This week we did something that has only happened five times since the doors of the Meyer Memorial Trust opened 31 years ago. We selected a new trustee.
We are thrilled to announce that Charles Wilhoite joins George Puentes, Orcilia Zúñiga Forbes, Debbie Craig and John Emrick on our Board of Trustees. Charles replaces Gerry Pratt, who retired as an active trustee at the end of March. (He continues to serve our foundation as trustee emeritus.)
Charles, a CPA with several special certifications, has lived in Portland since 1980 and is managing director at Willamette Management Associates, a firm specializing in financial consulting, economic analysis and business valuation services. In addition, he heads up the firm's national tax-exempt entity and health care services practice.
In addition to his financial acumen, Charles' broad and deep community service made him an attractive candidate for trustee. We were particularly impressed with his demonstrated commitment to and leadership within Oregon. He presently serves on a number of nonprofit boards of directors, including chair of Oregon Health and Science University, chair emeritus of the Portland Business Alliance, treasurer of the Urban League of Portland and chair of Oregon's Children's Foundation that operates the statewide SMART program. He is also a board member of a number of other community, state and national organizations. He plans to transition off boards of organizations that are potential applicants to Meyer Memorial Trust.
Fred Meyer, whose will established the Meyer Memorial Trust from his estate, wrote that "the usefulness and strength of a board of trustees should depend, above all, on a variety of points of view it can fairly represent."
Charles' rural upbringing, growing up in Navajo Nation, will bring a valuable perspective to our board. We actively seek out trustees who can bring new experiences and viewpoints to help us contribute to a flourishing and equitable Oregon.
Charles was named one of the Fifty Most Influential Portlanders by Portland Monthly in January 2012: "Admirers cite his money skills, fundraising connections, and passion for health and education, among other issues. (Some also hint that within this public-spirited persona lurks a wicked sense of humor.)"
We also discovered Charles has a history of collaborative, effective and creative problem solving and consensus building, something that will serve him well as a trustee.
Trustees of Meyer Memorial Trust have fiduciary responsibilities over all legal, fiscal investing, grantmaking and policy-making aspects for the trust. In addition to deciding which grant proposals get funding, they actively oversee investment of our corpus, presently at $722 million. Meyer paid out more than $35 million to tax-exempt organizations in Oregon and Clark County, Washington, in the most recent fiscal year, which ended March 31, 2013.
Our foundation's bylaws were recently amended by the trustees to establish an initial seven-year term, with the potential to serve an additional five years. Previously, trustee appointments were for life.
Please join us in welcoming Charles to the Meyer Memorial Trust team!
Meyer Memorial Trust has named seasoned investor Rukaiyah Adams as its new Chief Investment Officer.
Adams, the director of investment management at The Standard, succeeds Wayne Pierson, who contributed significantly to the development of Meyer’s $800 million corpus during his 32-year tenure as Chief Financial & Investment Officer, dating back to the Foundation’s inception in 1982.
Pierson is retiring this month. Adams takes on her new role at Meyer effective July 23, 2014.
She will lead an investment team that includes the support of Sayer Jones, Director of Finance and Mission Related Investing.
“We are enthused to have such a highly-qualified investment professional as Rukaiyah join the Trust,” said Doug Stamm, Chief Executive Officer of the Meyer Memorial Trust. “With strong roots in Oregon, Rukaiyah is passionate about her new role and the opportunity to partner with the Meyer team in our effort to create a more flourishing and equitable Oregon. Rukaiyah brings deep investment expertise and an eye towards innovation that we expect will expand Meyer's resources and impact."
Northeast Portland raised, Adams is a graduate of Carleton College in Minnesota, where she was named both a Ford Foundation Scholar and a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. At Stanford University Law School, Adams served as editor of the Law and Policy Review and co-president of the Law Student Association. She worked as a corporate lawyer for seven years in the Bay area before returning to Stanford for her MBA.
Adams comes to philanthropy from the world of private investments. At The Standard, a Portland-based financial services group, Adams led a team that managed $7 billion of direct investments. During her tenure there, she was appointed by Gov. Kitzhaber to the Oregon Investment Council, an oversight board responsible for the management of the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund and other state funds. A supporter of economic empowerment, women's health and the arts, Adams has volunteered her services to a number of community based organizations and initiatives. She currently serves on the board of directors of Portland Center Stage.
She also served on the finance committee of the local chapter of Planned Parenthood and was among thousands of lawyers assigned to polling places in Ohio and Florida during the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns.
“I look forward to beginning my tenure as a student of philanthropy,” Adams said. “Hopefully, the combination of the knowledge gained from decades of good work by the people at Meyer together with my experience using assets for positive outcomes will generate something innovative and wonderful."
Meyer recently issued a statement on equity, a primer on our mission as a foundation and as individuals to do what is needed to enrich Oregon.
The statement is 429 words. It represents our recognition that to move forward, we have to look back and own the biases, oppression and disparities that shape this place that is our home. But it also represents a journey that the foundation started in earnest when we revised Meyer’s mission, vision and values.
I’m Oregon through and through, Portland-born and Stanford-educated. My socially liberal bona fides were well-honed. My friends, colleagues and acquaintances came in assorted colors and ethnicities, and from all economic backgrounds. I’d seen disparities up close and first hand during my tenure at Friends of the Children. I believed in equality. I believed we could do better. But the Doug Stamm of five years ago wasn’t meaningfully involved in the struggle. My hands weren’t reaching for the wheel to help drive the conversation about equity. So when we wrote Meyer’s values, these words meant something broad and unspecified to me: Flourishing and equitable communities are places with healthy environments where all current and future residents have fair access to opportunities to learn, work, prosper and participate in a vibrant cultural and civic life.
I cared. But I couldn’t fathom my role in removing the barriers that prohibit many Oregonians from having fair access to opportunities.
That was 2009. In 2013, the reality hit home in a real way when Meyer’s staff had a retreat to talk about race, white privilege, disparity and equity. I want to thank my colleagues, particularly my colleagues of color, for their honesty and fearlessness. The experiences they shared brought oppression home for me. The costs of personal and systemic prejudice were laid bare. At the end of two painful days of conversations, I knew I wanted off the sidelines. Their stories provoked me intellectually to think about what we meant when we talked about “a flourishing and equitable Oregon.” And they emboldened me to push myself and this venerable organization. I wanted to do more than nod my head along when people decried what was wrong, when the topic turned to urban blight, rural poverty, hunger, homelessness and hate. I wanted to be an ally in moving the needle toward real equity.
To truly be an equitable place, with the changing demographics in our state, Meyer had to address issues of developing fair access. We needed to be intentional. And that meant facing up to structural and institutional racism.
It is mere lip service if diversity doesn’t carry throughout an organization. Right off the bat, we knew that Meyer didn’t have the people of color at the management level that we needed to make this a richer foundation. We’d made progress in diversifying our staff but where we fell short was in diversifying our executive team. For several years, we had talked about wanting to see a change in that direction. People tried in earnest and we kept ending up with great candidates who were white. We refined our recruitment process, we promoted from within, but still our hiring didn’t change. A white friend who runs a Northwest foundation told me about a candidate he talked with for an hour. At the end of the interview, he really liked the guy. They just clicked. Then he realized it was because the candidate was exactly like him: white, male, Ivy League-educated. No wonder it was so easy to feel connected to the candidate — and to assume that affinity meant the man was the most qualified. That story really struck me. It was easy to fall into the mindset that we’d done all we could at Meyer; this was Portland, the whitest major city in America, after all. Of course we hired people just like ourselves.
We needed to push beyond those sensibilities to fill positions. We wanted qualified candidates: Degrees from Harvard and Stanford and a familiar, middle class upbringing are fine, but we began looking for people who were more broadly accomplished and could do the work. I reached out to executive directors of color among my friends and cohorts, and I told them I was hellbound to have qualified people of color in my finalist pools. Then I partnered with a firm with a history of recruiting folks of color at the executive level. With their help, Meyer’s recent hires have been top-notch.
Equity work is not a numbers game. But we are making real progress at Meyer, on the Board of Trustees, in staff and in management positions.
Together, we’ve gone through intensive trainings on race, racial equity and institutional, structural and individual racism. And we’ve worked hard to define our shared definition of equity as the existence of conditions where all people can reach their full potential. It has helped us come to the table as partners. It has shaped how we do what we do, giving us a lens through which to consider programs and determine where our funding can do the most good for communities that need the most. It has shaped how we measure our outcomes. It has focused our mission in philanthropy, a field that exists at the nexus of power and poverty, wealth and want.
But there’s still more to do. The journey, albeit indefinite, requires some road marks to ensure that Meyer continues in the right direction. One way we aim to stay on target is to cooperatively engage with communities and grantees to maintain an ongoing dialogue about where we are and where we ought to be.
For Meyer, it has been an evolution. For me, it’s been a transformation. Earlier this year, I became a grandfather. If you really care about the quality of life for your kids and your grandkids, you’ve got to see the upside to working to eliminate bias and oppression. Today, I see my role, and Meyer’s, as being actively engaged in the struggle. Let’s be clear: biases and disparities drive the societal costs philanthropy tries so hard to mitigate. Three years after the Occupy Wall Street Movement, I’m not so concerned about the top one-percent. But I am deeply concerned about the 17 percent of Oregonians in poverty. Can we do more to move that lower 17% up? I think so. The opportunity to succeed must not be tilted in favor of those who are white or born of privilege or come from a power base. Anyone can feather their own nest. Having a stake in equity means asking yourself: What can I do beyond that? Am I working to tear down structural and institutional barriers for people of color, for people in poverty, so they can build their own nests?
That’s the business I want to be in. And it’s work Meyer has taken on. The reason is simple: we have a shared destiny.
— Doug
Meyer has broadened our pursuit of equity to examine all aspects of social equity: race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, economic, class, disability status and ethnicity. Look for more blogs from Doug as we delve deeper into the barriers Oregonians face to creating vibrant cultural, civic and professional lives.
We're currently in the process of building a new website to replace our very dated Drupal 6 site. In January 2015, we put out a Request for Proposals and received 43 proposals in reply, far more than we expected. In the process of giving each equal care and consideration, we learned a lot about what we could have done better, what worked for us and what left us scratching our heads. In gratitude to those who gave us their time and effort, we wanted to share our takeaways from the process.
What we could have done better
Upfront soul-searching. In hindsight, we could have spent more effort defining our priorities. Approaching an RFP with wide open arms tends to result in an armful of RFPs. Had we trusted our instinctive preferences, say for a local partner and building the site in Drupal 8, we'd have saved ourselves, and dozens of firms around the world, an awful lot of effort.
Better communication. We should have set up an FAQ page from the get-go and announced it on the RFP, alerting folks that it would be updated continuously as new questions came in. We also should have scheduled a conference call for live vendor questions.
More detail beats less. Aiming for that fine line between giving too much information in the RFP and too little, we undershot. As a result, we spent a lot more time replying to questions than we anticipated. Overshooting seems a better option.
But a narrow focus beats a broad one. Along with greater RFP detail, we could have been more concrete about what we really wanted. Had we just stated outright that we only wanted to see Drupal 8 proposals, or been more explicit that we would accept full, design-only, and tech-only proposals, we might have saved Meyer — and potential vendors — time.
Team size matters. After looking at 43 proposals, we knew we didn't want a generalist freelancer or two doing the Drupal — a scenario we could have handled in-house. In the end, we discovered we needed the experience, best practices and processes more common in teams of specialists.
Of course, vendors might have more input here and we'd love to hear it and share it. Comment below or gkruger [at] mmt.org (email me) if there were things you wish we'd done better. Please don't mention the need to phone us directly though. It is impractical to accept calls from 43 firms (and often there were calls from more than one person at a firm). It was also frustrating when callers made hard-sell sales pitches, something our receptionist had to wade through, or attempted to trick us into revealing information we did not intend to share.
What we wished we'd seen
We looked at each website redesign proposal as a preview of a vendor's site-building abilities, professionalism and working relationships. If a proposal showed poor attention to detail or subpar communication skills, and if it disregarded instructions or contradicted the RFP, we took it as an indicator of how a vendor operates. Mediocre, cookie-cutter proposals, which might have had a shot in the absence of competition from other vendors, didn't stand a chance with us.
We get it: some vendors believe responding to RFPs is a waste of time. A San Francisco firm we'd heard great things about from other foundations told us upfront they no longer bothered with RFPs, instead prefering direct invitations to take on assignments. We appreciated their candor. But for those firms that choose to respond to RFPs, consider these tips to put your best foot forward. Many will seem obvious but we saw proposals with multiple examples of them:
Read the RFP and respond to what it asks for. Failing here will mostly get you rejected and certainly wastes time, including yours.
Respect the stated preferences. If the RFP says "no calls," then don't call. If it says "PDFs only," then send your documents as PDFs. Sometimes the requirements are a test to see who is paying attention. You'd be surprised how often people don't pay attention, and inattention is a poor trait to build a partnership on.
Proofread and spell and fact check. Among the RFPs we considered, we discovered accidentally included information about other clients and we were invited to drop by the office of a vendor located the other side of the country, etc. Feel free to use an RFP template, but take care that mistakes are fixed before you press send. You are selling attention to detail. Skip this step at your peril.
Line up your ducks before submitting the proposal. Sales, tech and management staff MUST be in sync on what you can deliver. If, for example, sales makes a promise tech can't support, your pitch will end up in the reject pile.
Be organized. Name your documents with both your firm's and the proposed client's names, e.g.: Amazing Web Firm Meyer proposal.pdf. Trust us, juggling 43 proposals named Meyer proposal makes for a massive headache. While we're on the subject, why not send just one document, not a proposal plus six separate resumes plus an appendix plus a document of examples... just one document. See massive headache, times nine.
Put your name on it. This one seems obvious but make sure to put your firm's name on the front page of your proposal. While you're labeling stuff, use page numbers and maybe include your name and the client's in the footer. It helps a lot.
Be succinct. If you're responding to an RFP that asks for a website that is less cluttered, less wordy and less overwhelming, think twice about sending an 80-pageAbout Us addendum. It is unlikely to be read — and may harm your proposal more than help it. Keep it short.
Your own site matters. It's your storefront and reflects the work you do. It is difficult to believe a vendor when they tell us how important great branding and an excellent website are if they are not doing these things for themselves. Out-dated tech, unresponsive design and the bad visuals will count against you.
Highlight how your examples fit the project. Tell us what you did. Among our favorite proposals were ones that pointed out which pieces of a previous project a vendor tackled, and how those pieces fit our needs. If you propose working with a partner you've worked with before, show us that work. If this is the first time partnering then pick examples of both firms' work that reflect what might dovetail with the client's project.
Highlight your expertise. Pick examples that showcase your technical capabilities and experience. Show sites that look like what you're proposing, that demonstrate current best practices and that use the same software (I used Wappalyzer to tell me how websites were built). If you have any prior clients in our industry then highlight them.
Stalk us. Okay, that may be overstated but it is nice when a proposed partner takes the time to get to know the client. Take a close look at our existing website and scan our social media. Notice what industry your client belongs to and tailor your pitch. Bottom line, you'll avoid silly mistakes, like calling a foundation a company or telling a nonprofit how your work will increase sales.
Remember who you're talking to. You are setting the tone for a business partnership. Being talked down to feels icky. Assume you are dealing with an intelligent, capable and highly motivated team. Look to the tone and content of the RFP to see how much explaining you need to do. For example, in our case we had a Drupal guy on the team (me) so we expected to field high level tech questions, from one pro to another.
Provide clickable URLs. You want the client to see your work, right? Making someone Google your examples to take a closer look is not what you want. Why? Well, if your work doesn't show up in the first few results, it may just draw my attention to your poor SEO skills.
Show us your team. If we ask for resumes of the team then give us the entire team we'll be working with. Not your policy? Then give us some reassurances about the level of developers you'll put on the job. Don't just give the resumes of managers who won't be integral to the project. And if you provide links to staff member's LinkedIn profiles, make sure they are up-to-date.
Make your best case. Say we state a preference for something specific, a like a type of software or a certain number of logo revisions. If you have a better idea, make clear the benefit we'll enjoy by doing it your way instead of ours. Alternatives without justifications left us feeling like we weren't heard.
Face up to technical challenges. If there are stumbling blocks we want to know that you are aware of them, that you want to be sure we know about them and that you are up to the challenge. For example, we requested Drupal 8 well ahead of its release date (read our reasons) so we were hoping for proposals that highlighted both the challenges and your confidence and competence to overcome them.
Be realistic about budget. Don't leave anything out. It can feel like subterfuge when surprises pop up. And if you win the RFP sweepstakes, be mindful of what you promised, and at what cost. Your client surely will.
Don't nag. We're not your only prospective client; you're not our only prospective vendor. Nagging makes people exhausted. Nagging before the RFP even closes leaves a bad impression. An email that politely says, 'don't call us, we'll call you' means just that.
Ways to improve a proposal for a Drupal or other tech website
If you're bidding based on a specific CMS or other software then show us your chops and those of your staff.
Link to your staff members' Drupal.org profile. Or link to a similar professional profile that shows your team's community standing, skills and contributions. And make sure the profile is filled in. Empty profiles do a vendor no favors. Also, consider that the client might read your proposal offline so offering a preview can be very user-friendly.
Open source communities are gift communities. Nonprofits have a lot in common with free and open source software (FOSS.) Showing nonprofits that you also give back is a good thing.
Don't explain to us what we already know. If we asked for a Drupal site then we already know why Drupal is a strong choice, so you don't need to tell us how awesome it is.
Watch your building blocks. This one should go without saying: Whatever you do, don't build your company website using Weebly, Webs, SquareSpace or any similar service aimed at non-coders, unless you are suggesting we use it too.
Equity and diversity
One final thing to discuss is diversity.
Tech is a field with a notorious lack of diversity. It is predominantly white, male and young and the data suggests that we're driving diversity away at every level, from high school through college to mid-career. Most firms don't question this or how they might be part of the problem. They wrongly throw their arms up and say the problem is too big and not their fault, enabling them to ignore the issue.
Equity and diversity are vitally important to Meyer. We stressed it in our RFP, and it's front and center on our website. In the majority of the proposals, there was no acknowledgement that equity and diversity matters and stock photographs showing predominately white, predominately male faces. Obtuse? Arrogant? Either way, we didn't feel listened to.
Diversity matters not only because it's right, fair and just, and because more and more of your clients will be looking for it from tech firms. It also matters because it makes firms like yours more productive, profitable and competitive. Sound like a crazy claim? Well, then you really need to watch Erynn Petersen's Keynote from the most recent DrupalCon on the financially measurable value of well-managed diversity in the workplace. She backed it all up with data and studies for which she included citations and references. Watch it and take note.
Wrap-up
The RFP process can feel an awful lot like online dating. You're comparing choices, trying them on for size and making decisions based on your best understanding of an possible partner.
Everyone can't make the final cut. But a number of firms that we did not select nonetheless grew in our esteem. We were impressed and grateful to have gotten to know them better. We regularly make recommendations to others in the nonprofit sector and we now have several new firms that we can point to. Though they didn't get this gig, they still may gain and there's a lot to be said for that. This backs up all of the above, which is to say do RFPs well, or don't do them at all.
While you know Jill from four years as a program officer at Meyer, juggling both Responsive and Grassroots grants, her background and skills that make her a great fit for this position.
Before Meyer, Jill spent 16 years in the environmental field developing a broad base of knowledge and experience, from traditional conservation to sustainability to environmental justice. Her experience integrating and operationalizing equity into environmental work is quite unique in the field.
Her educational background — a masters degree in environmental studies and a baccalaureate in government — offers a solid grounding in understanding environmental issues and policy. And Jill's management experience as co-executive director at CLF and as operations manager for the Sisters of the Road Cafe provides a base of planning, budget management and supervision experience that will serve her well in this role.
I couldn’t be happier to have Jill lead Meyer Trust’s new Healthy Environment portfolio.
Please join me and Doug in congratulating Jill on her new transition!
I'm delighted to share the good news that Theresa Deibele will be Meyer's new Housing Opportunities Portfolio Director!
While you know Theresa from her three years as a program officer at Meyer Memorial Trust, focused on Responsive Grants and PRIs, her background and skill sets make her an excellent fit for this specialized leadership position. Theresa has deep roots in housing, management, finance, community development and the law that will compliment our current AHI team and set the standard for our new portfolio directors.
As an attorney, Theresa gained significant experience in public finance and a broad understanding of Oregon's housing landscape, along with the complex regulatory framework for housing transactions. She brings deep and unique insights from her years as Chief Financial Officer at ChristieCare, where she oversaw an $8 million budget during a rocky period in the children's mental health policy and funding environment, and shepherded the organization through a merger. As supervisor of professional staff with deep content expertise, Theresa also oversaw a staff of 14, including finance, human resources, facilities and IT. And she has served as a mentor to up-and-coming professionals.
While at Meyer, she has established relationships in the statewide housing nonprofit community, including housing authorities, large multifamily housing developers, housing advocates, land trusts and organizations serving people experiencing homelessness. And over the last two years, she has managed Meyer's Habitat for Humanity program and fully engaged in Meyer Trust's PRI work.
Please join me and Candy in congratulating Theresa on her new transition!
This week we announced that Meyer's trustees approved 109 grants, totaling $4.3 million.
That batch includes the last of the Grassroots Grants that Meyer Memorial Trust will award. Since 2007, the Grassroots Grants program has opened Meyer to nonprofits in every county and corner of Oregon. More than 960 grants, totaling nearly $20 million, were awarded through the program, building relationships that have helped shape the Trust and projects that have improved the lives of our neighbors.
As you've probably heard, Meyer is in the midst of a big change, a shift in focus to make a more significant impact in areas Oregonians have indicated deep interest and concern: education, the environment, affordable housing and maintaining the social sector safety net. Meyer is not alone in taking a hard look at its work and realigning its focus: Ford Foundation recently announced plans to direct its considerable influence and wealth toward curbing financial, racial, gender, and other inequities, and to offer its partners significant general operating support.
As we refine what we do, we are asking our nonprofit partners for help in shaping what our grantmaking will look like when we launch our new grant programs later this year. Already, hundreds of affordable housing experts across the nonprofit landscape have taken part in a survey to help define our Safe + Stable Housing portfolio. A new survey aimed at determining the parameters of our Resilient Social Sector portfolio was announced last week. Stay tuned for additional opportunities to ensure that our changes reflect and respect the nonprofits in our wider Oregon community, from its rural towns to its urban centers.
We look forward to keeping you advised on our developments, our ongoing grantmaking activities and the shaping of our new funding programs.
Orcilia Zúñiga Forbes, Ph.D., was a remarkable woman who cared deeply about her family and community. A retired nurse and university administrator, she was a thoughtful, compassionate and principled board member of the Meyer Memorial Trust for 16 years.
Debbie Craig, Meyer Board Chair, mourned and praised her friend and longtime colleague.
“Oregon has lost a great citizen,” Debbie said. “Orcilia was a proud woman of color, a leader who challenged us to always think of the underserved. We know what a huge loss this is to Meyer and we realize there is a long list of organizations, universities and art museums that are experiencing the same incredible sorrow.”
Born in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the eldest of Lorenzo and Anita Zúñiga’s eight children, Orcilia learned to value education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of New Mexico in 1960, and masters degrees in nursing and public policy — one from the Oregon Health and Sciences University in 1966, and one from the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health in 1972. She worked as a public school nurse, then became assistant director of health services at Portland State University before completing her doctorate in educational policy and management from the University of Oregon in 1992.
Orcilia spent a distinguished, four decade-long career in higher education administration. She served as Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs at Portland State University before returning to her alma mater in 1989, to become Vice-President of Student Affairs and later, Vice President for Institutional Advancement at the University of New Mexico. She returned to Oregon in 1998 to serve as Vice-President of University Advancement at Oregon State University, retiring in 2004.
She also served on the boards of many community, health, cultural and civic organizations, including the Hispanic Chambers of Commerce in both Albuquerque and Portland, Providence Health and Services System, Foundations for A Better Oregon/Chalkboard Project, National Hispanic Cultural Center Foundation and the Spanish Colonial Arts Society. In 1991, she received the MANA de Albuquerque’s Brindis a la Mujer Hispana Award, and the NAACP Martin Luther King Jr. Award. In 2009, University of New Mexico’s Alumni Association honored her with the Bernard S. Rodey Award for her contributions as an alumna. Her hard work and dedication were spotlighted in a show on Spanish-language KUNP Univision Portland and by Oregon Public Broadcasting.
“In a recent casual dinner conversation Orcilia shared with me how much she valued her relationships with the Meyer staff and trustees as well as our nonprofit partners across Oregon,” said Doug Stamm, CEO of Meyer Memorial Trust. “Orcilia’s friendship, leadership and tireless commitment to improving the lives of others has left a deep and positive imprint on those of us who had the good fortune to work alongside her, as well as many people across the state who have been impacted by the Trust and our grantees’ efforts.”
Orcilia, who was married to the late Richard Bryan Forbes, Ph.D., former department head of biology at Portland State University, is survived by a daughter Eryn and her husband Hal, and a son, Bryan, his wife Colleen and granddaughter Sabina.
A public celebration of Orcilia's wonderful, rich and accomplished life will be held Friday, October 23, 4:00 p.m. at Portland State University, Hoffman Hall. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Oregon State University Foundation, University of New Mexico Foundation or an environmental nonprofit.
This summer, we asked nonprofit leaders around Oregon to tell us what they needed from Meyer. More than 1,000 of you responded, helping shape our new priorities.
It has been a humbling experience. As Meyer's director of programs, I've been amazed by the candid feedback from so many of our nonprofit partners, fellow funders and many other stakeholders across Oregon. I am grateful for the time, insight and expertise so generously shared.
We read each of the 1,000 surveys submitted from people working in a wide range of fields – from arts groups and food banks and advocates working for equitable public policy to organizations cultivating culturally specific communities and land trusts and everything in between. We heard hundreds of voices that came to us from across Oregon: from community listening sessions in the Eastern high desert, from focus groups in the Gorge and southern coast, from expert interviews in the Willamette Valley, from learning panels in the Metro area. The diversity of perspectives offered to us have been nothing short of inspiring and enlightening.
We remain on track to announce the overarching frameworks for our new programs in December, with detailed information available in early 2016. In the meantime, we want to share a taste of what we heard through our housing, environment and resilient social sector partner engagement work.
Several broad themes were consistent across the portfolio areas.
There was a call for Meyer to remain innovative and bold in what we fund and in the leadership we provide. We heard it as a challenge, really, to step this up even higher.
There was also incredible energy and enthusiasm for Meyer’s push to make equity a foundational value in all of our new programs. At the same time, we heard many questions from folks unsure what we mean when we speak of equity. Is it exclusively about race? Are we also inclusive of other forms of oppression and marginalized populations? The answers are “no,” and “yes!” Here’s Meyer’s equity statement, which is our way of owning how “race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, disability, geography, age and other forms of bias and oppression are embedded within the institutions and systems in our community.” We are determined to embrace the role of working to dismantle barriers to equity, so that all Oregonians can experience safety, health and prosperity.
We heard real excitement about the potential of Meyer to exercise our capacity to convene around topics of critical importance to the field. We received some of the clearest encouragement for our plans to support systems change and advocacy, not only through funding nonprofits, but also through our leadership, influence and role as convener.
The desire for core support, capacity building, leadership development and multi-year funding came through loud and clear.
We were reminded about the contributions and needs of rural Oregon, as well the importance modest amounts of funding, collaboration and personal connections can hold in rural communities.
Finally, we heard worries that Meyer’s new portfolios may get siloed. Those voices reinforced how important it is for us to intentionally think across portfolios as we move forward in our program planning. We heard support for sharpening our focus, along with a caution not to become rigid and prescriptive. And we recognized a general call to continue to be responsive in ways that allow organizations to put forward their ideas and needs that align with the impact we want to have in our priority areas.
There was also feedback specific to each portfolio. Here’s a sampling of what we heard:
Portfolio specific insights
Building Community portfolio stakeholders wanted a clear definition of what a resilient social sector means and who it includes. People were concerned about whether the arts were included in Meyer’s vision of the social sector (yes, they are!). Interestingly, the portfolio name itself received mixed reviews, with two very different viewpoints on what it means to be resilient: some consider it to mean strong, nimble and adaptive, while others equate it with beleaguered. We definitely consider it the former! We’re considering renaming this portfolio to better reflect our aspirations. People were especially interested in funding and other supports for leadership development, financial management, advocacy, community and civic engagement and collaboration. And we received excellent feedback and ideas about how Meyer could help organizations further equity in both their programs and operations. Additional information is provided in this Building Community Design Process summary.
Among those providing input into our Housing Opportunities portfolio, affordable rental housing was clearly the highest priority, with general agreement that Meyer should prioritize households at or below 60 percent median family income. At the same time, we also heard a desire for the portfolio to encompass the continuum of housing needs across the state, from supporting people transitioning from homelessness into housing and from rental housing to homeownership. Gentrification and displacement and other housing disparities were noted as significant challenges. Innovations in linking supportive services with housing and developing creative financing for affordable housing development also stood out as important needs. Above all, we were reminded to put people front and center, and to keep in mind the ultimate goal of affordable housing: providing low-income Oregonians with stability and access to opportunity. You can find additional detail in this summary.
Stakeholders of the Healthy Environment portfolio were concerned about climate change, demographic shifts and the impact of disparities on those who experience the most environmental benefits and burdens in our communities. Rural communities’ complex economic ties to the environment, a healthy environment in urban areas and water issues across the state emerged as important concerns. We were strongly encouraged to design programming that reflects the inextricable ties between humans and nature. Themes of innovation were coupled with practicality and conservation. A hunger for building a diverse and inclusive environmental movement was apparent, and people are interested in how Meyer can help to cultivate tables where the diversity of Oregonians’ relationships to the environment are represented and contribute to policy decisions. This summary provides additional information about what we heard around the environment.
As Doug Stamm, Meyer's chief executive officer has mentioned, work to define our education portfolio is in its early stages. We anticipate this work will take place well into 2016.
Going forward
All of the feedback we received – about challenges and opportunities facing our communities, about how the Meyer Trust can best further our vision of a flourishing and equitable Oregon – have been invaluable to our thinking and planning. We hope you will find the summaries of stakeholder input for our resilient social sector, housing and environments portfolios to be informative and inspiring. We know we have, and are using this input, along with information about key trends influencing Oregon communities, nonprofits, philanthropy, and our own perspectives on our work, to shape our new programs.
It has been a busy past nine months at Meyer: since February, we have continued to fund proposals while engaging with partners across the state and planning for our future. As of November, we’re on track for what will be our largest grantmaking year in the history of Meyer Memorial Trust. While we’ve made some modest adjustments to our timeline, we anticipate launching new programs within the first few months of 2016. We look forward to sharing more about our future direction in the coming weeks, and greatly appreciate your continued interest in and ideas about how we can work together to create a more flourishing and equitable Oregon.
Dahnesh brings an impressive background that is an excellent fit with the vision for our portfolio (formerly called the Resilient Social Sector portfolio). Most recently, he worked with Education Northwest, where he provided capacity building and planning support to nonprofits and government organizations, both locally and nationally. His work included consulting with the Corporation for National and Community Service and nonprofit intermediaries participating in the Social Innovation Fund (a partnership of national funders and the federal government), as well as serving as a Plan Consultant for the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund's Flexible Leadership Award and its grantees in the Gay and Lesbian Rights and Immigrant Rights portfolios.
Previously, Dahnesh's roles included leading the organizational development consulting team at the Nonprofit Association of Oregon/TACS, serving as director of organizational services and capacity building with the National Community Development Institute in Oakland, Calif., and serving as Director of External Relations for the Tides Center in San Francisco. In all of those roles, Dahnesh supervised teams and led programmatic strategy development and implementation.
Dahnesh's experience with local and national philanthropy and nonprofits, team leadership and management, and his deep expertise with nonprofit organizational development and capacity building, provide an excellent foundation for building out and launching the Building Community portfolio.
