Proposition 54, The San Francisco Foundation

A. Strategy

• Convening stakeholders

B. Issue

• Civil rights/human rights

C. Organizational background

Founded in 1948, The San Francisco Foundation (TSFF) is one of the Bay Area's largest funders with assets of more than $800 million and a staff of more than 50. The Foundation trustees of 10 community leaders oversee all foundation activities, including policy, direction, and grantmaking. TSFF's mission is to mobilize resources and act as a catalyst for change to build strong communities, foster civic leadership, and promote philanthropy in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Marin counties. The Foundation makes approximately 4,500 grants totaling $65 million annually. As a community foundation, TSFF operates a number of donor advised funds as well as several foundation driven initiatives that are designed to influence public policy, address community issues, and support neighborhood-driven problem solving. Through its initiatives and other activities, TSFF has a history of supporting public policy efforts which address the root causes of the issues the foundation focuses on, including arts and culture, community health, education, the environment, neighborhood and community development, and social justice.

D. Project background

Proposition 54, the Classification by Race, Ethnicity, Color, or National Origin Initiative was on the October 2003 California Special Election ballot. Commonly referred to as the Racial Privacy Initiative, the proposition would have banned the state from collecting any racial or ethnic data. This ban would be applied to all governmental entities under the state, including local governments, school districts, and publicly funded health care and other service providers. TSFF staff believed that the proposition would severely interfere with the foundation's and its grantees' ability to access data critical to identifying and addressing community problems and social inequities. TSFF staff and grantees had been tracking the initiative long before it was placed on the ballot. In the early summer of 2003, a special election was set for October for the recall of then Governor Grey Davis. Instead of being listed on the March 2004 ballot as had been anticipated, Proposition 54 was moved up to the special election. As a first step-and an example of policy research and analysis as well as public education-TSFF decided to survey other foundations to see if they too felt that the proposition would limit their effectiveness. CompassPoint Nonprofit Services was contracted to conduct the survey. Findings demonstrated general agreement among California foundations that passage of Proposition 54 would seriously interfere with grantees' and foundations' ability to address community needs and target funding, programming, and resources. TSFF shared the results of the survey with its donors and with the field. Copies were made available by the Council on Foundations through Foundation News and Commentary, and Dr. Sandra Hernández, CEO of the Foundation, discussed the findings in a CNN-FN television interview. She also wrote an op-ed for the Oakland Tribune and publicized the foundation's stance against the measure on the TSFF website, www.sff.org.

In order to best advise the trustees, and realizing that they were being asked to break new ground, staff researched applicable state and federal legislation and regulations to clarify what the foundation could and could not do to engage in the debate as a public charity. The results were summarized in a memo. [For detailed information on rules and regulations, see the Public Charity's Guide to the California Initiative Process.

TSFF Social Justice staff organized a Proposition 54 panel presentation for its June 2003 trustees meeting. Ward Connerly, the author of the proposition, and Eva Patterson, then executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, debated the measure. Arnold Perkins of the Alameda County Public Health Department discussed the measure's potential impact on tracking infectious diseases and responding to health needs of all Alameda County's residents.

In July 2003, the trustees engaged in a lively discussion about the proposition and its implications for the foundation, its grantees, and the communities it serves, as well as the pluses and minuses of taking a public position. After careful consideration, the trustees voted to oppose Proposition 54. This was the first time that the trustees had publicly taken a stand on a statewide proposition. A recommendation by program officers for the foundation to become more deeply engaged in the No on 54 campaign was declined.

Following the trustees' decision, the Social Justice staff convened a meeting of nonprofit organizations to discuss how to increase voter turnout in communities of color that traditionally had lower voter turnout and who would be directly impacted by the electorate's final decision on Proposition 54. The convening included such organizations as the ACLU of Northern California, the League of Women Voters, Urban Habitat, ACORN, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the NAACP, the Ella Baker Center, and other civil rights and community organizing groups. The convening marked the first opportunity for these groups to share information about each of their voter engagement efforts and to strategize about how to achieve higher turnout by working together to share resources and expertise. Attendees were instructed that TSFF could only issue a single grant for $30,000, that re-granting was allowable, and that they should confer with one another and return to TSFF staff with a recommendation on a grantee agency. It was decided that the ACLU of Northern California would take the lead role. TSFF staff recommended, and the trustees approved, an expedited general support grant of $30,000 to the ACLU.

The grant supported a range of activities to educate the public and increase voter turnout. The ACLU held eight community education and outreach meetings in low-income communities of color. The ACLU regranted some of the funds to a number of organizations that attended the TSFF convening. These subcontractors conducted door to door outreach in target areas with historically low voter turnout. They also conducted a bilingual phone campaign that targeted 30,000 Asians and limited English speakers, engaging hundreds of young volunteers.

E. Theory of change

TSFF staff and board of trustees felt that if the public was informed of Proposition 54's far-reaching ramifications, they would vote against the measure. The "yes on 54" campaign was initially successful in framing the issue as one of privacy and a step towards creating a colorblind society. TSFF's grant supported efforts to reframe the issue to one of racial equality by highlighting how the proposition would interfere with research on healthcare and epidemiology, fair housing, and other issues important to the voting public.

TSFF's actions against Proposition 54 reflect a deep-seated organizational tenet. Foundations would not be able to serve their communities if community needs are not known. This is an especially important issue for community foundations such as TSFF that were created to serve the needs of geographically-specific communities. In our racially diverse and unequal society, racial data is critical for identifying disparities in education, health, and income, for example, all of which help to target limited funds where they are most needed.

F. Outcomes (impacts)

Proposition 54 was defeated at the polls by a vote of 64% to 36%. The percentage of voters against the proposition was higher in the counties in which TSFF provides funding, ranging from 66% in Contra Costa to 80% in San Francisco. This overwhelming defeat was striking given that earlier in the summer polls projected that the proposition would pass by a margin of more than 20 points. While it is difficult to assess causation in such cases, it is clear that TSFF's activities had a positive effect on the foundation, its peers, and grantee organizations. Information on how TSFF evaluated its Proposition 54 efforts can be found in the Assessing Public Policy Grantmaking section of the Toolkit. Prior to Proposition 54, the Foundation had very limited involvement in political campaigns, having provided some funding in 1994 for immigrant rights organizations fighting Proposition 187 which cut off health and social services to undocumented aliens and their children. TSFF staff used Proposition 54 as an opportunity to continue a discussion with its trustees about engaging more in public policy that offered a real-world opportunity on a matter that directly impacted the foundation's work. The annual trustees/staff retreat in September 2003 focused entirely on how and when the foundation would be involved in public policy, and particularly, when the trustees would be asked to take a public position such as they had done. The trustees made clear to the staff that it was empowered to engage in public policy as a critical strategy to reach the foundation's goals and objectives; however, staff was instructed to bring recommendations for public stands by the foundation only on the rarest of occasions. Staff may write letters to the editor, conduct public education through the foundation's website, and provide education for individual donors. When the foundation transitioned from a trust to a nonprofit corporation in 2002, it decided to take advantage of the 501(h) election which maximizes public charities' ability to lobby. [For more information on the 501(h) election, please see the Legal Parameters section of the Toolkit.]

Recently, TSFF took another stand on a piece of legislation. In November 2004, the foundation endorsed San Francisco's Measure A. The measure, which was ultimately defeated, would have provided a $200 million bond for affordable housing within the city. Increasing access to affordable housing is a one of the foundation's strategic objectives.

Through its engagement with the issues surrounding Proposition 54, Foundation staff and trustees realized that they have a powerful role to play in organizing other funders, both institutional and individual. Although causation cannot be proved, the TSFF's statewide survey may have spurred other foundations to take action. It may have encouraged grantmaking, others' public stands against the measure, as well as additional public education and research. TSFF worked closely to engage its individual donors in thinking about the potential impact of the proposition, offering information about the proponents' and opponents' arguments, along with the foundation trustees' and staff's analysis and recommendation. As a result, several related grants were recommended by TSFF donor advisors.

The Proposition 54 engagement also had ramifications for the Foundation's grantmaking practices. It held a second convening with the same organizations in order to evaluate the process and outcomes. The organizations identified low-cost, time-sensitive needs that had to be met to enable them to engage effectively in voter education and mobilization. These needs could not be addressed through the foundation's usual application process which takes approximately six months. Furthermore, smaller, less-established organizations are generally not as competitive in the TSFF application process, yet they are often the groups who are most effective in reaching disenfranchised populations. To best support this work, TSFF Social Justice staff realized that it had to create a more flexible process that could provide quick-turnaround and smaller grants to grassroots organizations without burdensome due diligence requirements.

As one of the foundation's pro-active grantmaking objectives, the trustees adopted a goal to increase voter participation in the Bay Area over the next five to ten years. As part of that strategy, staff proposed to provide quick turnaround mini-grants to grassroots organizations since the experience with Proposition 54 illustrated that small grants can have a big impact. The trustees approved the mini-grant strategy for an additional two years to provide $500-$5,000 grants up to a maximum of $50,000 per year. Program staff is authorized to approve grants directly and to order checks issued and to report to the trustees annually on the outcome. This dramatically reduces the amount of time it takes to get a grant and allows the foundation to better respond to emerging opportunities. Instead of evaluating each grant individually, TSFF assesses the work as a whole. Grantees participate in convenings to develop shared strategies, to share resources, and to undergo training on research in the field of increasing voter turnout and on staying within the proper bounds of laws and regulations for nonprofit organizations.

The TSFF funding around Proposition 54 also changed the work of some of its grantees. Due to their involvement in the campaign against Proposition 54, many small grassroots organizations that received TSFF funding through the ACLU or through the later mini-grant program in 2004, were inspired to get involved in more permanent voter registration and education efforts and to think of voter registration, education, and turnout as part of a larger civic engagement strategy. The foundation's efforts to increase voter engagement beginning with the fight against Proposition 54 has increased the number of small grassroots organizations who think about and become involved in promoting increased civic engagement, including voter registration and turnout.

G. Lessons learned

TSFF learned that engaging with community organizations directly to identify the most appropriate funding strategies can result in more effective grantmaking. Had the foundation not looked to the organizations who would be most effected by the proposition's passage for a funding plan, it is likely that its funds would not have gotten to the groups that were best situated to conduct this work - those working at the grassroots level among disenfranchised communities. The foundation also learned that its current grant application process was not sufficient to adequately meet the needs of grassroots organizations doing this work. A different model of grantmaking was needed to get funds to smaller community-based groups who can best reach disenfranchised populations.

A complimentary lesson that TSFF learned is that small amounts of funding can have deep impacts in this area of work. While high-cost public education which other foundations supported was likely important in framing the issue for regular voters, TSFF learned that a different approach is needed to reach out to new and infrequent voters of color. This victory was based on community organizing efforts in low-income communities of color - face-to-face interaction through door-to-door outreach and one-on-one phone conversations were critical.

From http://www.ncg.org/toolkit/html/diggingdeeper/casestudies/sff/print_sff.html