Alaska Native Heritage Center – August 28 Today I am on the 16th annual Rasmuson Foundation grant maker tour. Since 1996 the foundation has invited the most significant foundations in America to learn about Alaska. They visit nonprofits in Anchorage and Sitka, but also get to see life in the YK Delta and the North Slope. This year funders from Murdock Trust, Cargill, Rockefeller Brothers, Knight, Robert Wood Johnson, Moore, Ferguson and a guest from consultant TCC Group spent a week in Alaska. The smidgen of insight today is the amount of money provided by the Rasmuson Foundation is magnified by the capital of goodwill they create through such efforts. Dennis… Read more »

The New York Times has featured the Southcentral Foundation in a story on advances in health care reform. According to the article, at a recent conference in Anchorage foundation officials “described techniques that could be adopted by almost any health care organization willing to transform its culture.” The story outlines efficiencies that have been instituted while improving patient care. Read the full story here…. Read more »

Alliance for Nonprofit Management Conference, Grand Rapids, Michigan – August 10, 2012 Today is day two of the Alliance conference. I was recently asked to serve on the Alliance board whose mission is to improve the capacity of professionals involved in building the capacity of the nonprofit sector. There have been good sessions with some ideas I will bring home for Foraker. As important, I have been able to re-connect with Terry Horton, former Foraker staff member who now serves as a consultant with the Johnson Center at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids. Today’s smidgen of insight is that all organizations are struggling with their business model and with evaluation. The Alliance is comprised of many of the most respected thought leaders in the sector, yet they, too,… Read more »

August 7, 2012 — Salt Lake City, Utah. Today I was in Salt Lake, actually woke up in Park City to work with the Utah Hospital Association. Two Alaskans – Ed Lamb, former CEO at Alaska Regional and now running a health system in Utah, and Rod Betit, former CEO of the Alaska Hospital and Nursing Home Association, now the interim exec at the Utah association – asked for a little “Forakering” for the board here. The smidgen of insight is that all nonprofit sub-sectors are preparing for change and that’s a good thing because change is imminent. The challenge is that it is hard to predict what to do with all things so uncertain. It reminded me to remind you that our efforts to help the sector know that… Read more »

Portland, OR – August 3, 2012 Last week Andrew Cutting, Mike Walsh, Laurie Wolf, and I met with the cohort from Murdock Charitable Trust’s Capacity Builders Initiative in “Portlandia!” The weather was beautiful so it was hard for us to stay inside and work, but we did. We spent the first day with Jared Raynor from TCC Group on evaluation, today on common interests. This initiative has been ongoing for six years. When we started we did not know each other and our work seemed very different. Today we are a team committed to improving our collective impact. Today’s smidgen of insight is that evaluation is hard, even with desire and funding. But it is important. That leads to our August newsletter article on measuring our impact. If you want… Read more »

All of us at The Foraker Group are deeply saddened by the passing of Mary Louise Rasmuson. Her love for Alaska and all of us who live here was steadfast. Her passion never dimmed for helping Alaskans — through her leadership on community issues, her philanthropy, and her volunteer service. Foraker was born of this passion. We are grateful for her inspiration, guidance, and support. We will miss her. Our sympathy goes to the Rasmuson family and everyone at the Rasmuson Foundation. May you be comforted by your memories of a true humanitarian and the legacy of her generosity which is around us every day. Dennis Please visit the Rasmuson Foundation website for a tribute to Mrs. Rasmuson…. Read more »

The Alaska Association of School Board Officials (ALASBO) summer session, Homer, Alaska July 28, 2012 On one of the sunniest days of 2012, I was with the ALASBO board, inside, in one of Alaska’s nicest places to be outside, Homer. This happened on a day – truth be said – that I would have rather been enjoying our brief summer with family and friends in the sun. That is one of the down sides of our job at Foraker. I, along with many of our staff, meet with boards when they want to meet, often weekends. But all negatives have some positives like my experience today. I met with an emerging nonprofit leadership group, a nonprofit we can use as a positive model. ALASBO supports people who work on the… Read more »

Barrow, July 24, 2012 When I arrived in Barrow yesterday it was sunny (no surprise) and 66 degrees!!! (BIG SURPRISE!!!) It was raining and 50 degrees 725 miles to the south in Anchorage. Today’s smidgen of insight; go figure? Is it time for beachfront property on the Slope? Dennis… Read more »

Mountain View Diner, Alaska Today the staffs of the Rasmuson Foundation and The Foraker Group met for the first time! In reality many people knew each other already but the two staffs have never met at a special event. And there are some people on each staff that had never met each other, even though the institutions are strategic partners and coordinate efforts to support Alaska. The snippet of insight today is that even though Alaska is like a small town where everyone knows each other’s business, we still need to be intentional to connect. Through partnerships we are stronger. The Foraker sustainability model points out that one of the critical factors for sustainability is partnerships. Identify your partners and celebrate your success!! Dennis… Read more »

1,500 feet over the Brooks Range — July 16 Today Gretchen Specht, Foraker’s Controller, and I visited Anaktuvuk Pass. This remote community was established in the 1960’s when the only Inupiaq community living away from the coast settled in a mountain pass where their primary subsistence food, caribou, migrate. I recommend this as a great place to visit for a bucket list. We came as a part of a capacity building initiative funded by Shell and USDA. In a few hours we helped two organizations with accounting questions, connected other leaders to resources to enhance their food pantry and establish a clothes closet for those in need, guided a young Native entrepreneur toward a process so he could realize his dream, provided assistance to the museum seeking accreditation, and maybe… Read more »