GFE is inaugurating a new series of web programs to bring you timely, topical education grantmaking programs -- from the convenience of your own desk. Our first program is a reprise of the standing-room-only conversation GFE sponsored at the Council on Foundation's annual conference last spring on how foundations can exert leadership to create change in education. To participate, all you'll need is a computer with internet access and a telephone.

Program

• Barbara Chow, executive director, National Geographic Society Education Foundation, and chair, GFE Board of Directors (moderator)
• John Kania, managing director, Foundation Strategy Group
• Maxwell King, president, The Heinz Endowments
• Ralph Smith, senior vice president, Annie E. Casey Foundation

What can foundations do to address complex issues where money alone won't fix the problem? How can foundations exercise leadership -- in addition to grant dollars -- to effect change in a community? Max King, Ralph Smith, and John Kania will challenge you to think about new ways your foundation can lead -- and will debate the practical, political and moral dilemmas of "adaptive" philanthropic leadership.

This program is based in part on the recent Stanford Social Innovation Review article "Leading Boldly," co-authored by speaker John Kania, which suggests a new model for how foundations can best exert leadership to help solve community problems. Based on Harvard business professor Ron Heifetz's ideas about the differences between technical problems and adaptive problems and the different leadership styles required, the authors propose that foundations see their role as mobilizing community stakeholders. In this role, foundations use their political access and media skills, tackle issues without knowing the solution in advance, risk controversy, and must be patient for change.

As a jumping off point for this program, we'll examine the story of Pittsburgh, where three local foundations, including the Heinz Endowments, made national headlines in 2002 when they temporarily stopped funding city schools in an effort to focus the community on the need for change. Join us to probe the nuances -- the rewards as well as the risks -- of exercising imaginative foundation leadership to help solve difficult social problems.

Registration

To recover program costs, registration is $20 for GFE members and $45 for non-GFE members. (The call-in number will be toll-free, so the registration fee will be your only expense.) Payment is due in full by Friday, Oct. 13. Click here
to register.