The National Task Force on Community Leadership

Over the course of the summer, a broadly representative 30-member National Task Force on Community Leadership (NTF) was recruited. Chaired by Mike Howe, former president of the East Bay Community Foundation and currently based at Stanford, the NTF is a one-time, high profile effort to create frameworks for approaching community leadership at the individual community foundation and field levels. “Theory of change” was chosen as the methodology because it defines all of the building blocks necessary to bring about a long-term goal.2 It is particularly useful for community foundations because of its versatility: 1) it defines outcomes without prescribing how to get there; 2) it can be used both for planning and evaluation; 3) it provides systematic and sequential pathways to achieve desired change; and 4) it dissects complex concepts into discrete (but often interrelated) elements.

Composed of philanthropic leaders drawn largely from community foundations, the NTF held its inaugural meeting at Stanford University at the end of September. Over a two-day period, NTF members engaged in exercises and conversations designed to surface what distinguishes community leadership from other forms of philanthropic activity, and to determine what it takes to develop the stamina to exercise community leadership on a continuous basis.

Among the issues the NTF is addressing are:

• how community leadership practiced by community foundations results in positive and measurable community improvement.
• the relationships that a community foundation must have to work together with diverse constituencies to create thriving, equitable and inclusive communities.
• how community leadership can engage donors’ intellectual, political, social and financial capital on issues that are critical to community well being.
• high impact individual and collective strategies and roles that will build and sustain momentum on community leadership as a priority within community foundations and across the field.
• ways to measure community leadership impact at the individual community foundation and field levels – and how to gauge and track progress toward community leadership as a defining core competency at the field level.

A Community Leadership Theory of Change for Individual Community Foundations. Out of the mountains of fodder produced at the Stanford meeting, a “take one” draft Community Leadership Theory of Change for individual community foundations was produced. The draft Theory of Change describes the ideal, or “ultimate outcome” as:

The community foundation is a driving force, organizing and mobilizing people, institutions and resources in a broadly inclusive way to address the community’s most critical or persistent issues and produce significant, widely shared and lasting results for the entire community.

To move toward this ideal, a community foundation must have: a) values, culture and will;
b) credibility; c) access to resources; and d) the requisite understanding and skills. In theory of change construction, these are called first-level preconditions or building blocks. For each of these first-level preconditions, there are numerous second-level preconditions. Successive levels of preconditions are defined until a clear picture emerges of how to reach the ultimate outcome.

The draft Community Leadership Theory of Change includes the ultimate outcome and the first two levels of preconditions. It was critiqued by the NTF during a three-hour web conference on December 19. Chief among the NTF’s concerns are that community foundations will view the theory of change as applying to large community foundations only and jump to the conclusion that all of the elements must be in place before a community foundation begins exercising community leadership. If this happens, we will have failed.

A Work Group of NTF members will pay particular attention to correcting these misconceptions in the course of refining the draft and constructing a third level of preconditions. Among other concerns NTF members expressed about this first – and partial – iteration are:

• Incorporating the notion of creating community, of collective responsibility and civic unity.
• The need to be more explicit about the fact that community foundations act in concert with others, must know and earn the respect of authentic leaders in the community, and approach community leadership with humility and passion.
• Confusion over what is meant by “revenue model,” particularly if the term contributes to the misconception that community leadership depends upon a large asset base. The intent is to convey the importance of ready access to flexible resources commensurate with need and opportunity.
• Dispelling the notion that “donor focused” and “community leadership focused” are “either/or” instead of “both/and.” There is synergy to be gained from an integrated approach to donor engagement and community leadership.

One of the final steps in developing the individual community foundation theory of change will be to identify “broken links” – factors that impede the ability of community foundations to become leadership institutions. The broken links identified as a result of the individual community foundation theory of change will provide the jumping off point for a field level theory of change.

Field Level Theory of Change. Later this winter, we will begin developing a community foundation field level theory of change. Not only will it literally take community leadership to another level, it will lay out pathways for other actors, such as the Council, regional associations, and private foundations, to engage more intentionally and systematically in community leadership.

There are many ways to look at a field level theory of change. One is as an inventory of investment options for creating a community leadership movement. National and regional private foundations interested in community leadership might use it to assess their investments within the context of a framework whose elements can be tested and measured. CFLT might use the field level theory of change as a tool to determine its community leadership priorities or to target its fundraising efforts at specific high-impact interventions. Regional associations might use it to promote collaboration between its private and community foundation members, and to test the potential for collective action on tough issues. Groups of community foundations might use it as a framework for analyzing and removing barriers to fulfilling their community leadership potential.

The Future of the National Task Force. The National Task Force plans to meet via web conference in the spring and to have a final two-day meeting at the end of May. There is considerably more that this cadre of leaders could do to advance community leadership.

The future of community leadership depends upon “inside the field” advocates. This group could use its considerable clout to ensure that intellectual resources and experiential learning opportunities devoted to community leadership exist for a sufficient period of time and in sufficient quantity to ensure that a tipping point is reached. They could be active stump speakers at philanthropic gatherings locally, regionally, and nationally. They could tackle the issue of how to make community leadership a more robust part of National Standards. They could serve as learning laboratories on theory of change implementation.

2 For more information about theory of change, go to http://www.theoryofchange.org/index.html.