Foundation Commissioned Research

In December of 2008, the Colombe Foundation commissioned Sweetwater Consulting to survey its grantees and others about the work each organization was engaging in to take advantage of the new Administration.  While the information summarized in the report below, with additions from Colombe Foundation staff, confirms what many within the community know, a number of groups interviewed expressed interest in seeing this information summarized and publicly available. 

Though this is a historic opportunity for our community, both in terms of our access and our ability to move specific goals forward after eight years of stagnation, Colombe Foundation also notes the irony that the economic crisis has eclipsed our issues for the time being.  This further underscores the value of collaboration, collective strategy development, and tactical coordination to move our ideas into the central, national discourse.    

Inevitably, the economic reality will cause significant contraction in the community. The question that our community faces is whether this contraction will be random or the product of a strategy.  Clearly the latter is preferable, but at this point, it is difficult to see where the impetus for this strategy will come from.  While delegating roles and responsibilities to different groups could allow many organizations to survive, these conversations need to get underway.   Some of the funders are interested in helping the community manage this contraction such that as many groups as possible survive with their core functions in tact. 

Click here to find a “Summary Points” memo organized into three categories: 1) the changed political context; 2) specific policy opportunities that this changed political context enables, and 3) strategy for achieving these policies.  These points were distilled from the interviews, and represent comments made by more than one organization. While these points are largely self evident, Colombe Foundation hopes there is some value in reinforcing the current direction of the community and pushing us further to further coordinate not only goals, but strategy, tactics and timing on a variety of our policy goals.

Please feel free to contact us with comments, questions, or suggestions.