Board of Directors’ Meeting Minutes October 22, 2020
Attendance
Present: Rick Agresta, Martha Clark, Laura Fratt, Rich Jerdonek, Claudia Lindsey, Amy Minella, Mary Pruiett, Gail Schulze, Kristi Smith-Hernandez, Ann Thoke Espy, Mike Watt, and Bill Westwood
Apologies: Kermit Eck
Guests: Donna Allen, Caroline Caufield, Mike Fitzgerald, Dave Fletcher, Joe Hamby, Carol Head, Bill Houston, Ken Inadomi, Ed Kaufman, Alan Kern, Audie McRae, Patty Mintz, and Kirk Renaud.
Call to Order & Roll Call
A roll call established a quorum and co-chair, Martha Clark, called the meeting to order.
Minutes
A motion was made, seconded, and approved unanimously to approve the September 17 minutes as circulated to the Board.
Financial Update: Contributions Report – Mike Watt & Ann Espy
See the attached Monthly Contributions Report. Ann reported our cash balance as of September 9 is $505,926 - we are doing really well. Donations totaled $375,000 as of the end of September. Contributions and pledges already exceed $600,000 indicating we can support twice as much grant making as prior years.
Tides Transition – Mike Watt & Ann Espy
Mike reported we are transitioning from a Collective Action Fund with Tides Foundation to a Social Venture Fund with Tides Center. We will have access to three Tides staff to provide accounting, HR, and general support as we grow, and more direct access to our financial records. Yhis will be in place by the end of November.
Martha congratulated and thanked Mike and Ann for all the background work they completed to plan and accomplish this transition.
Partner Vote: Key Statistics & Comments – Claudia Lindsey & Donna Allen
See the attached report. 63 of our partners and members voted representing about 60% of those eligible. 46 ranked the projects and 17 gave their proxy to the Board. 15 were first time voters. Reviews of the Survey Monkey drag and drop format used this year were mixed.
Operations Director Search – Martha Clark
We completed interviewing the three finalists. The PRW panel thought all would be very good and we will make a decision this week.
PRW Presentation at GSB Reunion – Dave Fletcher
This year we were scheduled for a stand-alone PRW presentation that was very successful. In prior years we shared the program with SEED and ACT. The GSB promoted the program to all alums, not just the reunion classes and about 100 attended. Martha led the program and described PRW’s approach. Ken
Inadomi moderated a session with two of our grantees, Anushka Ratnayake of myAgro and Sarah Koch of DIG, who described how PRW helped them succeed beyond the value of our monetary contributions. Jorian Wilkins and Stacy Williams provided a new member’s perspective of PRW. This was the best of our reunion presentations and we were able to follow up with the several hundred registrants, including those who did not attend. Amy reported we have added 54 new names to our database as a result of the session. Caroline Caufield reported as a new member that the presentation was terrific. Carter McClelland of Echoing Green attended the full hour. Martha described how this reunion presentation was the result of two to three years of effort working with the GSB and Susan Austin is very supportive. Susan reports to Derrick Bolton, Associate Dean for External Relations. He is new, and although we have yet to formally meet with him, Derrick participated in one of our reunion presentations.
PRW Annual Meeting Update - Martha Clark
The meeting is this Saturday with a focus on celebrating our accomplishments in this difficult year. 55 are already registered. See the attached agenda. Our PRW racial diversity task force has already made progress, including increasing the diversity of our PRW membership. Ken reported that the GSB ’22 class is
37% people of color – the GSB ’80 class was half that.
Other Business – Committee Reports (See attached reports)
Amy reported the first Redwood Philanthropy Circle will be on Wednesday, November 18 and invited all of us to join. This will give us an opportunity to share perspectives on our interest in social action and philanthropy.
Martha thanked Rick for his service as her co-Chair and his dedication to our mission and those we serve.
Executive Session
The Board moved into executive session to consider the recommendation of the Grant Review Committee and increase the grant-making budget.
GRC Recommendations for Project Funding – Claudia Lindsey &
Donna Allen
PRW has both a larger number of grant applications that meet our criteria and a greater capacity due to the efforts of our Fundraising Committee and
Sponsors, and the generosity of our members. The Board unanimously approved increasing PRW’s standard cycle grant budget to $480,000 and granting $30,000 to the following 16 projects, including where indicated up to $5,000 for general support (GS) as provided for in their grant application.
Organization Project Grant Amount
Strategies for International Development (SID)
Sustainable income growth for poor Guatemalan coffee farmers
$25,000 P $5,000 GS
Development in Gardening (DIG) Building Resilience for Vulnerable Small-Scale Farmers in Senegal, Kenya, and Uganda
$25,000 P $5,000 GS
Daraja COVID Pivot Project $30,000 P
MORTAR MORTAR Digital Platform $25,000 P $5,000 GS
INOMA Lab-Tak: Digital planning platform for teachers $30,000 P
WorldShare Mafudu Community Led Food Security Project $25,000 P $5,000 GS
Somo Tengeneza na Somo and MyDuka $25,356 P $4,644 GS
Cristo Rey Work Studyforce: Leveraging the Impact $30,000 P
Congo Leadership Initiative (CLI) CLI Microfinance Program $30,000 P $5,000 GS
Board will be able to announce the grants in two weeks after Tides Foundation approves them.
Martha thanked Donna and Claudia and the Grant Review committee for a terrific job, especially in this difficult year.
Adjournment
The next PRW Board meeting will be Thursday, November 12, 2020. A motion was made, seconded and approved unanimously to adjourn.
Eco-Soap Bank Employing Women Worldwide to Recycle and Sell Life-Saving Soap
$30,000 P
Hope Project Cooking Up Hope/Culinary Vocational Certification
$25,000 P $5,000 GS
Elevate! It Takes a Village to Teach a Child: CV-19 Adaptation
$30,000 P
DaVinci Reach For The Stars $30,000 P
International Village Clinic (IVC) World Class English school construction $30,000 P
Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development (AASD)
Campesino Agribusiness Accelerator $25,000 P $5,000 GS
Hero Women Rising (HWR) Three Pillars of Sustainable Livelihood Development for Women in Bukavu
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PRW Monthly Contributions Report
Mike Watt & Ann Espy as of September 30, 2020
The cash balance on hand as of 10/18/20 is $505,926. This represents the highest fund balance in the history of Project Redwood.
YTD donations as of month end totaled $375,244 (including $50K one-time grant from DSLUG as well as $50,500 in restricted funds to cover the initial cost of hiring an Operations Director). The Fundraising team projects additional donations totaling more than $400,000 by year end.
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Key Updates
Partner Vote: Statistics & Comments – Claudia Lindsey & Donna Allen
Voting Composition
• 63 members voted, representing 61% of the membership
o 46 members voted for individual projects
o 17 members gave proxies to the Board
• At least 15 were first time voters
Verbatim Comments Quality of Slate
Great list of projects!
PRW is moving to the "next level" thanks to the efforts of many people, and to the benefit of many more who are in need. Thanks!
Many thanks – Ken
I had a hard time trying to prioritize such amazing projects... Can't wait until the time we have the resources to support more of them!
Thank you to all of the sponsors who brought these quality projects to PRW. Project Redwood rocks!
Thank you for these great projects! Julie Jerdonek
Voting Format
DJ I think that i voted in the order I preferred. I used the drop-down menu and then the choices moved to the order I chose them after I finished. I wasn't successful with the drag and drop. Drag and drop works well for such a long ballot!
very well done. Only suggestion is that the drag and drop function is a little challenging to use in terms of thinking about next year's ballot design. Thanks to the GRC and the Board.
I like this format - much easier to move the grant apps around! Good job!
Board Proxy
So many deserving options!! I must defer to the Board's collective wisdom. Thank you for all the great work...Jon
I'm not an expert but I trust the board and if it's helpful to make that explicit, here you go. Thanks for all your work! -Ross
International Projects
For organizations operating outside of the US, I would be interested in the future to know more about the leadership, i.e. are they local leaders from the country or American/foreign.
Domestic Projects
All projects sound so great. Still I made a few adjustments to give a greater distribution to US projects.
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Operations Director Search – Martha Clark
PRW Presentation at the Reunion – Dave Fletcher
PRW 2020 Annual Meeting – Martha Clark Saturday, October 24. 11am – 3pm PT
AGENDA
Welcome
[Our New Operations Director] EXPANSION: Powering PRW Growth GRANTMAKING
2020 Grant Applicants: MORTAR & SOMO GRC Summary
BREAK
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
2020: A Breakthrough Year Pathway to 2020 Strategic Plan MOVING FORWARD TOGETHER
Scaling Racial Equity
CHANGING LEADERSHIP ROLES
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PRW | Committee Reports – October 2020
COMMITTEE OF GRANTEES & SPONSORS– Gail Schulze
No meeting this past month.
COMMUNICATIONS, MARKETING & TECHNOLOGY COMMITTEE (CMT)– Stacy Johnson
he CMT’s focus has been on supporting the Board and other Committee’s efforts during the high-volume communication period. Support focused on the grant ballots, Annual Meeting and Reunion.
The widely successful Summer Snail Mail was converted into an email that highlights Project Redwood’s work and mission. The email included a very impactful brochure attachment. This communication format helped to ensure that those PRW members without a mailing address in Zoho were able to receive the information. The brochure was also posted on LinkedIn and gained the month’s highest engagement (200+ organic impressions, 7 reactions and 2 comments).
The CMT’s continued engagement on social media (primarily LinkedIn) continues to increase and support our communication strategy. To-date in October, the CMT completed 2 posts with nearly 300 organic impressions, 11 reactions and 4 comments. We continue to develop our posting strategy in an effort to increase engagement and gain followers.
Finally, a number of updates were made to the PRW website this month. The language and fields within the “Join Us” section of the website were updated to request physical mailing addresses to support future snail mail communications. A dedicated page for the upcoming Annual Meeting was added, which provides a tentative agenda and registration.
EVALUATION & IMPACT COMMITTEE – Laura Fratt & Kermit Eck
The EIC is waiting for the final reports from grantees, which are due back to the committee on November 2nd. Will be reaching out to liaisons to vet/edit the reports as they come in. Liaison summaries are due back to us December 10th.
EXPANSION COMMITTEE– Amy Minella & Rick Agresta
We have had a banner month in Expansion:
1. We had six new non-1980 members join since the September board meeting and in addition, three from 1980.
2. The email that went out in early September highlighting three new members was a success as several alums signed up on the website to receive PRW emails. When an alum signs up, we follow up with an email to see if they would like to have a Zoom call with us to get more information.
3. Amy found a “pod” of GSB alums in Jackson, WY (there are 70 alums that have a house in Jackson) at a lunch that Julie Ha hosted. Julie (MBA 2002) is now a member.
4. We had an Expansion committee meeting on September 21 (which happened to be the first day of class at the GSB – that did not stop Kana from being on the call). 5. Kana posted the expansion email to the GSB Latino group in September
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6. The all-classes PRW event at the reunion 10/4/20 was a huge success. Thanks to the GSB Team for making it happen! There were almost 100 people on the call of which 54 were non-1980 prospects. Those names are now in ZOHO, and we have already onboarded two of them who have joined PRW as members. An email has gone out to these alums, thanking them for attending.
7. You will see the faces of all new members since the last annual meeting on some slides we will present at the annual meeting this Saturday. There are 22 new faces!! MOST IMPORTANT:
The date is set for the first Redwood Philanthropy Circle (members only) – it will be on
Wednesday, November 18th at 5 pm PST. PLEASE PUT IT ON YOUR CALENDAR. We
are excited for this new opportunity for members to network with each other and talk about their interests in philanthropy. Audie and Jorian are working on the invites that will go out soon.
FUNDRAISING COMMITTEE– Kristi Smith-Hernandez & Carol Head
We have increased the 2020 estimated donations to $850,000. The increase is based on $150,000 in increased pledges since September. This revised estimate was presented to Exec on October 12 so that it could be incorporated into the decisions about 2020 grant making.
We are beginning our fourth quarter campaign. Around Thanksgiving everyone will receive an additional snail mail piece with a donation request. Currently Elizabeth Strawn, Sue Miller, Carol and Kristi are working on the copy with Stacy Williams again donating her time on the graphics. The Fundraising team will support this request with follow up emails and personal outreach.
Final results will be available in mid-January. Thanks for everyone’s support and contributions.
GRANT REVIEW COMMITTEE– Claudia Lindsey & Donna Allen
The Partner Vote was completed and the GRC’s final recommendation to the Board will be voted on this month.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS COMMITTEE
Stanford GSB Collaboration – Dave Fletcher & Donna Allen
Susan Austin, our GSB Alumni Office liaison, was extremely helpful in organizing and
promoting our very successful presentation during Alumni Weekend. We were able to promote the Zoom event to reunion classes and all GSB alumni. 300 people registered and close to 100 attended. They have all been contacted by our outreach group. Ken Inadomi, Martha Clark, Jorian Wilkins, Stacy Williams from PRW and Sara Koch (DIG) and Anushka Ratnayake (MyAgro) all did a great job and the presentation was very well received.
Other Collaboration – Rick Agresta & Dave Fletcher No report this month.
