Open Letter to the Nonprofit Community

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

        We find ourselves in one of the most challenging times of our nation's history. We face a volatile economy that brings high anxiety at the same time that we welcome a new President who has restored a belief in possibility and fresh ideas. At this time of enormous uncertainty, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation feels a responsibility to communicate our unwavering commitment to uphold our mission and support our grantees, funding partners, and the broader community.

        For more than sixty-five years, the Meyer Foundation has made grants to small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations working to strengthen Greater Washington's communities and serve the region's most vulnerable residents. It's always been important to us to adapt and respond to changing community needs. In light of the urgency of the current economic crisis faced by our nonprofit community, we intend to continue playing a leadership role in this work while ensuring that we can support our community for years to come.

       Like other investors across the country, we have been affected by the stock market downturn. Our foundation's endowment lost close to 30 percent of its value in 2008, which under normal circumstances would have caused our grant target for 2009 to drop sharply. However, the foundation's board of directors was unwilling to allow a precipitous decline in grants during a time of unprecedented community need. To prevent that, we are operating with a much smaller staff and have made a major policy change in how our grant target is calculated. Even with those changes, our grants in 2009 will still be down by approximately 11 percent - or about $1 million.

       Amid ongoing economic uncertainty and with less money to give away, we will need to make very difficult funding choices. Our board and staff have given much thought to how we can be most responsive and effective in this current climate. Here are several principles that will guide our work this year, as well as significant changes in practice that we have made to help our nonprofit community.

• Our priority will be to sustain our support for longstanding, effective grantees with good prospects for maintaining their work through the current crisis. It's unlikely that we will be able to make grants to many new projects or organizations or increase our level of support for most current grantees. However, we will remain sensitive to areas of urgent and increasing need, as well as the changing circumstances of the organizations we support. We are working to reduce the amount of time between grant applications and decisions for organizations in especially difficult situations.


• We will continue to provide general operating support grants whenever possible to give organizations the ability to use funds where they are most needed. In recent years, we have increased the number of multi-year grants to organizations Meyer regularly supports. While we will honor all those commitments, we will not be able to make many new multi-year grants. Our ability to support new capital campaigns will also be extremely limited.


• We remain committed to supporting nonprofits that provide direct services as well as organizations that effectively advocate for and advance social justice. We believe that with increased need and government cutbacks, it is critical to support organizations that can affect public policies on behalf of poor people as well as the systems of service that help them. Given the current environment, we also believe it's more important than ever for our region's nonprofit sector to be an engaged and highly visible partner with government and business in solving problems and meeting important needs.


• We will continue to support strong and effective nonprofit leaders. Our nationally recognized research on the needs of nonprofit executive directors and our efforts to strengthen the support systems for nonprofit leaders in our region, including the Exponent Awards, will continue. We will also look for other creative and innovative ways to help our region's nonprofit leaders through these challenging times. We are continuing to devote substantial resources to our Management Assistance Program, which provides grants to help nonprofits strengthen their management and leadership. Beginning this March, we will accept MAP applications at any time so we can be more responsive to organizations that need immediate help. In addition, our cash flow loan program remains available to Meyer grantees with short-term financial problems.


• We will continue to offer our conference space to our nonprofit and funding partners free of charge. Our recent move to a "green" office, which was planned and initiated before the economic downturn, is a long-term investment in the foundation's future. It has made our offices more Metro accessible and includes a more flexible conference space that can accommodate larger groups.

       Despite the current economic uncertainty and the changes outlined above, the fundamental character of this institution remains the same. We are committed to be a stable and reliable partner for long-time grantees. We believe in the importance of advocacy, and are deeply committed to supporting nonprofit leaders. We are continuing our program work beyond grant making, and we remain as committed as ever to raising the visibility of the work of effective nonprofits and sharing our knowledge with other donors to leverage their gifts for our grantees.

       We know our community will persevere, and we're buoyed by the knowledge that throughout history our most difficult times as a community have resulted in some of our most creative and entrepreneurial thinking.

       Please contact us if you have any questions or suggestions. We promise to keep you informed about our plans in the months ahead.