Strategic Philanthropy
The consultant served as the 20-year president, from start up to generational transition, of Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville, a place-based foundation designed as a catalyst to propel Knoxville toward its full potential.
It was crucial to first determine the philanthropic interests of the funders. They were motivated by faith-based stewardship, and had been frustrated previously by not seeing a measurable impact with their charitable giving. When preparing to significantly increase the annual amount of their philanthropy, they wanted to make sure the investments would make a significant difference. Their passions and desire for impact led to decisions to focus geographically on the Greater Knoxville area, and on a purpose to be a proactive catalyst to help the community reach its full potential.
Those initial interests and decisions led to an evaluation of legal options to carry out the funders’ philanthropy. Presented with the range of options, they chose to form a supporting foundation of the East Tennessee Foundation. By giving up a few small measures of control that would exist in a private family foundation, the funders gained tremendous legal flexibility which allowed the resulting Cornerstone Foundation of Knoxville to operate in an extremely entrepreneurial (“venture philanthropy”) fashion.
Another unique aspect of the start-up of Cornerstone was the funders’ decision to become a limited life foundation rather than an endowed foundation. This decision was made because of the annual funding desires of the Cornerstone funders and research that indicates that endowed family-funded foundations often create relational problems in the family’s second and future generations if generational transition planning is not carefully thought through and implemented. Ultimately, Cornerstone was set up to be in place for 20 years, and the funders’ children each developed their own separate philanthropic strategy.
The next step was to carry out research to determine the most strategic funding priorities that would be catalytic to help Knoxville reach its full potential. (An example of that research, the 2012 Greater Knoxville Community Research Project is attached here. See also, the Greater Knoxville Community Research Project Brochure attached here.)
This Greater Knoxville Community Research Project was ultimately carried out four times over the course of 20 years (1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012), resulting in an evolution of four strategic priorities:
1. Education reform at the local and state level;
2. Long-term investment in disadvantaged kids;
3. Downtown Knoxville revitalization; and
4. Leadership development and alignment.
Taking the first strategic priority—education reform—as an example, the following shows how this approach evolved over 20 years and the demonstrable results:
1. The priority emerging from the first five-year Community Research Project was to find and implement an education reform model that would dramatically improve inner-city graduation and college attendance/success rates. At the time, all of the 14 inner-city schools in Knoxville were “F” schools on the State of Tennessee Report Card, less than 50% of the starting 9th graders in 1997 were graduating from high school, and less than 20% of the resulting high school graduates were going on to college. Yet, 99% of the more than 7,500 inner-city kids were in public schools, and charter schools were not then a legal option in the state of Tennessee. Deciding to work in partnership with a cooperative Knox County Schools’ superintendent and board in 2000, and engaging in significant national best practice research led to the discovery of a proven reform model and the implementation of Project GRAD Knoxville (see www.projectgradknoxville.org) in Knox County’s 14 inner-city schools beginning in 2001. The original goal of the public-private partnership initiative was that by year 12, more than 80% of starting 9th graders would be graduating from high school, and more than 50% would be going on to college. By year 9 of the partnership, that goal was met and exceeded.
2. The priority during the second five-year period was to develop a total community partnership to help Knox County Schools become a great school system. Outside the inner-city schools, most of the schools were “B” schools on the State of Tennessee Report Card, and 91% of Knox County students were in public schools. So, there was a good district-wide platform on which to build, and Project GRAD Knoxville had established strong cross-sector relationships for further collaboration. Again, best practice research and site visits led to the establishment of the Great Schools Partnership (see www.greatschoolspartnership.com) in 2005, which serves as a research and development “critical friend” and operational partner of the Knox County Schools. Partners on the board include the Knox County Schools’ superintendent, chair of the Knox County School Board, Knoxville Chamber and business community, University of Tennessee, Pellissippi State Community College, the foundation community, the Knox County mayor, the City of Knoxville mayor, the Urban League, the NAACP, the Knox County PTA, and the Knox County Education Association. In ten years, the alignment of those partners, outstanding staff, and implementation of a number of research-based best practices—such as new STEM, Early College, and International Baccalaureate Academies; and Community Schools (just to name a few)—led to Knox County achieving the status of the only large school system in the state designated as an “Exemplary School District”.
3. The priority that emerged during the third five-year Community Research Project was to impact statewide policy that affects local school district excellence and student achievement. Again, best practice research and coordination with other foundation and corporate leaders across the state with similar interests led to the formation of Tennessee SCORE (see www.tnscore.org), beginning with an inclusive steering committee aligning all the leadership silos across all sectors. Once those leaders were aligned around state legislative and policy changes that would increase student achievement, those priorities were enacted one by one. As a result, within five years Tennessee became the fastest improving state in the nation on educational outcomes.
4. Jim Clifton, the chairman and CEO of Gallup, in a consulting assignment in Knoxville in April 2013 stated that Gallup’s research shows that “the single greatest and most cost effective lever to the improvement of K-12 education in America is to build a pipeline of transformational future principals.” As a result, the priority during the most recent five-year period evolved into creating a pipeline of transformational principals for the East Tennessee region. The UT Center for Educational Leadership (see http://cel.utk.edu ), led by Dr. Jim McIntyre, is the implemented model that emerged as a result of that strategic priority, and it has already been recognized by the Tennessee State Department of Education as a best practice to be replicated statewide, and has been recognized by the Gates Foundation and the Kern Foundation as a model from which to learn for national replication.