Voting & Advisory Roles for Community Members

Meaningful interaction with the community is essential for effective grant making in any field. Consultation with diverse elements of the community, particularly representatives of populations the foundation seeks to benefit, is essential to determine targeted grant making strategies that address community needs. This is especially true of health philanthropy due to the complex interaction of public health systems, environmental factors and the social determinants of health. Communities, particularly those of underserved and at risk populations, must be partners in efforts to improve their own health. Thus a strong community base is essential for conversion foundations.

Community Advisory Committees (CACs) are most commonly standing committees created in a foundation's by-laws. As such, they are ensured a level of autonomy and independence from the board and staff of a foundation as well as from the totality of the demands of operating a foundation. This structure allows them to stay continually focused on the community and its needs.

Ideally, the membership of the foundation’s board will be diverse and have significant consumer participation. While a voting position on the board is certainly the most powerful way to influence the foundation’s decision-making, establishing a CAC is an alternative way to ensure the foundation reflects this unique public interest and investment. The bylaws should include provisions for CAC members to become voting board members and also for the Committee to provide nominations for board membership. The Community Advisory Committee can provide valuable training & experience to community members who have never served in this capacity before.

Community Advisory Committees can serve as a liaison between the foundation and the community. particularly to identify community needs and priorities, and to regularly review the performance of the foundation in meeting its purposes from the community perspective. A primary way that CACs tackle these goals is by participating on board committees responsible for establishing, monitoring and assessing grantmaking programs, priorities and allocations. In other cases, CACs prepare for the board and community an annual review of the effectiveness of the foundation in meeting its purposes. As well, they provide the board with a community perspective about future actions and priorities.

Meaningful and responsible use of advisors in both of these structures requires that the foundation make a realistic assessment of the resources required for the assigned responsibility. Advisory groups should be provided with staff assistance, financing, or other support adequate to their charge. Clarity about the assignment, the extent of the advisory group's authority, its duration, and the terms and responsibilities of individual members is also critical. These issues should be covered in written materials and provided to new and prospective members of advisory groups.

Please click here to read more about why a Community Advisory Committee can be an important structural provision for conversion foundations (PDF).

Making The Most Out of Community Advisory Committees (PDF). Read about how lessons from conversion foundation CACs can inform other foundations’ efforts to elicit community input.