Dear Friends,

Within the past few weeks, I have read with interest the observations of a number of active bloggers in the arts field whom I have come to respect and admire: Nina Simon, Diane Ragsdale, Clay Lord and Barry Hessenius. Each of them has blogged on aspects of the Irvine Foundation’s new arts strategy and, in doing so, has contributed to a robust dialogue that has played out on their respective blogs as well as on Twitter.

And that’s what prompts my contribution to this discussion: I will comment only lightly on the substantive issues they have raised related to our Arts strategy as my colleague, Josephine Ramirez, who directs our Arts program, plans to post a more substantive comment on those issues in the next week or so. There is another aspect of this discussion that I do want to comment upon and invite others to engage on with me and my colleagues in philanthropy.

From my early days as Irvine’s CEO, and with great support from our Board of Directors, I have placed a premium on transparency, both with regard to our work at Irvine and for the broader field of philanthropy. I have certainly not been alone in this quest (Brad Smith at the Foundation Center is probably our field’s leading champion), and I think it’s a fair observation to say that the field has come a long way in the past decade.

Last week, Oakland Mayor Jean Quan joined ArtPlace director Carol Coletta in touring the Oakland neighborhood that was designated one of America's Top 12 ArtPlaces. As she announced the award at the press conference, Carol made the point of saying this award was data-based and in fact entirely statistical. Since it’s not biased or subjective, the selection carries even more weight for many in the Oakland community.

Mayor Quan proudly accepted the award on behalf of the city that has become, in her words, "cooler than San Francisco!" And she emphatically credited a public-private-nonprofit partnership for the incredible turnaround of several depressed neighborhoods ranging from Old Oakland to Uptown. It's clear that the vibrancy brought to the areas by the emergence of arts nonprofits, in conjunction with for-profits, had economic and human impacts.

ArtPlace, an initiative of national and regional foundations, federal agencies and major banks to accelerate creative placemaking, identified the top ArtPlaces in the nation’s largest U.S. metropolitan areas. An array of data and other factors were considered in selecting the neighborhoods, which were successful at combining art, artists and venues for creativity and expression with independent businesses, retail shops and restaurants, and a walkable lifestyle to make vibrant neighborhoods. Other California neighborhoods that joined Oakland in the Top 12 were San Francisco's Mission District and Central Hollywood in Los Angeles.

We are pleased to announce the election of Gregory M. Avis, a Founding Managing Director of Summit Partners in Palo Alto, as the new Chair of our Board of Directors. Greg joined the Irvine board in 2003 and has served as Vice Chair for the past two years. Avis succeeds Peter J. Taylor, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the University of California, who retired from the board after serving a full board term of 12 years, including three as board chair.

In 1984, Greg helped found Summit, one of the nation's leading private equity and venture capital firms, which has raised nearly $15 billion in capital since its inception. Greg has served on the boards of more than 40 companies primarily in the technology and life sciences industries, including Clontech Laboratories, Ditech Communications, Powerwave Technologies and RightNow Technologies.

Greg’s community activities include current service on the boards of Williams College (Chair), Antioch College, New Profit and ARTSTOR and past service on the boards of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (Chair), San Jose Repertory Theatre (Chair) and the National Outdoor Leadership School. Additionally, he is a Senior Fellow of the American Leadership Forum, Silicon Valley.

Irvine is pleased to announce the election of Tim Rios to its Board of Directors. Tim, 42, is based in Fresno as a Senior Vice President for Wells Fargo’s Government and Community Relations Group. He is responsible for implementing the company’s community and economic development programs in Northern and Central California, the Inland Empire and San Diego and Imperial counties.

Tim joined Wells Fargo in 1997 and during the course of his career he has held various positions in retail, wholesale and business banking. He has been recognized by the California State Senate and Assembly and was reappointed to California’s Economic Strategy Panel in 2010 by former Gov. Schwarzenegger. In 2005, he was presented with the Financial Services Champion Award by the U.S. Small Business Administration.

On November 11, The Washington Post ran a collection of five pieces by leaders in the nonprofit arts sector touching on issues raised by the current plight of the Corcoran Gallery of Art. Long a premier cultural institution in Washington – located across the street from the White House – the Corcoran is struggling to forge a sustainable future. Irvine President and CEO Jim Canales was among the leaders invited to share their views; he wrote about the importance of a constructive partnership between an organization’s chief executive and its board. His contribution is reprinted here:

Having served on and chaired many nonprofit boards, as well as having been chief executive of a large foundation for nine years, I know that when partnerships between a nonprofit’s board and its chief executive work well, they create the conditions for high performance. A constructive partnership:

I described in my last letter some of the institutional planning work underway at the Irvine Foundation this year. Related to that effort, and as part of our continuing commitment to learning from the Foundation’s various stakeholders, we conducted a stakeholder assessment survey to receive feedback about our work. I am using this quarter’s letter to share more about this survey as well as what we learned from it.

In-depth, confidential interviews were conducted by a third-party consultant with more than 60 leaders in our fields of work, the nonprofit community in general, and philanthropy. The interview questions focused on awareness and perceptions of the Irvine Foundation; the perceived impact of our work, broadly and in our program areas; and feedback on direct experience and interactions with the Foundation. We also asked questions about the challenges and opportunities facing California.

One of the most fundamental values we hold at Irvine is to share what we’re learning. We want our colleagues — both nonprofits and other funders — to be able to apply the most promising ideas, approaches and strategies to their work – and to also avoid the ones that aren’t working. We will be putting this value into action at the upcoming Council on Foundations 2012 Fall Conference for Community Foundations.

We know that all community foundations want to grow assets and create positive changes in their communities, and Irvine will be hosting a special workshop to share strategies on how to make this happen. The workshop is built around the lessons and approaches developed over six years of intensive work to help a set of emerging community foundations in California become stronger leaders in their communities as part of our Community Foundations Initiative II. Between 2005 and 2011, this group grew their collective assets 12 percent annually (from $73 million to $131 million), compared to 7 percent for their peers nationwide. At the same time, they increased their grantmaking, awarding $4 million more in grants each and every year for projects in their communities.

We began sharing some of the lessons and tools from this work in 2007, with our Growing Smarter report, and over the years, we have hosted sold-out webinars and conference programs in partnership with the Council on Foundations to disseminate this knowledge to the field.

A persistent tension in philanthropic work is balancing a long-term commitment toward key programmatic goals with the need to remain sufficiently agile and adaptable in a rapidly changing environment. In our experience at Irvine, striking the right balance between these two potentially conflicting approaches can ensure we are having the greatest impact with the resources we are privileged to steward.

Eight years ago, when Irvine’s Board of Directors adopted our current grantmaking programs, we agreed that the Foundation needed to be committed to these core programs for the long term, which we defined then as at least a decade. In view of the ambitious nature of the goals in our Arts, California Democracyand Youth programs, we knew that a long-term orientation was essential. At the same time, we believed then — and still do today — that, at some point, reflecting on our progress, taking stock of the changing California landscape and considering the implications would be prudent.

As we plan for 2013 and beyond, Irvine’s board and staff are engaged in this important process. We have resisted characterizing our work as a “strategic planning” process because we are not intending a wholesale shift in priorities and focus, nor do we plan to divert significant attention from our current activities. Indeed, as a result of an institutional commitment to ongoing learning and refinement, each of our programs has undergone thoughtful, strategic reviews in recent years, and we have adapted our strategies accordingly. At the same time, approaching a decade of work in these three areas affords us an opportunity to ensure that Irvine remains responsive in the face of rapidly changing opportunities and challenges in California, all with an eye toward maximizing impact.