The Future of Philanthropy and Employee Engagement with Elizabeth Wong

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This is a podcast episode titled, The Future of Philanthropy and Employee Engagement with Elizabeth Wong. The summary for this episode is: <p>On this episode of The Future of Teamwork, Elizabeth Wong of Foundation Source speaks with host and Huddl3 Group CEO Dane Groeneveld about her work in the philanthropy business guiding organizations and foundations toward their giving goals. She also discusses how the industry has changed in her three decade career, as well as trends occurring and how it will affect the future of philanthropic giving.</p><p><br></p><p>Conversation highlights: </p><ul><li>[00:11&nbsp;-&nbsp;02:16] Introduction to Elizabeth Wong</li><li>[02:20&nbsp;-&nbsp;03:19] Working with professional grant makers and a leadership team unrelated to family members for large foundations</li><li>[03:21&nbsp;-&nbsp;06:07] Elizabeth's approach to working with foundations and driving outcomes</li><li>[06:09&nbsp;-&nbsp;07:59] A shift in donor expectations throughout Elizabeth's three decades in the field</li><li>[08:07&nbsp;-&nbsp;09:44] How individual philanthropy can be, and how employees can be part of the story of success</li><li>[09:47&nbsp;-&nbsp;11:31] The importance of company purpose - becoming a part of a community</li><li>[11:32&nbsp;-&nbsp;15:03] Youth wellness development and patterns emerging to address immediate needs and providing a compelling workplace</li><li>[15:27&nbsp;-&nbsp;17:16] Future opportunities in the philanthropy world and serving audiences</li><li>[17:18&nbsp;-&nbsp;19:30] How the national discourse frames and affects philanthropic giving's challenges</li><li>[19:32&nbsp;-&nbsp;20:17] The best questions are the hardest to answer</li><li>[20:17&nbsp;-&nbsp;26:52] On finding projects that are going to move the needle forward today</li><li>[27:11&nbsp;-&nbsp;28:38] Themes in philanthropy Elizabeth finds exciting</li><li>[28:44&nbsp;-&nbsp;30:32] Forming a board, and why you may not need a mission statement</li><li>[30:37&nbsp;-&nbsp;33:59] The importance of reflecting back on the grants you gave</li><li>[32:08&nbsp;-&nbsp;34:37] First dollars in and Dane's experience in rural Italy</li><li>[34:40&nbsp;-&nbsp;36:51] Government and Foundation partnerships</li><li>[39:14&nbsp;-&nbsp;40:44] The power imbalance between fund seekers and funders</li><li>[40:58&nbsp;-&nbsp;42:54] How to get your employees involved outside dollars</li><li>[43:14&nbsp;-&nbsp;44:38] The nature of foundation folks and being stretched thin</li></ul>
Introduction to Elizabeth Wong
02:05 MIN
Working with professional grant makers and a leadership team unrelated to family members for large foundations
00:59 MIN
Elizabeth's approach to working with foundations and driving outcomes
02:45 MIN
A shift in donor expectations throughout Elizabeth's three decades in the field
01:49 MIN
How individual philanthropy can be, and how employees can be part of the story of success
01:37 MIN
The importance of company purpose - becoming a part of a community
01:43 MIN
Youth wellness development and patterns emerging to address immediate needs and providing a compelling workplace
03:31 MIN
Future opportunities in the philanthropy world and serving audiences
01:48 MIN
How the national discourse frames and affects philanthropic giving's challenges
02:12 MIN
The best questions are the hardest to answer
00:45 MIN
On finding projects that are going to move the needle forward today
06:34 MIN
Themes in philanthropy Elizabeth finds exciting
01:27 MIN
Forming a board, and why you may not need a mission statement
01:48 MIN
The importance of reflecting back on the grants you gave
03:22 MIN
First dollars in and Dane's experience in rural Italy
02:29 MIN
Government and Foundation partnerships
02:11 MIN
The power imbalance between fund seekers and funders
01:30 MIN
How to get your employees involved outside dollars
01:55 MIN
The nature of foundation folks and being stretched thin
01:23 MIN

Dane Groeneveld: Welcome to the Future of Teamwork podcast. My name's Dane Groeneveld, CEO of HUDDL3 Group, and today I'm pleased to have Elizabeth Wong joining me from Foundation Source. Elizabeth is the National Director of Philanthropic Advisory Services. I think I got that right, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Wong: Yes.

Dane Groeneveld: Very good. So thanks for joining me. Maybe to give our listeners a little bit of a bearing about who you are, Elizabeth, you could tell me and tell us a little bit about your personal and business story. What brought you to this great role that you've got in front of you today with Foundation Source?

Elizabeth Wong: Will do, and thank you so much for having me and Foundation Source here today. I've been in philanthropy for about three decades. And I'm originally from San Francisco, California. Ended up going to school on the East coast and living in Tokyo and working there for a few years and then returning to the East coast for graduate school. And I found myself with an opportunity to work at the Council on Foundations in Washington DC as my first role outside of graduate school. And that was the beginning of the 30 year career in supporting, working in, and partnering in philanthropy and partnering with philanthropists.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And interestingly, in the world of organized philanthropy and staffed institutions, the large foundations that you've heard of, partnering with the founder and the original contributor to a foundation is a little bit unusual. And so I developed a practice, if you will, of working with live donors.

Dane Groeneveld: Okay. That's very cool. So tell me a little bit more, you say the large foundations, so the big ones that we all see in the news, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, things like that. So they're staffed organizations, they tend to be more single donor or?

Elizabeth Wong: Well, some of the traditional foundations in this country, Kellogg, Ford, MacArthur, Rockefeller, those donors are no longer alive. And so you're working with professional grant makers and a leadership team that is most likely not a member of the family.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And so that has a very different look and feel than a small family led foundation, and even than Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Dane Groeneveld: Got it. Yeah, I wasn't even thinking back to Kellogg and Ford and Rockefeller, but that absolutely makes sense to me now. That's really interesting. So you developed this approach of working with the live donors. Can you tell us a little bit more about the approach? What is it that you do that drives different outcomes?

Elizabeth Wong: I think, initially when an individual or a family first creates a private foundation, it really by definition is an extension of the charitable giving that they've undoubtedly been involved with sometimes for years and decades. And one of the signatures is that philanthropy is truly and deeply personal. So I think one of my roles as a facilitator to meaningful philanthropy, and that is meaningful for both the philanthropists and the foundation and the recipient of those grant funds, is to help find relevance and to help make connections between what a philanthropist a donor may want to accomplish, what's meaningful to them-

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And then finding partners, nonprofit, public charity, implementing partners in the world to make that a reality.

Dane Groeneveld: Yep.

Elizabeth Wong: I think it's often that personal connection that can sometimes be overlooked. There are a lot of drivers for setting up a foundation. Probably one of the first that many philanthropists will hear will be about finances, taxes, what makes sense at the end of the year, this sort of thing. And while that is all true, I think it's really pivotal, at the early stages in particular, to make it relevant and connected to who you are and what's going to be meaningful. Because without that it can be a little bit unfulfilling.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes. No, that makes a lot of sense. And in today's climate that we live in, giving and living your purpose has become much more important to the everyday employee or manager in organizations. Yes, there's the big families who are thinking legacy and giving back, but we're seeing this more and more part of the daily fabric of organizations that are looking to engage, empower their teams, and really be a part of the community. So as you look at your career spanning the last three decades, have you seen a shift in terms of the types of live donors that you're working with or how they're emerging within smaller businesses or certain communities that you wouldn't have historically expected?

Elizabeth Wong: It's interesting. I have found that from an individual perspective, the drive to give is something I've seen throughout my career.

Dane Groeneveld: Okay.

Elizabeth Wong: In many ways, I think you point to an evolution of the discourse at a corporate level.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: I mentioned that I've been involved in philanthropy for three decades, but I suppose it makes sense to mention that I made a stop in the middle of that and was on the nonprofit side in partnering with the Aspen Institute and their program, which is now called Business and Society. And this was many, many years ago. But I've always been fascinated by this connection between the company and it's for profit purpose and it's relationship to not only its employees, but it's the communities in which they operate. And I think that's where I've seen a particular shift and an expansion of what corporate purpose is.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. And when you think about how that comes together, you mentioned there beyond the team that does the finance and the tax and the compliance, there's this importance of bringing the right partners together around the, I think you specifically said, the relevant theme or the objective. How is that changing today given that you've got more employees that want to be part of the story, more partner organizations? I would imagine a lot of organizations are starting to pop up, particularly through COVID. Is that becoming a more fragmented environment to chart and put teams together within?

Elizabeth Wong: One of the things that I'm constantly struck by is how individual, in addition to personal, how individual philanthropy can be. So whether it's a family led philanthropic effort in the form of a foundation or it's a corporate led philanthropic endeavor, I do believe that each entity, each leadership group chooses its own path. Because the rules that govern this work are very broad and inviting and allow for innovation and individual style. So when I think about how a corporation might engage its employees or its leadership and ultimately the community in which it works, I can think of a hundred different variations for a hundred different companies that do it.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: I think though what I'm inspired by is the idea that it is common and it is understood that a company's purpose isn't only to produce what it produces or to sell what it sells, but that their footprint with their employees and with their communities is meaningful and important and not something to be overlooked.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And so I see companies being more intentional about that footprint. Sometimes it's through grant making, sometimes it's through volunteership, and generally through exercising a leadership voice on issues that may be of relevance to their company, but clearly are also relevant to the communities in which they work. So environmental footprint could be a somewhat obvious one.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: I think it's certainly become part of business to think about that footprint, but I also see companies are engaging community partners in that discussion.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: So it's not just about reporting.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. The environmental footprints a huge one. And some of our businesses are very heavy and the oil and gas energy market. So there's a big level of focus there. Another one that I'm starting to see more evidence of is development of our youth from a wellness standpoint, from a job creation career path standpoint. But we're all seeing, particularly as we become more environmentally aware and change the industries of the future, that our youth today are going to be entering a very different community. Not just a workplace, but a very different community. And are you starting to see perhaps more or less focus on projects and initiatives, grants, volunteering that are targeted at our youth today than perhaps in earlier decades? Is there any sort of pattern emerging?

Elizabeth Wong: One of the things I think is fascinating is... Well, again, I don't want to spend all of our time talking only about corporate philanthropy, but I think that companies are increasingly recognizing that who they are in the community matters to their future employees.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And not only that, but that a company can and possibly should play a role in educating the candidate pool, again their future employees, and participating perhaps earlier in the pipeline of great team members. And so I see many companies thinking about youth as future audience, future employees, future consumers, all of the above in a really positive way. And seeing what role the corporation can play in helping to develop youth and to add greater opportunities to their communities. So it's interesting, I think, perhaps what may have shifted in philanthropy is that a hundred years ago we called it charity and it was a lot more about addressing immediate needs: Food, clothing, roof over your head-

Dane Groeneveld: That early Maslow hierarchy. Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: Yeah. And now I see more engagement of youth, both in terms of training opportunities and education, but also in drawing out the voices of youth and in creating platforms to hear what is on young people's minds. And that does relate to climate change, I believe, and to what they look forward to in terms of a compelling workplace.

Dane Groeneveld: That's interesting when you say voice of the youth. Like you just shared, I've always associated big philanthropy or charity with those immediate needs, or maybe the people who go out and buy the artworks and make them available accessible to the public in low cost or free museums, and those types of things. But when you start thinking about philanthropic activities that are really more of a movement than an individual action, there's really something there. It talks to who can we be serving in the future? What continued role can we play in serving those people as their needs changed? So it becomes a lot more dynamic it seems.

Elizabeth Wong: Dynamic, and I guess I would say also, optimistic and hopeful. And I really appreciate when a philanthropic entity recognizes that it has an opportunity certainly to address immediate needs, but it also has the ability and sometimes the luxury to look ahead and to think about what the needs of our society may be 10 and 20 and 30 years down the line. And what role can they play to help contribute in their small way to that.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And if companies and philanthropists who may have just transitioned from a life in the working world, if they are seeing what sort of the future opportunities are and they're able to help create a pathway and inspire young people to pursue those opportunities and to be ready for that, then I think that's a really nice alignment of capabilities and opportunities.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, absolutely. So when you think to that voice of youth, you mentioned climate change, are there other key themes or even specific projects that you are seeing out there now that just capture your imagination, that you just see as, wow, this is really starting to build a lot of traction or following?

Elizabeth Wong: I think, and again, in some ways this is not going to come as a surprise given the discourse in our country today, but I've seen more foundations across the board, whether family led, privately operated, corporate led, think about the role that diversity, equity, and inclusion plays in their grant making. And candidly, I think for many of them, this is a new question.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: They hadn't added that lens to their grant making. And whether it's working in animal welfare or afterschool tutoring programs or health research, I think that those questions have been really, really compelling when asked and when our of foundation leaders, clients, and partners have reflected upon their own work. That adding that layer, I think can really pull some interesting challenges and opportunities for shifting your grant making, or perhaps the lens through which you're evaluating a request for funding that you might receive.

Dane Groeneveld: I think so. Absolutely. One of my mentors always said, some of the best questions, you do a disservice by answering. He's like," The best questions you need to ask, what other questions does that generate?" And you're absolutely right. If you think diversity, equity, inclusion, particularly for some of these longer standing organizations, foundations, they can now start asking," Well, what do I do now? But what have I historically done that put certain groups in our community at a disadvantage or didn't give those people access to things that we've historically found important?" And it can create a huge number of ideas. I guess, the challenge then is going back to that point about optimism and dynamism. How do you find the best projects that are really going to move the needle today for the people who most need the access or the support or the encouragement?

Elizabeth Wong: Well, and I think a similar adjacent statement, might be that some of the best questions are the hardest to answer.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I like that.

Elizabeth Wong: And it's interesting, in terms of selecting your partnerships, what organizations or what efforts are you going to fund? I go back to the question of relevance and meaning for a foundation's board, a foundation's leadership group, the family, the company. And I recognize that there is some controversy in that. Should it be driven by the foundation's leadership? And I guess I would continue to say, I think the best philanthropic experiences are informed by not only financial engagement, but in being interested, captivated, compelled by what that foundation is doing. And I will often pose this question to a philanthropic leader, and that is sort of twofold. What's keeping you up at night and what's getting you up in the morning when it relates to your giving? And that's why I would assert that ensuring that there is something compelling for the philanthropist is important. You want there to be that drive. You want the board to be thinking about what problems they want to solve before they go to sleep at night, and you want them to jump out of bed in the morning eager to be part of that solution. So I find that on the giving side, that's sort of an optimal state of engagement.

Dane Groeneveld: Excellent. Very good. And then a final question on that, and then I'll let you perhaps take us in a little bit of a different direction. But when it comes to that relevance, what keeps you up at night, what you wake up for in the morning, are you seeing a tighter grouping of initiatives and projects that are being funded from some of these foundations? Or are you still seeing people looking quite broadly in terms of where they engage and what they engage in?

Elizabeth Wong: Well, I'm laughing because if I've done my job well, then I hope that foundation leaders will scale the type of work they do to the funds they have in their interests and expertise. So another approach that I like to deploy or use to help someone think this through is where do you want to be relative to the conversation with your implementing partner? Do you want to be one of a hundred, a thousand contributors? In which case you are saying," I participate, I'm a part of something much bigger." Or do you possibly want to be one out of three funders at the table, such that you are deeply engaged, you know the executive director, you've conducted the site visit, you might know a little something or a lot of something about the work they do, and your footprint is very much on this in a helpful way. You may be lending expertise and all sorts of things. So I think the answer to your question is very much dependent on what choices a funder might make.

Dane Groeneveld: That latter category that you shared, the being one of three and really being deeply engaged, that excites me because that's where the best teamwork happens. And I think my experience, and we've only had very recent experience setting up a small foundation with the help of Foundation Source, but my experience is that it becomes work to constantly be looking at lots of different things. Whereas if you really focus on your passion and find those right partners, you can help make a lot more impact than just the dollars that you bring. And it's an easier message to share with your employees and other community members. So I like that concept of teaming up and being around the table with one or two or three of those key groups.

Elizabeth Wong: You have a few compelling stories to tell. And one of the trade offs is that it comes with sometimes making difficult choices, particularly for a high profile individual or a public facing organization. There are always going to be asks across a broad geographical swath, across different sectors, or again, it could be education, health, climate, who knows what. And while difficult to say no and to narrow down that range of what you try to do, the payoff at the end is that you're going to know more. You're going to probably be able to make more of a difference in that narrower field.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I like that a lot. So I've asked you a lot of questions which tend to encompass the larger end of corporate giving, corporate philanthropy, and I sense you touched on there, we don't want to just talk about that. So perhaps you can tell me about some other themes that you're seeing in philanthropy that are exciting you. Maybe it's more at the individual level or at the partner level. I'd love to know what you are seeing emerge in the teams that help execute and deploy philanthropic activities.

Elizabeth Wong: Well, I think one of the things that isn't talked about a lot in family led philanthropy is the incredible amount of collaboration that is required within and among a board. And that's one of the areas that we at Foundation Source spend a lot of time and attention and energy working on with our clients. And that is how do you form a leadership team that that can have independent thoughts but ultimately move in the same direction? And it probably boils down to the same thing around trade offs.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: Can we do everything? Probably not. Can we agree on the mix of involvement that we may want to have? That would be the goal. But so much of it is really trying to draw out the individual voices and then somehow form a single voice for the foundation.

Dane Groeneveld: Neat. And we're not at that stage with our own foundation. So both for my benefit and the listeners benefit, how do you help first time foundations in starting that effort to bring a board together and have those conversations, meetings, hear those individual voices?

Elizabeth Wong: Well, one of my favorite things is to take the pressure off. And in the first year, even in the second year, to say you do not have to have your very neat and tidy elevator speech describing what you do.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: One of the first questions people, new sort of foundation leaders come to me and say is," I need to write a mission statement." And I often say," Do you?" Because I think that there's a tremendous value in learning by doing.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And in this case, it's learning by grant making and figuring out where your foundation fits. Learning who some of the really compelling nonprofit leaders are, what can you learn from them, how can you support them, and understand the challenges that are being faced in really making social change. And so I think there's tremendous value at the early stages to being flexible and sort of nimble with your grant making dollars out the door, but also really being a student and not thinking that you have to have all the answers before you write your first grant check.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And so then when you bring that back to the board table, I think a lot of it is taking that time to focus on learning and to say," We made this grant. What do we think now?" Do we like how this organization is engaging the community? What are we looking for in terms of all of these things we've talked about, whether it's diversity, equity, inclusion, or whether it's urban versus rural? Are we looking for low hanging fruit? Are we looking for a really, really tough challenge? Do we want to be middle of the pack or do we want to take much greater risks and know that we may face failure sometimes? I think having that board, that leadership group ask itself a series of existential questions can really help create an identity for the organization.

Dane Groeneveld: I love that constant about being a student and learning. And I think that applies in business, as well as in giving, as well as in families. We had one of our guests the other day saying Families are really teams too. But the learning's really important with all the change that we're dealing with. We were actually last week fortunate enough to be in rural Italy, way out off the beaten path not a tourist destination, with one of our business partners. And we were there to determine what projects we want to support that help the youth have more vibrant economic outcomes. And then parts of rural Italy now, you've got these towns where there are no jobs. So the youth are leaving and they're going to Rome and other big cities. And so you've got this elderly population that's living very subsistence based, still farming, still running their small crafts businesses, and the townships are dying because there aren't people in every house. There aren't kids in the streets or in the schools. And it was fascinating because what we went there to achieve wasn't what we came away from. We came away with this feeling of," Wow, here's a problem we'd like to solve, creating more opportunity for our youths. But are we really going to make an impact in this small rural setting, and where could we be making more of an impact?" Is this a challenge, is this an opportunity that we ourselves can drive enough success in? Or could we perhaps be a little bit more attached to something that's nearer to our expertise and of a scale that we can move the needle on?" And it was just, we didn't come away with explicit answers, but we came away with more questions. And I feel relieved that you are saying these groups should be continuously learning and not putting too much pressure on, because I guess the discovery process has been very real and it's created a good connectivity amongst the team that's looking at what problem we're really going to solve.

Elizabeth Wong: You've also raised, I think, a really important point, and that is sort of in a bigger picture, what role can philanthropy play? And I've always really been just intrigued and compelled by the notion that philanthropic dollars are not necessarily the final solution. They're not the last dollars in. I think it's more the other way around where they can play such an incredible role as the first dollars in.

Dane Groeneveld: Oh, I like that.

Elizabeth Wong: And this may be less around cultural preservation, so supporting the symphony, the arts, museums, but perhaps more around some of the social intractable challenges that you're describing. Is there something that a foundation might be able to do to stimulate thinking, new approaches to a societal challenge that ultimately others will participate in and start to take up? And could these solutions become in more institutionalized?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: And there is controversy around large philanthropies being in discussion with government.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And I am showing my cards here, that I understand that large philanthropies do not necessarily believe that they can be the long term solution. And so the partnership with government has to do with that line of inquiry, that with that long term thinking, if we can start something, might you be able to continue it?

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: Is a conversation that I believe is happening.

Dane Groeneveld: The framing is really good because a lot of people, naturally, they're looking for skeletons in the closet here. They're like," How does this organization influence government for their own benefit?" But the way that you just frame that, how might you continue this good work that we're hoping to start? Number one, I think it's got more of a futuristic outlook. And number two, it's not a controlling position. It's like," We want to start this, but where could you take it?" And that's really important.

Elizabeth Wong: Well, and I think what's interesting about this frame is that it can happen at so many levels, and I like to talk about the zeros. That you don't have to have the dozens of zeros after your number in order to have this type of conversation. One of the things that I love about philanthropy is, again, sometimes there's this freedom to look around and see what's wrong and can we fix it. And you can be a small entity and figure out that there might be a small hitch somewhere that's preventing something from progressing. Perhaps it's the absence of information about public transportation that is holding people back from getting to school.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: Perhaps it is the absence of a technology tool that is stopping a student from advancing. Or maybe it's that people haven't thought about what nontraditional software engineers can add to the discussion around app development.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, absolutely.

Elizabeth Wong: And again, then we're back to voice, which I like.

Dane Groeneveld: I love it. Yeah, that's really neat. I've got a ton of points. I think I've taken about three and a half pages of notes. A ton of points to summarize on. But before we start to wrap up on what I thought were some of the great soundbites of this conversation, Elizabeth, are there any sort of key hopes that you have for the future? Talking about some of these points, things where you hope to see philanthropy more commonly embraced, more part of the dialogue for teams at every level of the economy or organization?

Elizabeth Wong: One of the things that I found in doing this over a three decade period is that there have been, and there are in some cases intrinsic power imbalances between a funding entity and a fund seeking entity. And I think that while that may be part of the conversation, I've always been encouraged when the two parties involved see it as a partnership. And I think that dialogue is being broken wide open, and there are more and more examples of collaboration, partnership, learning. And it's not just about the check and who has the power to write the check. I like to think that both people involved, both entities involved in that conversation, each have some power, some knowledge, and something to offer in the exchange. And so that's sort of where I really like to focus my energies.

Dane Groeneveld: No, I like that. And again, that ties into teamwork. It's not parent- child, it's adult- adult. Let's see where we're both coming from and what we can do to help each other.

Elizabeth Wong: Yeah.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, I like that.

Elizabeth Wong: Very much so.

Dane Groeneveld: Where you've got a foundation, just a continuation on that theme. Where you've got a foundation like ours, the Team Up Foundation, which is attached to an organization with a thousand employees. Is there a role that employees tend to play to help with that bridging of separation of the finance and the passion and the day to day kind of skills and connections that can be leveraged to build the partnership?

Elizabeth Wong: I think there absolutely can be. Employees bring all sorts of perspectives about what community needs they're seeing on the ground, or in their particular geographies, if there are different communities in which you're working. Certainly, there's volunteering that that can come up where different skill sets and or expertise may come in handy. It could be a non- skilled volunteer day, where everyone's just given a hammer.

Dane Groeneveld: Packing backpacks.

Elizabeth Wong: Packing backpacks.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah.

Elizabeth Wong: But there are other ways to deploy volunteers and expertise. It could be around helping a non- profit to strengthen their financial plan or their business plan, if that's one of the things that... It could be fundamental in sending someone over to help figure out some of the IT challenges or logistics or mapping out how to run an event. It could be something very much needed in deploying your social media. How do you reach your audience or how do you get better at storytelling? So I think there are plenty of things for those thousand people to do if you want them to.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: And then I think also helpful to recognize that organizing, deploying, kind of drawing out those resources from a group as large as a thousand also is a body of work in it of itself.

Dane Groeneveld: Yes.

Elizabeth Wong: One of the things we find so often with corporate foundation folks is that this is their third day job.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, yeah. They're all stretched.

Elizabeth Wong: And I understand being careful with your resources, but I would say calibrate ambitions around how to engage employees with allocation of resources to make that a good experience, both for the employees, your grantee partners, and the company.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, that's great too.

Elizabeth Wong: Corporate foundation. There are a lot of parties to get engaged there.

Dane Groeneveld: There are. And there's a lot of leaders out there like me who have a huge ambition that they then endow upon their employees who may share that ambition, but may not quite have the level of resource or time being made available.

Elizabeth Wong: Great news, Dane had another good idea. Concerning news, Dane had another good idea.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah, exactly. I'm sure that's true of a lot of organizations. All right, well that's a good note to sell for taking our foundation forward.

Elizabeth Wong: And I think, also Dane, it really speaks to teamwork.

Dane Groeneveld: It does.

Elizabeth Wong: It's just sort of recognizing that great ideas can be great, but they also come with work.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. I love that.

Elizabeth Wong: For the team.

Dane Groeneveld: Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. Well, it's been a wonderful conversational, Elizabeth. Just to summarize, there's been some great points around philanthropy, both being both individual and personal. I loved your point on the boards understanding the individual voices before we come up with our collective voice. The optimism and that whole sense of dynamic sort of future movement in today's philanthropy is exciting. And particularly, tied to your point about philanthropy, particularly in a smaller setting, can be first dollars in not last dollars in. Let's pilot something new. Let's adjust a small bottleneck in the process and see if it can create a movement. That's very empowering for all who want to be involved in their own small way, which I thought was great. And this whole concept of voice, voice of our youth, voice of our partners, when we're teaming up, voice of our employees who are being burdened with all of these ambitions of leaders. I think empowering voices is huge. So I'm sure that's not a complete summary, but they were some points that really stood out to me, and I've certainly learned a lot. And I appreciate you taking the time to join us today.

Elizabeth Wong: Thank you so much. It's been wonderful to talk with you.

Dane Groeneveld: You bet. And how can anyone looking to start a foundation or optimize a foundation, find you Elizabeth or Foundation Source?

Elizabeth Wong: Oh, well thank you for asking. Foundationsource. com is our website and you can always reach out there and find any of us to talk about what you want to accomplish with your philanthropy, and we'd be delighted to help.

Dane Groeneveld: Excellent. I think it's a good investment of time, and I think you guys are great partners so thank you for all you do for us.

Elizabeth Wong: Thank you.

DESCRIPTION

On this episode of The Future of Teamwork, Elizabeth Wong of Foundation Source speaks with host and Huddl3 Group CEO Dane Groeneveld about her work in the philanthropy business guiding organizations and foundations toward their giving goals. She also discusses how the industry has changed in her three decade career, as well as trends occurring and how it will affect the future of philanthropic giving.

Today's Host

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Dane Groeneveld

|HUDDL3 Group CEO

Today's Guests

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Elizabeth Wong

|National Director of Philanthropic Advisory Services at Foundation Source