HOW PHILANTHROPY CAN HELP THE COMMUNITY TO THRIVE
This is the season when many people make their year-end charitable donations, doing what they can to help their community and support the causes they care about most. In my experience, the commitment that drives charitable giving is deep and powerful and beautifully expresses the meaning we find when we understand how the well-being of others connects with our own.
Regionally, a great deal of giving goes to nonprofits that are addressing critical needs and improving the lives of San Diegans in ways that are not otherwise being met by business or government. Of course, nonprofits can’t do it all. The fact is that nonprofits, businesses and governments must work together more effectively to improve the well-being of everyone in our community. This takes vision and cooperation — and our philanthropy community must play a leading role.
Throughout my three decades in philanthropy, I have seen what this sector can accomplish, especially when it works collaboratively. I recently moved to San Diego from Pittsburgh to lead the
Conrad Prebys Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic grantmakers in the region, and what I carried with me was a profound respect for the power of regional philanthropy to help a community set its sights higher than it otherwise might and find a way to get there.
In Pittsburgh, a town that by all estimates should have died after the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, philanthropy worked in partnership with businesses, nonprofits and governments to invest in the universities and health care institutions that would become its economic future. These sectors helped save Pittsburgh’s downtown through massive investments in an urban cultural district and helped the city refocus on sustainability, robotics, artificial intelligence and life sciences. And years before many other communities would follow suit amid the racial justice awakening of recent years, these sectors focused attention on racial inequities and the need for more inclusive economic development.
Was any of that perfect? Hardly. But we saw how philanthropy could serve as a bridge between nonprofits, businesses and governments, helping to bring together the resources and expertise needed to make real change happen. Philanthropy can take the kind of risks that, for financial or political reasons, others might not be able to take. We can make longterm investments and nurture talent at organizations that are doing the hard work and know their communities best.
San Diego has that combination of talent, energy and enthusiasm in abundance, and it, as much as any money (including our own), is what drove the creation of the iconic Rady Shell at Jacobs Park. Accompanying that enthusiasm, of course, is an acknowledgment that there is much to be done to help San Diego achieve its true potential for all its many people.
In my conversations across our many communities, I hear a thirst not just for more resources, but for more inspiration, partnership, curiosity and faith in the idea that working together we can go further than we can by acting alone.
While philanthropists and foundations can provide resources to support organizations doing vital work, I believe that we can also use our role in the community to attract more energy to address our shared goals. This way of operating leans heavily into partnerships and into the wisdom and expertise that lives in the community. It requires us to deepen trust in our public and private institutions by facilitating connections between sectors, listening intensively to the community to understand our region’s needs and opportunities, and learning from each other.
Learning is key. The Conrad Prebys Foundation builds on a wonderful legacy but is a relatively new organization, and, as a newcomer myself, I especially understand there is much we don’t know. We welcome the opportunity to learn alongside our grantees, our fellow funders and our civic leaders to be part of a culture of philanthropy in San Diego that is capable of transformational work.
Our region is facing no shortage of challenges, and there is no one institution that can address them by acting alone. We will need to engage funders, donors, community leaders and the incredibly hardworking staff members of our nonprofits in a common direction based on shared values and, most importantly, trust.
As our community leaders of all stripes gather around their kitchen tables — real and metaphorical — this holiday season, in addition to writing a check to causes we hold dear, let’s also embrace the important job of identifying new partnerships that will make our region healthier, more prosperous and more connected — for everyone.
If nonprofit organizations, businesses and government bodies can work together more effectively, evidence shows that this is likely to improve the well-being of every San Diegan.