Community Grail Foundations
Executive Summary
“Shared citizenship or inclusive society does not exist if we keep living next to each other instead of together.” (emphasis added) ~ Bartolomeus Somers, Mayor of Mechelen, Belgium
What is a community grail foundation (“CGF”)? A CGF is a cooperative (explained further below) made up of members that is charity focused. The members of a CGF will incl
ude individuals, nonprofits and businesses that have a common bond. An example of a common bond is geographic location (i.e., a town) and these CGFs are referred to as “Community Centered CGFs.” Other categories of common bonds might be a central charitable theme (i.e., cancer research or interdicting human trafficking), faith-based associations, professional affinity groups (i.e., advanced practice nurses or attorneys), and even hobby/sport interests (i.e., quilting or lacrosse). These other categories are referred to as “Cause Specific CGFs.”
The function of a CGF is to be a charitable multiplier. It will accomplish this through fostering cooperation to improve the “philanthropic infrastructure” that currently exists to support the efforts of those promoting the CGF’s specific common bond. Whatever the common bond might be, a CGF for that common bond will exist to help its members do their charity work better through cooperation among its members and among other CGFs. An effective philanthropic infrastructure is one that paves the way towards better communication, fundraising, collaboration, volunteer recruitment, and reduced operational costs. If the common bond is a geographic location, a CGF will seek to unite and leverage the “silos” of charitable efforts within that geographic location so that small non-profit organizations can benefit from the momentum generated by the activities of large organizations. And taking advantage of that momentum will in turn add back momentum to the effort of the large organizations as part of a positive feedback loop. This is a simple and fundamental result from cooperative efforts. There is nothing new here except to remind people and organizations of cooperative fundamentals. Shared citizenship and an inclusive society can begin with ensuring that the philanthropic community lives together instead of next to each other. In other words, there is only an upside to membership in a CGF operating as outlined here. If the only thing that the leadership of a nonprofit organization is concerned about is more success in fundraising, they will have come to the right place. But hopefully participation in the CGF will reveal that so much more is possible. Cooperation Among CGFs Creates New Momentum
Cause Specific CGFs will seek to collaborate with the Community Centered CGFs where supporters are concentrated. For example, a CGF that has charitable objectives that are of interest to advanced practice nurses will naturally have concentrations of supporters surrounding locations where healthcare is concentrated. It will also have a concentration of supporters surrounding communities in which their healthcare discipline is taught. Thus, the nursing CGF would obviously seek cooperation with and between Community Centered CGFs in those locations. A member of a CGF would be expected to have several common bond interests. And membership in several CGFs covering additional categories should be pursued to capture the benefits of enhanced networking for the causes for which that member has a passion. The sense of a CGF is that contagion for positive effect requires active networks as opposed to isolation. For example, an individual could reasonably be active in the following CGFs:
• The CGF for her residence location;
• The CGF for her mission within her faith;
• The CGF for her charitable passion;
• The CGF for her profession/vocation;
• The CGF for her passionate hobby or interest. Through planned cooperation CGFs will, among many other things, provide its nonprofit members:
• With management and governance resources and expertise;
• With enhanced media exposure;
• With turn-key fundraising events that allocate the majority of proceeds from supporters of a member back to that member – leaving management of a member to focus on higher value activities;
• With access to a unique approach to product and services-based fundraising;
• With networking and collaboration opportunities with nonprofits and supporters with complimentary missions and interests that improve results;
• With member owned and controlled professional services such as grant procurement and tax compliance services;
In addition to the nonprofit benefits described above, a CGF will provide benefits to individual members and business members in order to enlist their support of their community’s philanthropic infrastructure. For individuals, a CGF will deliver product and services discounts while also generating charitable contributions in their name for their preferred causes (think Amazon Smile®) . For businesses, a CGF will also bring cooperative public relations benefits for their business in addition to the discounts and targeted charitable contributions. Membership and participation in the local CGF is expected to “say something” (as will non-membership “say something”). This term was coined to distill a number of concepts and even groups of concepts into a single word. It is also expected to become part of the “brand.”
Fundamentally, Grail denotes a focus on philanthropy/charity. A Grail organization is always a charitable organization. The term also fundamentally denotes a cooperative organization. A Grail organization is always a cooperative organization. Cooperatives in general follow the seven cooperative principles:
1. Voluntary and open membership;
2. Democratic member control;
3. Members’ economic participation;
4. Autonomy and independence (democratic control is not for sale);
5. Education, training and information;
6. Cooperation among cooperatives;
7. Concern for community. Of these cooperative principles a CGF places special emphasis on membership and the moral commitment that follows. A CGF is always a membership organization. A decision to be a member is a decision to make a commitment at some level and is validated by the payment of the membership contribution. And the objective is to achieve a high degree of membership commitment by those individuals, nonprofit organizations and businesses that have an interest in the CGF’s common bond. A CGF will develop programs and incentives that will make membership in the CGF highly desirable. The hurdles facing individuals and organizations “to do something” in support of their common bond interests are being lowered. So much so that any individual or organization that still does nothing will be identifiable as a “do nothing” that simply removes value from an inclusive society.
