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Effective Foundation Management: 14 Challenges of Philanthropic Leadership—And How to Outfox Them

According to Joel Orosz the real reason that foundations are unable to move the needle on some of the most pressing social problems is embarrassment.

Writer of Effective Foundation Management is Joel Orosz from The Grantmaking School. As the book will be published in October this year, we draw from reviews and articles by others.

Foundation Boards Should Demand Failure, Expert Claims is the title of an article written by Albert Ruesga posted on the opinion blog of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

Ruesga highlights what Orosz writes on the subject of risk-taking. Foundations have the freedom to try everything in order to tackle failures of the market, the government and fundraisers. If this were the case newspapers would be filled with groundbreaking social experiments, he states. However, the reality is different!
Are we being too shy, modest and risk averse? Orosz claims that boards should demand failures. Experimental failure, not just any kind of failure, is the cost of innovation. This will relieve leaders from their modest ambitions, cautiousness, ensuring for projects to succeed. So they no longer need to restrict themselves to uncomplicated projects, but can start solving difficult and complex issues by trial and error.

Dr. Orosz shares lessons learnt that will provoke lively discussions in this complicated sector. Mae Hong of The Field Foundation of Illinois state that Effective Foundation Management fills a gap in current literature on philanthropy. According to Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Orosz brings to the surface the complexity and challenges of the management of a foundation, a field on its own. An interesting book for anyone interested in performance improvement of foundations!