More charitable foundations and trusts have moved away from spreading dollars across multiple causes. Instead, their aim is to increase impact by focusing on key initiatives, then reviewing data to measure results.
Empire Health Foundation, the region’s largest charitable foundation, describes its approach as “adaptive, results-based investments.” The foundation manages an $80 million endowment to encourage healthy lifestyles in seven Eastern Washington counties.
“We want to move beyond just writing a grant check and hoping it would do some good,” said Antony Chiang, foundation president. “It’s saying if there is a tough social issue, what is the needle that best represents that issue, and how do we try to move the needle?”
Spokane County United Way started a shift toward focused giving in 2009 that noticeably sharpened earlier this year. The chapter’s 2015-16, $2 million budget now specifically targets support in three areas – education, income and health – aligning with more than 35 nonprofits and programs affecting children and families.
Focuses include family abuse intervention and school retention, backing such nonprofits as the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center and Second Harvest. But the shift also cut funding as of July 1 to nine programs previously supported but now deemed no longer aligned with initiatives.
The nonaligned programs are Mid-City Concerns Meals on Wheels, Lilac Services for the Blind, YMCA Healthy Opportunities, the YMCA’s senior volunteer program, Eastern Washington Hearing Loss Center, Spokane AIDS Network, ARC’s Community Center, Providence Visiting Nurse and Providence Adult Day Health.
While individual donors on forms still can direct a United Way donation to any charity of choice, the chapter is focusing with agency partners to reduce levels of poverty, abuse and education achievement gaps in Spokane County.
[For more of this story, written by Treva Lind, go to http://www.spokesman.com/stori...-to-move-the-needle/]
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