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ABOVE: Watering the zinnia for beauty and growth, Credit: Nigel Cattlin/Photo Researchers, Inc.
| | |  | Templeton Philanthropy Associates (TPA) was established by Sir John Templeton in the fall of 2002, after many years of substantial and diverse philanthropic activities. Templeton philanthropy takes a variety of forms but generally entails the conception, nurturing and execution of grants. Using these insights as a starting point, TPA is pioneering new approaches to strategic grant-making and identifying effective practices of others worldwide.
Organizations that compete successfully and thrive do so because they have structures in place to assure, improve and assess their performance. Successful entrepreneurs, in particular, must pay attention to accountability, rigorous and objective determination of goals and whether or not they are being met. Strategic partnerships must be formed where appropriate; pet projects must be abandoned when the time is right; time-tested, standard business practices must be continually followed to ensure success.
The same hardheaded analysis must also be applied to philanthropic projects. Just because the goal is to distribute resources rather than to accumulate them is no reason to lower the standards of productivity. The Foundation has, by any measure, been a very successful philanthropic organization with many examples of projects that serve as models for the synergistic convergence of business acumen and philanthropic vision. However, despite such successful examples at the Foundation and other kindred organizations, there still does not exist a comprehensive “science” of effective philanthropy.
In an effort to maximize the effectiveness of its own philanthropy, to promote partnering and to increase the overall knowledge base of the entire field of philanthropy, the Foundation has created the Templeton Philanthropy Associates. Full-time professionals have been hired to enhance entrepreneurial approaches to grant-making activities.
Entrepreneurial approaches to grant-making activities:
• Private foundations
• Individual donors
• Public nonprofits
• Corporate research entities
• Government grant-making agencies
The Foundation’s Executive Director and Senior Vice President Charles L. Harper, Jr., puts it like this: “Our commitment is to develop philanthropic analogs to such successful entrepreneurial principles as accountability, rigorous measurement and strategic partnerships, that will help achieve the mission of the Foundation in innovative and sustainable ways and also assist others in improving their efforts.”
The grant-making expertise of the Templeton Philanthropy Associates includes such things as:
• Knowledge of trends and issues, across diverse philanthropic and grant-making sectors
• Knowledge of business techniques and their utility, limits, and applicability
• Ability to locate, hire, inspire, and evaluate the diverse specialists needed for philanthropic success
• Knowledge of the changing face of the research enterprise, with a particular emphasis on the challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research
“Successful venture philanthropy is an adaptive process,” says Dennis Cheek, Managing Director of Templeton Philanthropy Associates. “Our challenge is to identify the tools and approaches that have been successful in either business or nonprofit sectors and, together with our grantees and experts from a wide range of disciplines, adapt them to the areas of research we are interested in developing.”
Templeton Philanthropy Associates will work closely with grant-making individuals and organizations to:
• Provide technical assistance to donors and their grantees in the many dimensions of entrepreneurial philanthropic success including strategic planning, management, financial matters, accountability, evaluation, marketing, grant cultivation and opportunistic partnering
• Develop appropriate data gathering, analysis, and reporting systems
• Develop sophisticated, highly functional grants management capabilities
• Publish technical papers and general articles describing pioneering work in entrepreneurial philanthropy, highlighting exemplary cases of innovation, and publicizing these approaches through the media
• Create and operate effective prize programs
• Understand and implement standards for the design, execution, evaluation, promulgation, compilation, and synthesis of research
“One of the areas we’ll be developing will focus on innovative ways to share and diffuse information among stakeholders with the same speed, accuracy, and utility as the business world,” says Barnaby Marsh, Director of Philanthropy Strategy and New Programs Development. Dr. Marsh, a former Rhodes Scholar, spearheads Templeton's efforts to identify venture partners in government, academia and the corporate world.
For more information please visit: www.templeton.org/venture_philanthropy |
