Color blind: Tackling race through civic change. (New Ideas).

Helping community groups and lawyers make better use of law and politics to fight racial discrimination is the focus of a new initiative spearheaded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The foundation has teamed up with the Ford Foundation and Open Society Institute to raise up to $25 million over five years to fund local efforts to break down racial and ethnic barriers.

"The goal is not just to focus on the individual being hurt, but on systemic change that affects a broader group of people," said Michele Lord, a consultant advising the project.

The effort grew out of a March, 2001 report commissioned by Rockefeller that looked at ways lawyers work with community groups for social justice.

"The role of lawyers has changed," said Lord. Instead of simply handling court cases, she said, civil rights lawyers are getting more involved in "transactional" activities such as community organizing, public-relations campaigns and efforts to change administrative rules.

Rockefeller, Ford and Open Society, all in New York, hope to raise $4 million on the project in its first year. The national funders, to launch the initiative in April, 2002, are challenging local funders to team up to raise money -- and are promising to invest $1 for every $2 they raise.

The idea is to support local efforts to help community groups and lawyers better understand legal and political strategies to take on discrimination, said Dayna Cunningham, associate director for Rockefeller's domestic policy division, known as Working Communities.

"We are going to not just stop at the courthouse door. We are going to make sure the whole community is involved in the discussion about this," she said. "We are going to insist that our government be accountable for it, that other citizens are in conversations about it."

The national foundations, which have courted local funders in California, North Carolina and Chicago and will make their pitch in other regions, will solicit proposals in 2002.

The project aims to spur community-based initiatives that focus on racial exclusion, involve lawyers and community groups, and address issues of democracy and governance, said Cunningham, a voting-rights lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund before joining Rockefeller five years ago. She said attacking racial barriers is critical because race often can be a window into larger social problems.

The Rockefeller study, for example, cited a city-wide campaign in Greensboro, N.C., on behalf of black workers at a heavily black Kmart distribution center. The effort led to a living-wage ordinance and union contract giving black workers and their white coworkers higher wages, on a par with those at mainly white Kmart centers.

"People are starting to think about race in new ways," Cunningham said. "While racial minorities were the first ones affected by racial inequity, the problems were larger and people beyond racial minorities were being hurt."

The goal, she said, is to change "the way public rules are set and resources are allocated."

Investing in community

The impulse to connect people that inspired the eBay online auction site has fostered a new foundation that hopes to get people more involved in civic life. Wanting to help his wife, Pam, add to her collection of Pez candy dispensers, Pierre Omidyar created eBay and built it into a dot-com blockbuster.

Now, through The Omidyar Foundation, his two-year-old organization in Los Gatos, Calif., the 34-year-old is investing his billions and entrepreneurial know-how to help people "rediscover" their sense of community.

The foundation, which has made 17 grants and does not accept unsolicited proposals, focuses on groups that promote civic engagement or help people get involved in their communities, and on strengthening the nonprofit sector.

The foundation, for example, gave $10 million to Tufts University, Omidyar's alma mater, to create the University College of Citizenship and Public Service. The new program, which weaves the idea of community involvement throughout the university's curriculum, is designed to "expose and engage students early on so they'll become engaged in civic activities throughout their lives," said Lorna Lathram, the foundation's executive director.

The foundation also is working with the Nevada Community Foundation to help boost its role in connecting people and spurring change.

And it is working with groups that help nonprofits build their internal operations. They include VolunteerMatch in San Francisco, which links nonprofits and volunteers; New Profit, a venture philanthropy in Boston that links donors and nonprofits; NPower, a Seattle technology-assistance group; and InnoNet, a Washington, D.C., group that helps nonprofits create and evaluate programs and budgets.

In addition to providing funding, Omidyar serves as a consultant and resource for groups it supports.

"It's not about money," Lathram said. "It's about results." Omidyar recently hooked up the Nevada foundation with a Texas foundation that will provide tech assistance to help Nevada nonprofits manage donations of goods and services.

Omidyar meets every three months with groups it funds, and often more frequently. "We're engaged with the organizations we're working with, providing technical assistance" and, if needed, connecting the groups with consultants, she said.

"And we ask a lot of questions," said Lathram, an entymologist who worked for several startup software firms. "We can learn from our mistakes. A mistake isn't a mistake unless you don't learn from it. It's an opportunity to do things differently, to learn and to move forward."

The foundation, she said, is poised to tap the "convergence of technology, wealth and knowledge" and create a new philanthropy "in a very unencumbered way."

Stewardship training

Business-school MBA programs are not delivering the training in social and environmental issues that business leaders want, according to a new study.

Many schools have backed research, created faculty chairs and launched or expanded centers in "sustainable enterprise" and "stewardship," according to Beyond Grey Pinstripes, the study by the World Resources Institute in Washington, D.C., and The Aspen Institute Initiative for Social Innovation through Business in New York.

Still, the study says, progress in MBA stewardship training is mainly the work of "dedicated faculty" who are "going it alone."

MBA faculty teaching social and environmental issues give them an "A-" in importance but say their schools' programs fall far short of that grade, while students wanting those programs give faculty a "D+" for how often they raise social and environmental issues in required courses.

Most MBA schools do not integrate social and environmental issues into their core curriculum, the study says.

Corporate responsibility

NetImpact, a San Francisco-based network of MBA students focused on corporate responsibility, is moving from The Tides Center in San Francisco to Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), a San Francisco-based organization of businesses.

"The members of NetImpact find their way to their schools' chapters because they're looking for like-minded people to network with," said Laurie Gray, the group's acting director. "Being connected with BSR gives them an opportunity to further those causes once they get involved in the business world."

NetImpact has about 60 chapters in North America, including a few in Canada, plus one each in London, Australia, and Denmark. "Over time, we're going to be pushing more toward an international expansion," Gray said.

Todd Cohen is editor and publisher of Nonprofitxpress, an online newspaper at www.npxpress.com.