In addition to wielding their influence, funders also have the opportunity to use their knowledge as an important tool for public problem-solving. Grantmakers often work at the locus where the research, evaluation, and knowledge of many individual grantees and experts converge. The knowledge they gain is usually kept internally, residing in the heads and filing cabinets of grantmakers. But funders who share their privileged perspectives can provide important benefits to the field.
Leveraging What You Know: Knowledge Management Strategies for Funders was produced by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations after the 2004 Knowledge Management Conference they hosted in partnership with The Communications Network, the Consortium of Foundation Libraries, and Technology Affinity Group. The report provides an overview of knowledge management activities in philanthropy and includes short case studies of how grantmakers are implementing knowledge management systems.
In two other important pieces, philanthropic scholar Lucy Bernholz, president of the consulting firm Blueprint R&D, describes what it might mean for foundations to use their knowledge as an asset. “Foundations in the Internet Age: Knowledge is an Asset, Too," was published in Foundation News and Commentary in 2000, and a longer report, Spending Smarter: Knowledge as a Philanthropic Resource, was written for the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 2001.
“Knowledge Management Comes to Philanthropy," a 2003 article by Marla Capozzi, Stephanie Lowell, and Les Silverman in the McKinsey Quarterly addresses similar issues, looking at how knowledge management systems could help improve philanthropic outcomes.
Another new way to use knowledge as an asset is exemplified by The Columbus Foundation, which began a “knowledge audit"in 2003 to better understand its knowledge resources and needs and the flow of information within the foundation and between the organization and the community.
In California, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation recognized the quantity of information they had accumulated through grantmaking and launched SchwabLearning.org as a resource about learning disabilities for parents and other members of the public.
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