Lucy Bernholz and Tony Wang

BLUEPRINT RESEARCH + DESIGN, INC.

Building Fields for Policy Change

2 0 1 0
This paper was published with the support of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

r+d
BLUEPRINT
research + design for philanthropy

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. helps grantmaking foundations, individual and family donors, and philanthropic
networks achieve their missions. We offer services in strategy and program design, organizational learning, and
evaluation, and we think and write about the industry of philanthropy. Since 2004, Blueprint has provided the John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation with research, advice, and documentation of the Digital Media and Learning
Initiative. That work includes the writing and distribution of five reports on field building, written for the public, as a
means of informing the field of philanthropy and as a way to strengthen the emerging field of Digital Media and
Learning.

The MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative aims to determine how digital media are changing
the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. Answers are critical to education and other social
institutions that must meet the needs of this and future generations. Through November 2009, the foundation has
awarded 106 grants for a total of $61.5 million to organizations and individuals in support of digital media and learn-
ing. The grants have supported research, development of innovative technologies, and new learning environments for
youth — including a school based on game design principles.
Building Fields for Policy Change

From America’s neighborhoods to the capitals of the world, philanthropy is a major force in public policy,
flexing its financial and intellectual muscles with those who determine the rules by which society lives.
This expansive role for philanthropy naturally raises questions: How does philanthropy best engage
policymakers? In what other ways does philanthropy influence policy? To whom is philanthropy account-
able in this regard? How does public policy work fit within the larger philanthropic agenda?1
-Kathy Postel Kretman, Director, Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership, Georgetown University

INTRODUCTION began within a decade of its founding in 1913.2

Philanthropic foundations exist as a function of
public policy.They are regulated entities, overseen
by elements of corporate, tax, and charity codes.
Public policy guidelines, ranging from interna-
tional laws to municipal codes, also shape the
issues on which foundations work, such as educa-
tion, health, the environment, human rights, or
the media. Clearly, the power of public policy to
guide philanthropic choices and directions, and
even to shape the tools that foundations use in
their work, is substantial.
However, the public policy milieu in which
Examples of policymaking initiatives range across
disciplines from economic research to arts educa-
tion, and from the international level to the local,
state, and national level.3
While the policymaking efforts of foundations
are well documented, the focus of this paper is on
a key characteristic that this policy work shares
with the more recent philanthropic interest in
field building. Field building and successful policy
change both require that
foundations act across The power of public policy to
entire ecosystems of guide philanthropic choices and
change, where the work directions is substantial.

philanthropy works and social goods are of grantees mutually rein-

produced is not simply background; it is itself a
powerful tool for achieving change. American
foundations have engaged directly in shaping
public policy — or working with intermediaries,
institutions, and networks of organizations to do
so — almost from the beginning.The Rockefeller
Foundation’s work in providing public health
services, training public health providers, and ulti-
mately influencing individual states and the
nation as a whole to address widespread diseases
forces and strengthens the
impact of one another.4 The decades of success in
influencing policy domains holds useful lessons
for the more emergent interest in field building as
strategy.
Because field building and policymaking work
so well to support each other, this paper’s specific
focus is the intersection of these two spheres of
influence. It will detail the shared characteristics

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 1

of these strategies and explain how they can be
mutually accelerating. We consider the following
key questions:
• How can the resources of a foundation and a
field be used most effectively to implement
policy strategies?
• What tools and best practices exist for funders
interested in analyzing and strengthening fields?
Our approach is to use examples that demon-
strate how foundation-supported field-building
efforts have advanced a policy strategy. We high-
light several cases from the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Pew
Charitable Trusts. We also draw on insights from
our work with the John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation in their Digital Media
and Learning Initiative.
WHAT DOES FIELD BUILDING HAVE TO
DO WITH POLICY?
At its core, field building is one of many possible
philanthropic strategies, similar to (albeit more
comprehensive than) supporting academic
research, offering prizes for innovation, and build-
ing nonprofit capacity. Field building inherently
involves the consideration of an entire ecosystem
of organizations and often emphasizes work at the
intersections of organizations. As we discussed in
the first paper of this series, “Building to Last:
Field Building as Philanthropic Strategy,” founda-
tions engage in field building for a variety of
reasons, from seeking attention and legitimacy for
a certain issue to reducing inefficiencies and
duplicative activities.5
2 Building Fields for Policy Change
In attempts to shape policy, field building plays
a distinctive role. Many ambitious policy-change
efforts require effective collaboration across large,
diverse groups of actors.6 Field-building strategies
can be helpful in supporting these kinds of efforts.
Elements of field building, from organizing
grassroots activity among grantees to solidifying
key stakeholders around a common policy agenda,
are useful at different points throughout the
policymaking cycle.
In our review, we identified five funder initia-
tives that exemplify the practice of field building
to advance policy change (see sidebar). These
examples provide a detailed view of how to
strengthen policy initiatives through efficient and
effective collaboration. They also illustrate a
broader theme: how funders can improve the
success of their policy strategies by considering
some of the core elements of field building. At the
end of this report, we provide an overview of the
tools, resources, and best practices in field building
and policy change.
RECOGNIZING AND ANTICIPATING POLICY
OPPORTUNITIES: Listening to the Field of
Digital Media and Learning
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation has been a major funder of educa-
tional efforts in Chicago and across the United
States for decades. The foundation also prides
itself on using empirical evidence to support its
funding strategies. As the foundation began to
observe, explore, and consider the changes in the
educational landscape that seemed to be driven
by digital media, it made sense that its starting
EXAMPLES OF FIELD BUILDING FOR POLICY CHANGE

There are many examples of foundations building and strengthening fields to bring about policy
change. A full list of those we have found is in the Appendix. This paper will draw primarily from the
following five efforts to illustrate the principles of field building in supporting policy:

• Digital Media and Learning — Officially launched in 2006, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Initiative has sought to understand and act on the ways
digital technologies are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in
civic life.

• Out-of-School Time Nonprofits — Building on its long legacy of support for out-of-school time
(OST) learning opportunities, the Wallace Foundation is developing and testing ways in which
“cities can plan and implement strategies that increase overall participation in high-quality OST
programs.”7

• Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids (SPARK) — An initiative of the W. K. Kellogg

Foundation, SPARK works to “create a seamless transition into school for vulnerable children ages
3 to 6.”8

• Tobacco Control — The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked on issues of tobacco
control since the early 1990s. Current efforts focus on “strengthening and expanding policy
changes that have been shown to reduce the prevalence of tobacco use, including higher tobacco
prices, comprehensive clean indoor air policies, and the coverage and use of treatments to help
tobacco users stop smoking.”9

• Environmental Policy — The Pew Environment Group, the conservation arm of the Pew Charitable
Trusts, aims to “strengthen environmental policies and practices in ways that produce significant
and measurable protection for both terrestrial and marine systems worldwide”10 by funding scien-
tific research and advancing policy solutions.

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 3

 place was careful research on these changes.
From this research-oriented starting point, the
foundation staff began to look for concrete
answers to several questions: How are digital
media changing the learning process? How are
digital media changing where students learn?
How do institutions of learning need to change
to be effective in a digital world? Eventually, these
three questions would come to form the basis of
the MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and
Learning Initiative, but in
Digital media and learning touches the earliest days of the
— and is touched by — many work, the first question
policy domains. was the driving force. The
foundation funded what
would become landmark
research at the University of Southern California
and the University of California at Berkeley to
shed light on this question of how digital media
were affecting learning.11
Even as the academic research was underway,
the rapidity of change in the digital environment
was shaping the foundation’s thinking. It soon
realized that the digital forces of online content,
broadband access, new types of content produc-
tion, and young people’s easy fluency with new
technologies was going to require the foundation
to move much more quickly than it might other-
wise have done.
Rather than rolling out grants and building
partnerships slowly and over time as research
findings came in, the foundation recognized the
need to consider the entire ecosystem of youth,
institutions, and learning environments simulta-
4 Building Fields for Policy Change
neously. Thus it adopted the field-building strategy,
with its ability to engage across sectors and incor-
porate research, new institutions, and new learn-
ing environments.
And that broad engagement quickly revealed
the next truth: because digital media and learning
draws from academia, commercial vendors,
schools, and nonprofit learning institutions, the
most effective philanthropic strategy would be
one that could draw on all these domains — both
commercial and nonprofit — to help shape policy.
Digital media and learning touches — and is
touched by — many policy domains, ranging
from school funding streams to intellectual prop-
erty law and from teacher credentialing require-
ments to video game rating systems and FCC
regulation of media ownership. The first step for
the foundation would be to map the many
domains and their intersections with the various
actors in the field. This work has been done by
staff within the foundation, by consultants using
network analysis tools, and by surveying grantees
about the policy challenges they face.
The foundation regularly brings groups of its
grantees together, and policy opportunities are
frequently discussed at these gatherings. The
annual grantee meeting includes a conversation
about policy barriers, changes, and concerns. The
network map of grantees — which is regularly
updated — includes policy frames and policy
interactions in its data.
To date, the foundation’s policy mapping exer-
cises have been focused as much on sharing infor-
mation with grantees, generating expertise from
within the network, and building relationships
across the field — in other words, field building
— as they have been on identifying policy oppor-
tunities. In this regard, the foundation is acting on
the assumption that the wisdom of its network is
greater than its own institutional knowledge.
The foundation is also learning what works
best, given the multiple policy domains and per-
spectives within the field. As noted in GrantCraft’s
guide to funders and advocacy efforts:
• Some grant makers fund advocacy, some are
advocates themselves. Many do both. The choice
of whether a grant maker directly promotes an
approach to public issues or funds others to do
so depends on several considerations (including)
whether the grant maker or the grantee has a
better knowledge of the substantive issues, the
public policy process, and the means of influ-
encing public decisions. (Most grant makers
said their own experience pales in comparison
with that of their grantees.)13
At this stage in building the field of digital
media and learning, the MacArthur Foundation
has integrated the issue of enabling or restricting
policy into its approach. In this way, it brings
value beyond the funds it contributes to the
network by informing and connecting grantees to
those with similar policy concerns. It is also con-
tinually learning from its network so that it can be
ready to act on policy issues when the time is
right.
The question of timing is an important one.
POLICY DOMAINS IN DIGITAL
MEDIA AND LEARNING
This illustrative, though certainly not exhaus-
tive, list gives a sense of the diversity of
policy domains at play in the field of digital
media and learning.
• Telecommunications policies, such as net
neutrality, that regulate equitable access
to digital content on all networks
• Educational policies, including K-12
curriculum and testing standards, that
determine school district priorities,
constraints, and curriculum opportunities
• Copyright law and intellectual property
policies of different institutions, which
affect how content and tools can be
shared
• Credentialing policies and requirements
for different professions, which help to
identify leverage points for new ways of
teaching and learning
• Open-access and licensing options for
content, game development, and univer-
sity participants
• Media rating systems and other con-
sumer-oriented guidelines and protec-
tions regarding appropriate media use
• Broadcast, cable, and internet connectiv-
ity policies that constitute barriers or
conduits to access
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 5
 Research on social movements and policy change
shows that movements “have their greatest effect
in the early stages of policy debate on a given
issue, before the debate becomes too broad and
acrimonious and before cause supporters become
too outspoken.”14 For example, the Equal Rights
Amendment (ERA) movement, an unsuccessful
effort to amend the U.S.
Alliances built around one policy Constitution to promote
issue may come together later legal equality for women,
around others. passed in 35 states until
public opinion started to
shift against the move-
ment after pro-ERA women’s groups were per-
ceived as extreme. Another advantage of weaving
the policy issues into the work early on is that
alliances built around one policy issue may come
together later around others.15
Such a broad range of policy domains is both
a blessing and a curse: on one hand, there are
ample opportunities for leverage; on the other,
there are many disparate stakeholders who may or
may not share perspectives and goals.
Case Study Questions
1. Policy stakeholders can be broken down into
many categories: by age, race, class, sector, and
so on. What types of mapping categories are
most useful in your work?
2. Maps of actors are, by nature, dynamic and
evolving. What different ways are there for
communicating with constituents in real-time
maps of policy change and policy actors?
6 Building Fields for Policy Change
STRENGTHENING INTERMEDIARIES:
Providing Resources for Collaboration for
Out-Of-School Time Nonprofits
The Wallace Foundation’s involvement in the
Out-of-School Time (OST) sector began with
the Making the Most of Out-of-School Time
initiative, a $9.3 million project funded by the
DeWitt Wallace–Reader’s Digest Foundation in
1993. As part of the initiative, the foundation
supported organizations that provide school-age
care; that is, “organized activities for children ages
5 to 14 that occur during the non-school hours”
including “before-school programs, summer
programs, sports leagues, (and) tutoring and men-
toring programs,” among others.16 After the
DeWitt Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund and the
Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund merged in
2003, the focus on out-of-school time nonprofits
continued as one of three major program areas of
the Wallace Foundation. Current activities
include demonstration projects in five cities as
well as local, state, and national policy efforts.
From the beginning, the Wallace Foundation
has recognized that OST nonprofits reside in a
complex system of public agencies, school
systems, and local communities. OST groups are
not only beholden to the interests of the children
and families they serve but must work closely
with principals and schools in sharing physical
resources and information. They are funded,
licensed, and regulated by city and state agencies
and work in the context of other nonprofits,
including other OST groups that share similar
interests but also compete for the same pools of
funding.
 Despite common ground and intersecting
activities, the OST sector continues to face
challenges in working with other groups and
advancing public policy. For example, in working
with school leadership, perceived competition for
scarce public and philanthropic resources creates
tension at the school level. Lucy Friedman, presi-
dent of the After-School Corporation succinctly
points out, “If principals think they’re making a
choice between test prep delivered by teachers, or
pick-up basketball and finger-painting, is there
any question as to how educational leaders will
invest their funds?”17 These issues, coupled with
staffing challenges and difficulties in communi-
cating the value of successful partnerships to
school leaders and public officials,18 have created
TABLE 1. DEFINING A NETWORK MINDSET
Organization Orientation
Mindset Competition
Strategy for Impact Grow the organization
Typical Behaviors Compete for scarce resources
Protect knowledge
Develop competitive advantage
Hoard talented leadership
Act alone
Seize credit and power
Structure Centralized (siloed)
major hurdles for OST advocates in their
attempts to foster collaboration and bring about
policy change.
As a result, there has been a “growing recogni-
tion of the need for OST nonprofits to look
beyond their own programs, to work with each
other, with schools, with health organizations, and
with other community-based and public agencies
to create an array of accessible, developmentally
appropriate, and effective after-school and sum-
mer learning choices for all children throughout
the day and year, particularly those who are eco-
nomically or otherwise disadvantaged.”19 Indeed,
in their white paper commissioned by the Wallace
Foundation, Heather B. Weiss and Priscilla M. D.
20
Network Orientation
Collaboration
Grow the OST sector
Increase the funding pie for all
Share knowledge
Develop skills of competitors
Cultivate and disperse leadership
Act collectively
Share credit and power
Decentralized (matrixed)
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 7
Little of the Harvard Family Research Project
identified seven organizational challenges for the
OST nonprofit sector, including the need to
create and maintain internal and external
networks and to better integrate policy and advo-
cacy with direct service.21 Weiss and Little
observe that in order to shift the sector toward
more effective outcomes, organizations need to
change their orientation from an organization
orientation to a network orientation.
Adapting a framework championed in Forces
for Good:The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits,22
Weiss and Little suggest that funders can help
the sector become more network- and policy-
oriented by funding joint grant proposals,
convening grantees, providing leadership training,
and encouraging the integration of direct service
with advocacy.23 They also point to the power of
cultivating adaptive leaders committed to advancing
a larger policy agenda24 and to capacity-building
innovation funds that reward collaboration and
partnerships.25
The Wallace Foundation has invested signifi-
cant resources in strengthening the underlying
infrastructure of the OST sector in these ways, in
large part by supporting intermediaries. The
foundation has supported groups from the De-
partment ofYouth and Community Development
in New York City to the DC Children and Youth
Investment Trust Corporation. Coordinating
entities like the Providence After-School Alliance
(PASA) are also charged with planning and gath-
ering data to inform decisions by city leaders. As
the experience of some intermediaries suggest,
“the intermediary structure is, in itself, an essential
8 Building Fields for Policy Change
step in changing public policy to aid the forma-
tion of an out-of-school time system — one that
advances the interests of public and private stake-
holders including youth, parents, communities,
and schools; that accounts consistently for the
quality and effectiveness of its services; and that
makes the most of the diversity, adaptability, and
responsiveness of local provider organizations and
programs.”26
Case Study Questions
1. What are the key organizational capacity issues
in your sector? How could strengthening orga-
nizational capacity enable organizations to better
influence policy?
2. What role do intermediaries play in your
sector? How could their role in affecting policy
change be expanded?
3. What do stakeholders view as the key barriers
to effective collaboration? Trust? Information?
Time? How can the resources of a foundation
be used to remove those barriers?
HOSTING FORUMS: Aligning Efforts and
Fostering Dialogue in Linking Ready Kids to
Ready Schools
In late March 2009, more than 200 educators,
academics, community activists, and education
advocates from thirty-five states came together for
two days to develop policies to improve the align-
ment of early childhood education systems and
formal schools.The forum, called “Linking Ready
Kids to Ready Schools: Building Policy on State
and Community Success,” was organized by the
W. K. Kellogg Foundation and cosponsored by
HOW INTERMEDIARIES ADD VALUE TO THE OUT-OF-SCHOOL TIME FIELD 27

Brokering relationships. Intermediaries can draw service providers, funders, policymakers, schools, and
other stakeholders into functioning alliances around issues of common concern. Intermediaries’ firsthand
experience with the needs and interests of the various players gives them an advantage in building trust,
finding common ground, and working out effective solutions to problems that cut across many kinds of
organizations and levels of operation.

Convening local organizations. Because of its diversity and history of bottom-up growth, the after-school
field is highly fragmented and dispersed in most cities. By maintaining steady working alliances with large
numbers of local providers in their communities, intermediaries have the ability to draw a wide range of
organizations into collegial, collaborative networks. In so doing, intermediaries facilitate the flow of infor-
mation, methods of data collection and analysis, and common ideas and concerns.

Rationalizing and expanding services. Intermediaries can enlist support from large public and private
funders more efficiently than individual, often small, provider agencies seeking funding one-by-one. These
resources in turn make possible a significantly greater scale of service, helping to expand the work of exist-
ing providers and drawing new organizations into the field.

Increasing program quality. By raising and re-granting money from large funders, intermediaries can
develop and promote consistent accountability mechanisms for recipients of these funds. Intermediaries
thus help funders and providers manage resources for greatest results, connecting providers with high-
quality curricula and other quality improvement strategies.

Strengthening and supporting the after-school workforce. Intermediaries often provide centralized
training and professional-development opportunities for after-school workers, managers, and volunteers
across the full range of local provider agencies. The result is an expanding network of well-trained adults
delivering and managing services for young people citywide.

Research and evaluation. Gathering, analyzing, and comparing performance and outcome data can be
costly and technically demanding responsibilities that are often beyond the fiscal and technical ability of
individual providers. Intermediaries can perform these tasks efficiently and with a degree of independence
that is valuable to providers, funders, policymakers, schools, and parents.

Promoting sustainability. The precariousness of many after-school funding streams calls for concerted
attention not only to fundraising but to developing policies and systems that ensure a steadier, more
reliable, and sustainable stream of resources to the field. This is an area in which intermediaries excel,
for all the reasons described on this list of core functions.

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 9

national education associations, including the
Education Commission of the States, Voices for
America’s Children, the Children’s Leadership
Council, and the Learning First Alliance.
The forum was remarkable for bringing
together for the first time national stakeholders
focused on coordinating the efforts of early
childhood education and elementary schools. It
also was an extension of the Kellogg
Foundation’s longstanding field-building efforts
through SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to
Assure Ready Kids), a five-year initiative that
began in 2001 “to smooth the transition to
school and to align early learning and elementary
school systems for children from ages 3 to 6 who
were vulnerable to poor achievement.”28 By
funding partnerships of community leaders, service
providers, business leaders, parents, policymakers,
and preschool and K-12 educators, the founda-
tion supported grantees that worked with multi-
ple stakeholders.29
As the SPARK initiative progressed, the foun-
dation recognized that statewide policy change
would be critical to improving the link between
ready kids and ready schools. As Gregory Taylor,
vice president for programs at the Kellogg
Foundation explained, “State policies can help
districts, schools, and early care and education
programs create linkages to align continuous
systems of learning. But to establish a true
continuum, they also have to create similarities
across systems, provide interconnected services
and reflect understanding and insight into the
work as it is implemented on the ground in
schools, districts and communities.”30
10 Building Fields for Policy Change
Using philanthropy’s power to convene, the
foundation, in partnership with the Education
Commission of the States, designed a series of
high-visibility Governors’ Forums in 2008 in
Arizona, Connecticut, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
with the mandate to advance policies across the
early learning and early grades systems at both the
state and community levels. Each forum was
designed to enable multiple stakeholders to share
their experiences and to help attendees map out
strategies for reform while also highlighting local
efforts and successes as well as the need for more
state action. Tangible outcomes from each forum
included:
1. Identification of a specific mechanism through
which the work to be accomplished will be
sustained.
2. Identification of a key group of stakeholders
and the development of a unique process for
engaging them.
3. Adoption of a different set of steps to reach the
transition policy goal.
4. Identification of an outcome that can be
accomplished within the existing state policy
and political environment. 31
By providing an opportunity for dialogue on
the state and national level, the foundation helped
participants create new realities and move
forward. For example, Ohio Governor Ted
Strickland created an Early Childhood Cabinet to
unite key state agencies around the common goal
of promoting school readiness by setting and
coordinating state policy and programs that serve
children from the prenatal care stage through 6
THE GOVERNOR’S FORUMS 32

Each Governors’ Forum organized by the Kellogg Foundation and the Education Commission of the
States focused on early education in different ways.

Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Connecticut and Pennsylvania shaped their individual forums around
issues of transition. Connecticut utilized the meeting to first inform a broad-based constituency of
the importance and implications of assuring effective transitions from early learning environments to
the early grades. It then focused on mobilizing a small group of key stakeholders and policymakers
to explore ways to integrate the existing transition model used in the state into a larger statewide
education policy agenda. Pennsylvania introduced the Transition Policy Framework and involved its
community engagement teams and the K-12 community in a learning opportunity to understand
each component (aligned standards, teacher preparation, and community engagement and action) as
well as to provide feedback on the framework and to work together in teams to strategize ways to
implement the framework at the school and community level.

Arizona. The forum in Arizona looked at efforts to create an aligned system of education from pre-
school to graduate school, also known as P-20. Rather than create a separate committee focused on
“P” (preschool), the state sought to integrate the efforts of its newly created early childhood initia-
tive, First Things First, in existing subcommittees of the P-20 Council. The forum was an opportunity
for a small group from the P-20 Council, First Things First, and the K-12 community to work together
to develop a strategic plan and clearly articulate the role of First Things First as the “P in P-20.”

Ohio. In Ohio, the forum focused on the role of schools and school leadership. The forum kicked off
a yearlong professional development partnership with the governor’s office, the Ohio Association of
Elementary School Administrators (OAESA), the Ohio Department of Education, and the Partnership
for Continued Learning Council (P-16) to create a network of ready schools across the state. To that
end, the governor’s office awarded grants to elementary school principals to pilot a new Ready
School Resource Guide developed by the Ohio Department of Education and SPARK Ohio. The
forum was an opportunity to build support by convening a broad base of stakeholders to hear about
ready schools and their impact on learning. In addition, multisector teams from each of the pilot sites
came together for the first time at the forum. With technical assistance from a group of state and
national content experts, teams began to develop their ready schools implementation plans.

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 11

years of age.33 In Pennsylvania, the Office of Child
Development and Early Learning is strengthening
the state’s infrastructure to support the link
between preschool learning and the early
grades.34 And at the national level, the U.S. House
of Representatives passed legislation in
September 2009 creating the Early Learning
Challenge Fund, an $8 billion initiative to raise
the quality of early learning and care programs.35
A similar bill has been proposed in the Senate.
Case Study Questions
1. Policy change involves multiple stakeholders. In
order to change policy in your field, which
stakeholders need to be involved?
2. Continuing the conversation after an event can
be challenging. In order to facilitate discussion
and create the next steps, what support can
foundations provide?
FUNDING COALITIONS: Sharing
Knowledge and Coordinating Activity in
Tobacco Control
Successful policy efforts result in the passage of
new laws or the revision of existing ones. This is
what happened in New Jersey when cigarette
taxes were raised three times in six years as part of
an effort to reduce smoking. In fact, from 1994 to
2004, tobacco control laws were passed in more
than thirty states due in part to the leadership of
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which has
contributed more than $420 million to reduce
tobacco use in the United States since 1991.36
When the foundation decided to focus on
tobacco control as one of its key priorities, it first
12 Building Fields for Policy Change
turned its attention to policy research, approving
a two-year $5 million grant in 1992 to establish
the Tobacco Policy Research Evaluation Program
(TPREP). Through TPREP, the foundation
quickly learned valuable information, including
how the price of cigarettes affected consumption
and whether tobacco met the legal definition of a
drug, influencing its strategy for curtailing the use
of tobacco. But in order to translate this research
into action, the foundation needed a way of
engaging policymakers across the United States
with this information. It decided to support coali-
tions of tobacco-control organizations and
authorized a $10 million grant to establish the
SmokeLess States program.
A coalition, at its most basic level, is a group of
organizations with a common purpose and iden-
tity. Nonprofits and funders often join coalitions
to increase credibility, maximize resources, and
share ideas.37 In the context of policy work, they
also join forces to raise awareness about specific
issues, leverage shared resources for common
policy objectives, and coordinate their individual
efforts. With the SmokeLess States program, the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wanted to
“effectively translate policy research into policy
change by awarding grants to coalitions of non-
governmental organizations that would educate
the public and policymakers about the tobacco
problem and potential ways to address it.”38
Working with the American Medical
Association — the organization chosen to manage
the coalition’s operations, including administration
of grants and technical assistance to grantees — the
foundation provided two-year capacity-building
FIVE LESSONS FROM THE SMOKELESS STATES PROGRAM

The program officers at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation who oversaw the SmokeLess States
program offered some reflections on what they would have done differently in managing the
program:39

1. Diversify Funding Sources: The program relied on three voluntary health organizations — the
American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and American Lung Association — to provide
financial support, especially for any lobbying activities that the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, as
a private foundation, was legally unable to support. However, in the economic downturn of 2000–
2001, the ability of the organizations to support the coalitions declined dramatically. More local
fundraising and greater technical assistance from the foundation for fundraising might have helped
stabilize the financial footing of some coalitions.

2. Diversify Coalition Members: Although many state coalitions believed the effort to include other
stakeholders was too resource- and time-intensive, greater diversification of organizations for the
purpose of more widely representing state populations is, in the program officers’ view, critical if the
work is to continue.

3. Identify Clear Benchmarks to Measure Progress: Benchmarks allowed grantees and coalition
organizers to work together to make adjustments along the way. Although measuring coalition per-
formance against benchmarks met with strong opposition, especially among those who had not been
previously monitored in such a manner, utilizing benchmarks and offering technical support to help
coalitions meet them improved the performance of the coalitions.

4. Encourage Advocacy Grantmaking: Advocacy, an important and highly effective grantmaking tool,
is underutilized. It requires astute legal assistance and strong leadership, but more could be done by
the foundation to encourage its adoption internally and within the field.

5. Recognize Grantees: The foundation celebrated state coalition achievements annually in the state
that had experienced the greatest policy victory in the previous year. In hindsight, celebrating
achievements more than once a year might have proven beneficial.

Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 13

grants and four-year implementation grants to an
initial set of nineteen state coalitions. Each coali-
tion worked on state policy issues while having
access to the national program’s resources. In
Wisconsin, for example, one of the focal points of
the coalition’s effort was on garnering public sup-
port for raising excise taxes. Taxes were raised
from 49 cents to 59 cents per pack in 199740 and
then to 77 cents in 2001.41 Each coalition retained
individual autonomy and set up its own policy
priorities, media campaigns, and coalition struc-
tures while bringing together local organizations
that shared an interest in tobacco prevention,
including state agencies, nonprofit groups, and
businesses, as well as individuals. The success of
these programs clearly demonstrates how funders
can utilize coalitions to enable organizations to
work toward a common policy agenda.
Case Study Questions
1. Policy change takes a long time and can require
multiple strategies. The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation’s successful work with coalitions in
the states built on decades of earlier work.What
is a realistic time frame for change in the policies
that matter in your work?
2. Coalitions require significant participation by
member organizations. How can a foundation’s
resources be used to ensure sufficient participa-
tion?
3. Coalitions often are implemented as part of a
multi-site strategy.What is the most effective way
to share information and resources among
different sites?
14 Building Fields for Policy Change
BECOMING A PUBLIC CHARITY: Operating
Programs, Matching Grants, and Lobbying
for the Environment
In January 2004, the Pew Charitable Trusts, then
one of the nation’s ten largest private foundations,
became a public charity. While some critics of the
move raised concerns over whether it was in the
public interest,42 Pew officials said the conversion
from a private foundation to a public charity
would enable it to better pursue its philanthropic
goals. “It will give us greater flexibility in our
operations, as well as economies of scale that we
could not achieve as a private foundation,” said
Rebecca W. Rimel, the president and chief exec-
utive of Pew.43
The fundamental distinction between a grant-
making institution operated as a private founda-
tion and one operated as a public charity is a legal
one. Grantmakers organized as either can still
make grants to individuals and organizations,
convene the community around specific issues,
and support advocacy efforts, but the regulations
about those activities differ depending on the
organizational form. Essentially, a public charity
— which is viewed as having greater public
accountability by virtue of its form — also has
greater freedom to operate than a private founda-
tion. For example, while private foundations are
barred from lobbying, either directly or indirect-
ly through their grantees, public charities can
engage in and fund lobbying activities within cer-
tain restrictions. Public charities also are allowed
to raise funds from individuals, enjoy special tax
benefits, and can operate programs within the
organization. As long as a grantmaking institution
meets the “public support test” — an IRS standard
requiring public charities to receive a certain per-
centage of their total support from public sources
— it can be organized as a public charity. 44 The
distinction on the facing page is outlined in the
chart.45
Since becoming a public charity, Pew has been
able to take advantage of its status in order to
pursue a variety of initiatives in ways that would
not have been possible as a private foundation. In
the months after its reclassification, Pew combined
seven policy-research groups, including the Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press and
the Pew Internet & American Life Project, into
the Pew Research Center. In the past, Pew funded
each group separately through intermediaries like
the Tides Foundation and Georgetown University,
but as a public charity, Pew can directly manage the
centers and move them to a single location.46
Additionally, Pew can now attract philanthropic
support from other donors; at the latest count,
Pew had more than 250 donors representing over
$300 million in capital.47
The impact of Pew’s conversion to a public
charity on its policy objectives is most clearly
illustrated by the Pew Environment Group, the
conservation arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Although the Pew Environment Group has been
promoting marine conservation, wilderness
protection, and solutions to global warming for
more than fifteen years, its strategies for policy
change have expanded since 2004.
For example, the Pew Environment Group, in
partnership with the Philanthropic Services and
Government Relations division of the Pew
Charitable Trusts, has
helped design, implement, A public charity has greater
and manage the Lenfest freedom to operate than a private
Ocean Program, a project foundation.
custom-designed for the
Lenfest Foundation that
supports marine research to inform policy deci-
sions. As a private foundation, Pew could have
worked in partnership with the Lenfest
Foundation. As a public charity, Pew manages the
foundation’s money directly, shares the expertise
of the trusts’ staff, and operates the program for
the Lenfest Foundation in a more focused way.
Key milestones of the program so far include the
passage by the U.S. House of Representatives of a
bill tightening a “fins-attached” shark fishing
policy (the Lenfest Ocean Program was the only
nongovernmental organization asked to provide
congressional testimony on the subject) and a ban
by the state of Oregon on the commercial harvest
of bull kelp, an effort for which the Lenfest
program provided critical research. 48
As a public charity, Pew addresses the policy
process more freely, with initiatives like the Pew
Campaign for Responsible Mining, which seeks
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 15
to change the way in which federal lands are used
by mining companies, and the Pew Campaign for
Fuel Efficiency, which works for more stringent
fuel efficiency standards for the nation’s cars and
trucks. Furthermore, with the ability to maintain
campaigns directly, Pew can now consider mergers
and acquisitions in addition to traditional “invest-
ments” in nonprofits. The Pew Environment
Group, when considering how to increase its
personnel and staff capacities in the areas of com-
munication and media, government affairs, and
field operations, weighed two options: to hire the
people it needed individually or to bring under
its umbrella an organization that could fill those
same needs. Having funded and worked with the
National Environmental Trust (NET) since 1994,
the Pew Environment Group absorbed the orga-
nization’s staff and operations in January 2008.
“Given that NET contained the human infra-
structure that we needed, that it had effectively
served as a campaign arm of Pew for many years,
that by design it had worked primarily in the
areas in which our work was focused and that we
had had a close and extremely productive work-
ing relationship for more than a decade, this
became a relatively easy choice. Quite simply,
incorporating NET into the Pew Environment
Group was far more practical, cost-effective and
efficient than re-creating it internally,” said Joshua
S. Reichert, managing director of the Pew
Environment Group. 49
Case Study Questions
1. Few private foundations are in a position to
convert into a public charity;50 however, all
16 Building Fields for Policy Change
foundations are in a position to manage rela-
tionships with stakeholders differently. What
could be different about the way relationships
and partnerships are managed in your work?
2. What knowledge or expertise does your organ-
ization have that could enable others to be
more effective in their giving?
TOOLS, TECHNIQUES, AND BEST
PRACTICES FOR FIELD BUILDING IN
EFFECTING POLICY CHANGE
Each of the preceding examples shares one com-
mon factor: the policy efforts are led by multiple
organizations, often coming from very different
perspectives. The foundations were deliberately
involved in field-level efforts to create change.
These strategies involve strengthening teamwork,
building partnerships, and including entire ecosys-
tems in the planning process. Understanding
change through a network-centric view is essen-
tial to leveraging limited philanthropic dollars.
The tools for understanding and evaluating
networks are undergoing an innovation
explosion. As both the conceptual and digital
tools for networks become more widely available,
funders will be more able to incorporate
network-centered principles into their work,
from strategic planning and developing theories
of change to grantmaking and evaluation. In this
section, we provide some thoughts on how
funders can use network tools to understand the
fields in which they operate and frame their
field-building choices in the context of policy
change.
Mapping The Field
Identifying the relevant stakeholders for a partic-
ular issue is a critical step that, if done incorrectly,
can prove disastrous to a policy effort. As the
opponents of Proposition 8, the amendment to
California’s constitution to define marriage as
being only between one man and one woman,
reflect on what was considered a shocking loss in
the November 2008 election, many observers
have come to see the failure as fundamentally one
of missed alliances and poor outreach.51 Knowing
who the stakeholders are, knowing the opposi-
tion, and understanding where allies can be found
is essential to success. What was needed was
better analysis of the networks of supporters and
opponents, and a strategy to reach across the divide.
There are many different methods for mapping
networks, from low-tech qualitative methods like
Net-Map, an “interview-based mapping tool that
helps people understand, visualize, discuss, and
An example of a Net-Map, a tool developed by
Eva Shiffer 52
improve situations in which many different actors
influence outcomes,”53 to high-tech quantitative
methods that measure variables like network
reach, betweenness, and closeness.54 NodeXL,55 a
free Excel 2007 plug-in, is a good tool for map-
ping networks. It can track which funders and
organizations operate in a particular arena, as well
as patterns of information flow, communication,
and trust within a network.
For insight on how to analyze networks and
apply that knowledge to philanthropy, the
Monitor Institute maintains an active blog on its
Working Wikily website, and in July 2009 it pub-
lished “Working Wikily 2.0,”56 a report that exam-
ines how networks are altering the landscape of
social change. Other valuable resources include
the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s
resources from its Philanthropy and Networks
Exploration initiative57 and the Barr Foundation’s
resources on networks.58
Strengthening Advocacy Capacity and
Network Capacity
Not all nonprofits have the capacity to engage in
policy advocacy. Spending time on policy requires
staff time to devote to policy issues, resources for
engaging constituents, the ability to develop
policy solutions, and the connections to drive
policy change. Nonetheless, funders can help
grantee organizations overcome these challenges
and others by strengthening their policy capacity.
Understanding a nonprofit’s advocacy capacity
helps funders understand whether an organiza-
tion is ready to take on the responsibilities of
advocacy and what is the best way to support the
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 17
 organization to build its capacity. The California
Endowment and TCC Group recently published
a framework for determining advocacy capacity. It
uses the traditional guidelines for nonprofit
capacity assessment to measure leadership, adap-
tive, management, and technical capacity in order
to better determine how funders can improve an
organization’s ability to create policy change. For
example, looking at lead-
Understanding of the dynamics of ership capacity, the
networks and fields is still an authors state that advocacy
emerging endeavor. leaders must “have the
ability to understand how
and when to motivate
employees and outside stakeholders throughout
the advocacy process” and “demonstrate an
authentic personal and organizational commit-
ment to advocacy.”59 Similarly, the Alliance for
Justice has an online Advocacy Capacity
Assessment Tool that helps organizations identify
key ways to strengthen their advocacy capacity.60
While these tools focus on capacity for advo-
cacy and touch on the importance of nonprofits
working with other groups, they do not focus
on the field or the network as a whole.
Understanding of the dynamics of networks and
fields is still an emerging endeavor; however, the
Irvine Foundation has funded a few reports on
the topic, including one by the Bridgespan Group
on “The Strong Field Framework,”61 which
provides a way for funders to understand the cur-
rent capacities of a field by measuring the dimen-
sions of shared identity, standards of practice,
knowledge base, leadership and grassroots
support, and funding and supporting policy.
Another report, by TCC Group, focuses on long-
18 Building Fields for Policy Change
term capacity-building initiatives, in which “a
foundation directs support to a cohort of organi-
zations over a defined time period to address spe-
cific capacity-building needs.”62 In the future, we
expect many more funders and practitioners to
develop and share their insights on techniques for
strengthening the capacity of networks.
Supporting Intermediaries
Supporting a field doesn’t always require interme-
diaries. The TCC report on long-term capacity
building outlines some pros and cons of support-
ing intermediaries that need to be carefully
weighed. Intermediaries can help funders monitor
and support grantees and centralize communica-
tion regarding an initiative. However, while inter-
mediaries provide additional human resources
and help funders with lean staffs save time and
money, they also increase a funder’s management
oversight responsibilities and costs.63 The
Foundation Center, as part of its Practice Matters
series, has produced an extensive report called
“Toward More Effective Use of Intermediaries”
that focuses exclusively on “the use, misuse, and
better use of intermediary organizations” and
draws on the insights of more than seventy inter-
views with funders, intermediaries, grantees, and
consultants. “Shaping the Future of After-School,”
which we cited in our case study on the Wallace
Foundation’s Out-of-School Time efforts, pro-
vides an additional in-depth look at the role of
intermediaries in supporting the OST field.64
Building Coalitions
The Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
has identified six tips to keep in mind when
building a coalition:65
• Identify Purpose — Identify the purpose before
you join or create an alliance with others.
• Include All Stakeholders — Make sure all rele-
vant stakeholders of the issue are represented.
Be sure to think beyond the “usual suspects.”
• Understand Limits — Understand the general
limits and capacity of the member organiza-
tions and distribute responsibilities equitably.
• Create Bylaws — Create formal or informal
bylaws to govern proceedings and decision-
making.
• Communicate — Encourage open communi-
cation and healthy conflict. Make sure members
can disagree without seeming to be obstruc-
tionist.
• Allocate Resources — Allocate resources for
administrative tasks needed to run the coalition.
The Atlantic Philanthropies report entitled
“Investing in Change: Why Supporting Advocacy
Makes Sense for Foundations”66 and the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation’s report “Engaging
Coalitions to Improve Health and Health Care”67
also provide helpful context for understanding
the lessons from philanthropy and coalition-
building.
Convening Stakeholders
Although we focused on the use of forums in the
context of the Kellogg Foundation’s Linking
Ready Kids to Ready Schools initiative, there are
many ways to convene and connect stakeholders.
These include conferences, briefings, panel
discussions, working groups, and regular retreats.
Each type of event has its strengths and weak-
nesses; conferences help large groups of people
share knowledge en masse, increase network
connections, and develop a sense of the overall
field while retreats are effective for developing
strong connections within smaller groups.
Conveners are experimenting with a variety of
different types of engagement, from audience
participation through the use of social media68 to
new structures of information dissemination and
interaction.69 For instance, the Social Capital
Markets conference in San Francisco last year
used a blog to communicate with conference
attendees and posted Twitter tweets, blog posts,
videos, and other announcements from those
who attended.
Leveraging Digital Tools and Information
One of the great opportunities for funders work-
ing to build coalitions and share knowledge is
presented by digital media. Often, the knowledge
of what others in the field are doing, the current
state of a policy proposal, or the work of related
entities is information that funders have access to
and that their partners in the field readily need.
All of the convening tips above can be enhanced
by the appropriate use of digital communications
technology.
The operative word, however, is appropriate.
Just because social networking technologies are
prevalent and free doesn’t mean everyone is using
them or wants to use them. It also doesn’t mean
that everything that can be shared electronically
should be. There are now many guidebooks and
best-practice tools for using digital media to build
movements and coalitions, strengthen communities,
and create new ideas or propagate those that exist.
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 19
 The two ends of the spectrum — sharing every-
thing electronically with everyone or sharing
nothing with anyone — are usually wrong direc-
tions. Knowing where to act in between depends
on the characteristics of both your human and
technology-enhanced networks.70
Foundations and their partners In addition to experi-
have three key resources at their ments with technology,
command: money, time, and some foundations are also
information. reconsidering the copy-
right and product owner-
ship policies in order to
better connect grantees and facilitate their knowl-
edge sharing. A 2009 study by the Berkman Center
for Internet and Society looked at copyright rules
used by foundations in regard to information
developed by groups or projects they funded. The
paper found that most of the perceived barriers to
policy change could be overcome with little risk
— and great potential for expanding the reach
(and potential impact) of the funded work.71 This
step has already been taken by some public
funders, such as the National Institutes of Health,
which now requires grantees to upload their
funded and published findings in an openly
accessible database called PubMed Central.72
CONCLUSION
Philanthropic resources are limited, and they are
often deployed for limited periods of time to
catalyze or carry out significant changes that may
occur well beyond those time periods. As a result,
success often requires that activities or institutions
receiving funds continue their work after the
financial support ends. Policy change, in particular,
can take a very long time. The philanthropic
strategies outlined above — thoroughly mapping
the field, strengthening advocacy capacity,
supporting intermediaries, working through
networks, and convening key stakeholders — are
key elements in any successful field building and
policy change effort. They can set the stage for
success, create momentum, and put in place the
connections and resilient forces to maintain work
over time.These are all prerequisites for long-term
change.

Foundations and their partners have three key

resources at their command: money, time, and
information. Unlike either money or time, many
people can use information simultaneously. It can
complement, extend, accelerate, and enhance the
impact of either or both of the other two
resources.This characteristic of information makes
it a remarkable tool in any philanthropic strategy,
from field building to policy change.

20 Building Fields for Policy Change


NOTES
1
“Highlights of the Waldemar A. Nielsen Issue Forums in
Philanthropy: The Role of Philanthropy in Shaping Public
Policy” (Washington, DC: Georgetown Public Policy
Institute, 2008–2009), http://cpnl.georgetown.edu
/doc_pool/Nielsen%20Issue%20Forums%20in%20
Philanthropy%20Highlights%20Report.pdf.
2
Karen Saucier Lundy and Sharyn Janes, Community Health
Nursing: Caring for the Public’s Health, 2nd ed.. (Sudbury, MA:
Jones and Bartlett, 2009).
3
Joel L. Fleishman, J. Scott Kohler, and Steven Schindler,
Casebook for the Foundation: A Great American Secret (New
York: PublicAffairs: 2007), 30–32.
4
There have been several recent reports on the role of field
building and networks, including “Building to Last: Field
Building as Philanthropic Strategy” (San Francisco:
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc., 2010), “The Strong
Field Framework” (San Francisco: Bridgespan Group, June
2009), and “Working Wikily 2.0” (San Francisco: Monitor
Institute, July 2009).
5
“Building to Last: Field Building as Philanthropic Strategy”
(San Francisco: Blueprint Research + Design, Inc., 2010).
6
In a recent monograph on the topic of scaling nonprofit
innovation, Nancy Roob of the Edna McConnell Clark
Foundation and Jeffrey Bradach of the Bridgespan Group
suggest that funders, when trying to scale a program, should
support fewer organizations with larger sums of money and
“ensure that funding is given to those organizations that
have real evidence they deliver on their promise.” Nancy
Roob and Jeffrey L. Bradach, “Scaling What Works:
Implications for Philanthropists, Policymakers, and Nonprofit
Leaders,” (San Francisco: Bridgespan Group, April 2009),
http://www.bridgespan.org/uploadedFiles/Homepage/
Articles/Scaling%20What%20Works%20-%20EMCF-
Bridgespan%20April2009.pdf.
7 “Out-of-School Time Learning Grants & Programs,”
Wallace Foundation website, http://www.wallacefounda-
tion.org/GrantsPrograms/FocusAreasPrograms/Out-Of-
SchoolLearning/Pages/default.aspx.
8
SPARK: Overview,” W. K. Kellogg Foundation website,
http://www.wkkf.org/default.aspx?tabid=75&CID=168&N
ID=61&LanguageID=0.
9 “Tobacco: Overview and Strategy,” Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation website, http://www.rwjf.org/pr/topic.jsp?
topicid=1030&p=os.
10
“Pew Environment Group,” Pew Charitable Trusts publi-
cation, 7.
11
Mimi Ito et al., Hanging Out, Messing Around and Geeking
Out: Living and Learning with New Media. (Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, forthcoming.) White paper online at http://
digitalyouth.ischool.berkeley.edu/report.
12
The “wiki” phenomenon is based on a belief that expert
opinions are often flawed compared to the collective opin-
ion of many. The key to tapping the wisdom of the crowd is
diversity, independence, and decentralization. See James
Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds (New York: Doubleday,
2004), 22.
13
“Advocacy Funding: The Philanthropy of Changing
Minds,” Grantcraft website, http://www.grantcraft.org
/index.cfm?fuseaction=page.viewpage&pageid=734
14
Meredith Alexander Kunz, “Professor Sarah Soule
Explains Effective Social Movements,” Stanford Business
Magazine website (Autumn 2009), http://www.gsb.
stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0909/kn-effective-social-
movements.html?cmpid=main.
15
Ibid.
16
Robert Halpern, Julie Spielberger, and Sylvan Robb,
“Making the Most of Out-of-School Time” (Wallace
Foundation: New York, December 1998), 4,
http://www.wallacefoundation.org/SiteCollectionDocumen
ts/WF/Knowledge%20Center/Attachments/PDF/Making%
20the%20Most%20of%20Out-of-School%20Time.pdf.
17
Lucy N. Friedman, “A View from the Field: Helping
Community Organizations Meet Capacity Challenges”
(New York: Wallace Foundation, March 2008), 17, http://
www.wallacefoundation.org/wallace/whitepaper_friedman.pdf.
18
Ibid., 6–10.
19
Heather B. Weiss and Priscilla M.D. Little, “Strengthening
Out-of-School Time Nonprofits: The Role of Foundations
in Building Organizational Capacity” (New York: Wallace
Foundation, May 2008), 2, http://www.wallacefoundation.org/
wallace/whitepaper_weiss.pdf.
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 21
20
Ibid., 15..
21
Ibid., 8.
22 Heather McLeod-Grant and Leslie Crutchfield, Forces for
Good: The Six Practices of High-Impact Nonprofits
(San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2007), 109.
. SmokeLess States Program,” in Steven L. Isaacs and David
23 Ibid., 21.
24 Ibid., 20.
25
Ibid., 24.
26
“Shaping the Future of After-School: The essential role of
intermediaries in bringing quality after-school systems to
scale,” Collaborative for Building After-School Systems
(September 2007), 2, http://www.afterschoolsystems.org
/files/1675_file_cbass_shape_future_2007.pdf.
27
Ibid., 3.
28
“Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids,” Kellogg
Foundation website (March 2009), 1, http://www.
wkkf.org/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupport/View
Doc.aspx?LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&ItemID=
5000608&fld=PDFFile.
29
“Linking Ready Kids to Ready Schools: A Report on
Policy Insights from the Governors’ Forum Series,”
Communications Consortium Media Center (2009), 4–5,
http://www.wkkf.org/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupp
ort/ViewDoc.aspx?LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&
ItemID=5000607&fld=PDFFile.
30
Ibid., 5.
31
“Linking early learning and the early grades to assure that
children are ready for school and schools are ready for chil-
dren – a SPARK Legacy” (Battle Creek: W.K. Kellogg
Foundation, August 2008), 20, http://www.wkkf.org
/DesktopModules/WKF.00_DmaSupport/ViewDoc.aspx?
LanguageID=0&CID=168&ListID=28&ItemID=5000542
&fld=PDFFile.
32
Adapted from “Linking early learning and the early grades
to assure that children are ready for school and schools are
ready for children – a SPARK Legacy,” 20–21.
33
Ibid., 26..
22 Building Fields for Policy Change
34
Ibid., 27.
35
Sam Dillon, “Initiative Focuses on Early Learning
Programs,” New York Times, September 19, 2009, http:
//www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/education/20child.html.
36
“Karen K. Gerlach and Michelle A. Larkin, “The
C. Colby, eds., To Improve Health and Health Care: The Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology, vol. 8 (San Francisco,
Jossey-Bass, 2005), 1, http://www.rwjf.org/files/publica-
tions/books/2005/chapter_02.pdf.
37“Working in Coalitions,” (Washington, DC: Center for
Lobbying in the Public Interest, 2007), 1, http://www.
wkkf.org/advocacyhandbook/docs/07_coalitions.pdf.
38
“SmokeLess States Program,” 3.
39
“SmokeLess States Program,”10–11.
40
“SmokeLess States National Tobacco Prevention and
Control Program: Major Accomplishments and Highlights
by State (1994–2000)” http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom
/SLSAccomplishments00.pdf.
41
“SmokeLess States National Tobacco Prevention and
Control Program: Major Accomplishments and Highlights
by State (2001–2004)” http://www.rwjf.org/newsroom
/SLSAccomplishments04.pdf.
42
Pablo Eisenberg, “Pew's Shift to Charity Status Goes
Against What Is Best for the Public,” Chronicle of Philanthropy,
(December 11, 2003), http://philanthropy.com/premium
/articles/v16/i05/05003801.htm.
43
Stephanie Strom, “Pew Charitable Trusts Will Become
Public Charity,” New York Times, (November 7, 2003),
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/07/us/pew-charitable-
trusts-will-become-public-charity.html.
44
Gene Takagi, “Public Support Tests – Public Charities,”
Nonprofit Law Blog website (January 12, 2006),
http://www.nonprofitlawblog.com/home/2006/01/public
_support_.html.
45
Jeff Trexler, “Q & A: Why are hospitals grouped with
schools as public charities?” uncivilsociety.org website
(December 2, 2007), http://uncivilsociety.org/2007/12
/q-a-why-are-hospitals-grouped.html.
46 Debra E. Blum, “Pew Combines Policy-Research
Groups,” Chronicle of Philanthropy (April 27, 2004), http://
philanthropy.com/free/update/2004/04/2004042701.htm.
47 “Susan A. Magill on Philanthropic Services at Pew,” Pew
Charitable Trusts website, http://www.pewtrusts.org
/expert_qa_detail.aspx?id=48580.
48“Pew Prospectus 2009,” (Washington, DC: Pew
Charitable Trusts, 2009), 37, http://www.pewtrusts.org/
uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Static_Pages/About_
Us/PEW%20Prospectus%2020092.pdf.
49 “Deep Green,” Pew Charitable Trusts website, http://
www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=38586.
50
Two examples of other private foundations converting to
public charities are the Rockefeller Family Fund and the
Independence Community Foundation (which will be
renamed the Brooklyn Community Foundation). See Debra
E. Blum, “Big Change Afoot at Pew Trusts,” The Chronicle of
Philanthropy, November 6, 2003, http://philanthropy.com
/free/update/2003/11/2003110601.htm, and Diane
Cardwell, “A Brooklyn of Wealth and Needs Gets a Major
Charity All Its Own” New York Times, September 28, 2009,
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/nyregion/29
brooklyn.html.
51
“Prop. 8’s battle lessons,” Los Angeles Times, November 11,
2008, http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials
/la-ed-marriage11-2008nov11,0,3352846.story.
52
Massimo Menichinelli, “Net-map toolbox, a social net-
work analysis tool for Community/Locality Systems proj-
ects,” Open Peer-to-Peer Design website, http://www.
openp2pdesign.org/blog/archives/739.
53
Eva Schiffer, “About,” Net-Map Toolbox website,
http://netmap.ifpriblog.org/about.
54
Valdis Krebs, “Social Network Analysis, A Brief Intro-
duction,” Orgnet website, http://www.orgnet.com/sna.html.
55Marc Smith, “NodeXL: Network Overview, Discovery and
Exploration for Excel,” NodeXL website, http://www.code-
plex.com/NodeXL.
56
Diana Scearce, Gabriel Kasper, and Heather McLeod
Grant, “Working Wikily 2.0” (San Francisco: Monitor
Institute, 2009), http://www.monitorinstitute.com/
documents/WorkingWikily2.0hires.pdf.
57
“Philanthropy and Networks Exploration Links:
Resources,” The David & Lucile Packard Foundation web-
site, http://www.packard.org/genericDetails.aspx?RootCat
ID=3&CategoryID=162&ItemID=3744&isFromModule=1.
58 “
Resources: Networks,” Barr Foundation website,
http://www.barrfoundation.org/resources/resources_list.htm
?attrib_id=9534.
59Jared Raynor, Peter York, and Shao-Chee Sim, “What
Makes an Effective Advocacy Organization? A Framework
for Determining Advocacy Capacity” (San Francisco: TCC
Group, January 2009), 14, http://www.calendow.org
/uploadedFiles/Publications/Policy/General/Effective
Advocacy_FINAL.pdf.
60
“Build Capacity & Measure Advocacy Efforts,” Alliance
for Justice website, http://www.advocacyevaluation.org
/?source=web_pf.
61
“The Strong Field Framework” (San Francisco: The
Bridgespan Group, 2009), http://www.irvine.org/images
/stories/pdf/pubs/strongfieldframework.pdf.
62
Paul M. Connolly, “Deeper Capacity Building for Greater
Impact” (San Francisco: TCC Group, April 2007), 2,
http://www.irvine.org/assets/pdf/pubs/philanthropy/LTCB
_Paper_2007.pdf.
63
Ibid., 10.
64
“Shaping the Future of After-School” (New York:
Collaborative for Building Afters-School Systems,
September 2007), http://www.afterschoolsystems.org/files
/1675_file_cbass_shape_future_2007.pdf.
65
“Working in Coalitions” (Washington, DC: Center for
Lobbying in the Public Interest, 2007), 2,
http://www.clpi.org/images/pdf/07_coalitions.pdf.
66
“Why Supporting Advocacy Makes Sense for
Foundations” (New York: The Atlantic Philanthropies, May
2008), http://atlanticphilanthropies.org/content/down-
load/5238/79869/file/ATLP_advocacy_report.pdf.
67
Laura C. Leviton and Elaine F. Cassidy, “Engaging
Coalitions to Improve Health and Health Care,” in Steven
L. Isaacs and David C. Colby, eds., To Improve Health and
Blueprint Research + Design, Inc. 23
Health Care: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Anthology,
vol. 10 (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2005), http://www.rwjf.
org/files/research/anthology2007chapter10.pdf.

68 “SOCAP September 1st Daily Update,” Social Capital

Markets website, http://www.socialcapitalmarkets.net

/index.php?/component/option,com_wordpress/Itemid,64
/p,550.

69
“2009 IS/CMF Conference: Engaging Session Formats”
Independent Sector website, http://www.independent
sector.org/AnnualConference/2009/formats.html.

70 Good resources on these tools and their use in sharing

information and building community can be found through

NTEN (www.nten.org), from Beth Kanter, (www.beth.
typepad.com), and from the online forums at TechSoup
Global (www.techsoup.org). Each of these sources can also
point you to issue- or technology-specific expertise.

71
Phil Malone, “An Evaluation of Private Foundation
Copyright Licensing Policies, Practices and Opportunities”
(Cambridge, MA: Berkman Center for Internet and Society,
August 2009), http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/publications
/2009/Open_Content_Licensing_for_Foundations

72
“National Institutes of Health Public Access,” National
Institutes of Health website, http://publicaccess.nih.gov.

24 Building Fields for Policy Change