by Grant Oliphant
President and CEO
The Pittsburgh Foundation

When we launched PittsburghGives and the Day of Giving five years ago, none of us envisioned the phenomenon it would become. The program has grown every year since, and all of us involved have been gratified by what our community has accomplished together. The question now is: Where do we go from here?

The question arises because the program has reached an inflection point. Its matching pool cannot sustain the sort of growth we have been experiencing. From barely a thousand donors contributing in our first year, Day of Giving grew to almost 18,000 donors last year, and that rate of increase is likely to continue. Unfortunately, the resources available for our matching pool are limited, and in 2012 the “match” for every dollar donated dropped to a dime. As the match continues to decline in the face of rising demand, it begs the question of how long the program can continue and still be worthwhile.

In discussing this issue with The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Board and staff in recent months, along with nonprofit leaders in focus groups and individual conversations, we have kept returning to the basics. Why did we launch this program in the first place? Have we achieved what we set out to accomplish? And if so, is it time to move on or is there still more to be done?

The Foundation had three explicit goals in launching the Day of Giving.  First, we wanted to create a transparent, regional “one-stop shop” for information on area organizations and agencies. The result is PittsburghGives, which today houses information on over 700 of our region’s nonprofits and is one of our nation’s richest nonprofit databases.

Second, we hoped to increase the capacity of our community’s nonprofits to take advantage of new technology and social media to broaden their support among individual donors and expand their bases of charitable support. Thanks to Day of Giving, thousands of new donor relationships have been established, and the capacity of nonprofits to build on those relationships has increased dramatically.

Third, we wanted to make more people in our community aware of The Pittsburgh Foundation and the work we do. As our region’s major community foundation, we strive to be a vocal advocate for moving our community forward and support our nonprofits in operating at the forefront of trends in philanthropy, such as the rise of on-line giving and increasing demand for transparency. The Day of Giving is a clear demonstration of that and our model has become a benchmark for communities across the country.

In reflecting on these outcomes and the input we have received, we have decided to continue with the program for two more years but to begin to modify it slowly now while signaling that more significant changes lie ahead. Specifically, here is what we are planning:

1. On behalf of our Board, I am pleased to advise that our Day of Giving this year, set for October 3, 2013, will provide a matching pool of approximately $750,000 for Allegheny County and $100,000 for Westmoreland.
2. To ensure a robust match percentage for participating organizations, and to honor the program’s original intent, only the first $1,000 that any individual gives per organization will be eligible to participate in the match pool. Gifts over $1,000 will obviously be allowed but only the first $1,000 per individual per organization will share in the match. This compares to last year’s cap of $10,000.
3. We will host another “regular” Day of Giving in 2014, most likely to coincide with a nationwide program currently being planned for community foundations across the country.  This National Day of Giving, very much built on Pittsburgh’s model, has been tentatively scheduled by its organizers for sometime in the spring of 2014. We will share further details as they develop.
4. Our Day of Giving program will change in 2015. We are still figuring out how, but the important message for nonprofits now is that they refrain from building an expectation for Day of Giving into their annual budgets for 2015 and beyond.
5. We will be simplifying the profiles that nonprofits must complete on Pittsburgh Gives to be eligible for Day of Giving in response to comment from local charitable organizations. We are working with our technology partner to shorten profiles and simplify the story that nonprofits are trying to tell.

We are grateful to everyone in our community who has helped to make the Day of Giving the success that it undoubtedly is. Please be assured that going forwards we are focused on how best to preserve and further develop this program as a valued community asset.

By Grant Oliphant
President and CEO
The Pittsburgh Foundation

There’s a somewhat cynical assessment of America’s democratic election system that suggests we get the government we deserve. It speaks more to the all-too-frequent bouts of apathy on polling days than it does about the skills, vision and competency or otherwise of our election candidates.

But against the background of the on-going Federal investigation into Pittsburgh’s police operations, and the withdrawal of Luke Ravenstahl, the current incumbent, from our city’s mayoral elections, perhaps now is the time to be asking ourselves: What kind of future leadership do we want for our community?

History tells us that to envision the future, it helps to examine the past and Pittsburgh’s enormous advancements in recent years are unequivocal. Our city’s riverfronts are in the advanced stages of radical transformation, we are a recognized and respected leader of urban design and green building development, and we are at the forefront nationally of addressing urgent reform issues within our public school system.

We have a Cultural District that is second to none and less than two years ago, we were named America’s most liveable city. There is solid ground for optimism with an array of Downtown development projects on the drawing board and continued revitalization programs in our city neighborhoods.

But when the time comes to choose our next mayor – and The Pittsburgh Foundation is without fear or favor on whoever he or she may be – let us expect our new leader to embrace our city’s accomplishments while taking a bold and visionary stand in helping to shape Pittsburgh’s future.

Let us expect Pittsburgh’s civic leadership to nurture an atmosphere where business can thrive, where our hard-won reputation is advanced and where the vulnerable, the underprivileged and the disadvantaged are protected. Let us expect our leadership to work across all areas, including the corporate, nonprofit, academic and public sectors, in effective and inspiring partnerships that will foster innovation, entrepreneurship and creative solutions.

And let us elect a leader who will focus on Pittsburgh’s dominant critical issues, including those around race and poverty.

We should set the highest expectations for our next leader, regardless of who is elected Mayor in November. And regardless of who is elected, let us all pledge to play our part in striving to turn the big dreams we have for our community into reality.

 

Grant Oliphant, The Pittsburgh Foundation’s President and CEO, submitted the following written testimony calling for the existing charitable tax deduction to be safeguarded. His testimony was presented to a hearing on the Itemized Deduction for Charitable Contributions, House Committee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Representatives in February, 2013

Congressman Camp, Ranking Member Levin, and other Committee members, thank you for this opportunity to provide written testimony on the deduction for charitable contributions as part of the Committee’s work on comprehensive tax reform.  Especially, I would like to recognize members Jim Gerlach, Mike Kelly, and Allyson Schwartz, from my home state of Pennsylvania.

For the past five years I have served as President and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation, the 13th largest community foundation in the United States.  During this time, we have experienced consistent growth in terms of annual fundraising and currently The Pittsburgh Foundation’s assets are approximately $900 million.  This growth would not have been possible without the generosity and commitment of our donors and in 2012 alone, our donors gave $12.7 million from their funds at the Foundation to support the vital work of over 1,100 nonprofit organizations throughout the Pittsburgh region.  This was in addition to the $44 million in grants provided by The Pittsburgh Foundation to strengthen charitable programs in our local community to improve health care services, safeguard and develop educational opportunities for our children, enhance the arts and cultural activities, and provide human services programs to support the region’s most vulnerable citizens as well as addressing key issues concerning the well-being of our environment and economic development.

I highlight this information at the start of my testimony because unlike private or corporate foundations, community foundations serve a unique and significant role in philanthropy, a role that would be endangered, I believe irrevocably, by any reduction or elimination of the charitable tax deduction, which by its very creation was designed to help facilitate community-based charitable giving that is so well represented by The Pittsburgh Foundation.

Beyond the technical definition as tax-exempt public charities, community foundations are a critical tool in promoting self-sufficiency among nonprofit organizations and our community’s overall health by providing opportunities for donors to participate in place-based initiatives through the creation of funds to meet current and potential needs in perpetuity.

Furthermore, many leading community foundations, like The Pittsburgh Foundation, take on a broader responsibility to encourage and inspire charitable giving among individuals and families in local communities, and to provide professional expertise, guidance and innovative resources that help them to do so.

The community foundation sector in the U.S., collectively with approximately $55.6 billion in assets, advances the philosophy of Pittsburgh’s own Andrew Carnegie, “a person of wealth is an agent of civilization, and philanthropy is a tool for improving civilization while at the same time substituting for radical reforms.”   This philosophy holds true today but will be seriously undermined should individuals feel that they are no longer encouraged to participate in true community-based philanthropy in seeking to make a positive impact in their communities.

Such a level of discouragement would result, I believe, if proposals are successful to amend the current code governing the charitable tax deduction.  Currently the code serves not only as an invaluable monetary incentive, but also as tangible evidence that philanthropic good work is recognized, valued and supported.

The charitable tax deduction is vitally important for community foundations to deliver their missions, especially with the growth of donor-advised funds that allow donors to be part of the philanthropic process in identifying critical community needs and recommending grantmaking support to charitable programs about which they are especially passionate. The Pittsburgh Foundation’s donors are resolute in their belief that by joining with a community foundation, they benefit greatly from a philanthropic partnership, which in turn benefits our local community.

An example of an initiative led by The Pittsburgh Foundation that leveraged individual giving on behalf of the community is the Neighbor-Aid Fund, which attracted support from many local funding partners as well as public donations.  In response to the 2008 economic crisis this emergency fund was designed to support nonprofit organizations striving to meet increased demand for essential human services, specifically, food, housing, transportation, and utilities.  Over $1 million was distributed to nonprofits providing critical “safety-net” services.

Another example of foundation work that can only be successful if our donors support it via giving is The Pittsburgh Foundation’s Day of Giving.  Launched in 2009, the on-line site’s giving events have so far raised more than $21 million for the region’s nonprofit organizations.  Last year alone, this effort raised a total of $8,540,345, an increase of over 31 percent compared with the previous year.  More importantly, 665 nonprofits received contributions from over 17,000 individual donations.

My foundation has an unwavering commitment to further developing its partnerships with donors as well as collaborative and innovative ventures with funding partners at local and national levels in order to maximize grantmaking impact and philanthropic leadership in our region. Together we have pioneered some major achievements in recent years, including reform initiatives within the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and the launch of the Pittsburgh Promise scholarship program, that provides four-year funding of up to $10,000 per year for city public school students pursuing college and university education.  Like Pittsburgh’s Day of Giving, the Pittsburgh Promise has become an acclaimed model for similar initiatives developed by other foundations across the United States.

Local, state and federal governments are fiscally constrained, severely limiting their ability to mount new programs and even sustain existing ones. This reality combined with increasing demand for assistance from our nonprofit provider community, is further witness that any action that would lead to a reduction or elimination of the charitable tax deduction would have a direct and negative impact on charities and the people they serve.

Thank you for this opportunity to share the important role donors play within the context of a community foundation and I ask that as important tax reform debates continue, the charitable tax deduction be preserved in order to safeguard an essential part of our infrastructure that serves to inspire and enable philanthropy and the great, essential work that it undertakes on behalf of us all.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette February 1, 2013 12:14 am

By Grant Oliphant

Wouldn’t we all love to respond to a disappointing performance review by changing the measuring tool to give us a better result? Many of us would joyfully toss the bathroom scale out the window in favor of one that knocked off 10 pounds. How about moving the end zone five yards closer so our favorite wide receiver could catch the game-winning throw?

Unfortunately, that’s not how things work — unless you are Pennsylvania Education Secretary Ron Tomalis and you are not pleased with the number of charter schools making Adequate Yearly Progress, the standard set by the No Child Left Behind Act.

In 2011, Mr. Tomalis allowed charter schools to use a more lenient measure to achieve AYP. The result was that 77 of the 156 charter schools in Pennsylvania whose students took the 2012 PSSA math and reading tests met the AYP standard.

Then the federal Department of Education intervened, ruling that Pennsylvania must use the same measure for charter schools as it did for all other public schools. Only 43 made AYP.

A Post-Gazette editorial published Jan. 27 (“Sub-par Options: Charter Schools as a Class Don’t Measure Up”) delivered a strongly worded rebuke to the Corbett administration for engaging in this kind of tomfoolery and thinking that Pennsylvanians were not paying attention.

I completely agree. What’s more, I am dismayed at the disservice that was perpetrated upon the charter school movement, which I believe serves an important role in contemporary public education.

In its original form, charters were designed to increase competition, foster innovation and give parents a choice when their children were not receiving an adequate education from traditional public schools. The promise of creating a vast network of laboratories for innovation remains largely unfulfilled, but much can be learned from experiments like Pittsburgh’s City Charter High School and the Environmental Charter School that might improve the quality of education for all Pennsylvania children. This will never happen, though, if decision-makers randomly re-invent the rules to justify their ideology.

I believe in charters as an idea, but our system of public education and the children it serves are not pawns to be manipulated in a political game. Charter schools should be held to the same standards as other public schools so we can tell, honestly, whether they are accomplishing the goals we hope they reach. Stacking the statistical deck in favor of charters tells us only that they have powerful political friends while obscuring the one thing we really need to know: Do they work?

Let’s not forget that charters can function without many of the organizational and operational constraints that apply to traditional public schools. They are not subject to collective bargaining agreements. Their infrastructure tends to be newer, simpler and less costly.

Charters also don’t share in the same commitment as public systems to educate each and every child who comes in the door regardless of his or her special needs. And yet they get compensated with public dollars as though their costs are the same as the school districts from which they siphon students and resources.

Those are sizeable advantages, and we need to know whether they really result in better educational outcomes. How we measure that should be determined neither by political doctrine nor by creating antipathy between charters and the public school systems they are intended to complement. What we need are clear heads and thoughtful analysis that will keep in sharp focus those who matter most — our children.

A consistent and reliable measure of student performance must be developed to assess the quality of education our children receive whether they attend charters or traditional public schools. These measures must allow us to determine where our schools are falling short and how we can improve them.

Troubled as our system of public education may sometimes be, it is a landmark achievement of American society. As we work to improve it, we should hold ourselves and our leaders accountable to be fair and truthful about the results of the reforms we explore. Our children and their families depend on this, as does the future prosperity, competitiveness and economic strength of our community and nation.

Grant Oliphant is president and CEO of The Pittsburgh Foundation (pittsburgh foundation.org). Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/no-cheating-on-charters-we-must-be-honest-about-the-performance-of-our-schools-672925/#ixzz2Jg5WhhNe