I think I’m a practitioner who wrote some stuff down.
I think part of what I would say is that right now we have the challenge in this country of everything being political — and by political, I mean polarized. Whatever you do, you’re pulled into saying, “Okay, that’s a right or left way of thinking.” It’s hard to not have everything become politicized in that way.
And everything has become national. You see school board elections in our region where the campaign issues are abortion, and you’re like, “A school board in this town isn’t going to make any difference on abortion.” But we are consumed by national issues and national politics.
I really believe that the kind of community-grounded, community-led problem-solving we are doing at Bush Foundation is important toward localization, depolarization, and seeing each other as human beings who are tied together and whose fates are intertwined.
I think that how our nation moves forward will depend, in part, on whether those of us who are actually living in proximity with each other are able to understand each other, communicate, and work together toward shared aspirations.
I don’t think that, in and of itself, is the solution to all of our national problems. But I actually don’t think we can solve our national problems without supporting people’s ability, in their own communities, to understand each other, work across differences, and make progress for their lives, their kids’ lives, and their communities.
Vanessa Wakeman: I agree with that. I think that community is incredibly important and has the ability to create change. If we have enough communities working together, that can influence the larger geographic and national conversation. And so, I think we do need to start at that micro level with communities.
Again, this was a fantastic conversation, and I really appreciate your insights and your historical context. I feel like we need a part two in the future once I’ve read the entire book because I know there will be even more questions. But thank you so much for joining us. This was perfect.
Jen Ford Reedy: That sounds good. Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Vanessa Wakeman: I would encourage all of our listeners to check out Jen’s book. I am also going to use her title as a call to action: Folks, please be good at philanthropy!
Jen made some fantastic and timely points. Her comments about working at the community level to drive change and how the Bush Foundation thinks about its grantmaking make the many issues that we are collectively attempting to address feel more achievable.
When we think about protecting our democracy and strengthening civic engagement, overwhelmingly, people are seeking to create the conditions in which they can care for their families and keep them safe. So yes, investing in communities absolutely makes sense.
I also loved learning about the North Dakota Native Tourism Alliance, the partnership between the tribes in North Dakota and the Commerce Department. Developing tours so that each reservation gets to control the narrative about their tribe while also creating economic opportunities feels so aligned with the idea of protecting democracy and serving the people.
And yes, while every foundation operates differently, the Bush Foundation clearly recognizes that the lived experiences of the people in the communities they partner with often position them as the best possible source for ideas and change. That’s a fantastic philanthropic model.
Thank you all for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed today’s conversation. Be sure to follow the show on our website, thewakemanagency.com, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen so you never miss an episode. Don’t forget, we drop new episodes on Tuesdays. Be sure to tune in next week. See you then!