The Importance of Values-Driven Leadership: A Conversation With Executive Director Diana Morris

For years, Diana Morris came to Maine for summer camp and to visit her husband’s family. But when she became the executive director of the Onion Foundation nearly four years ago, she was able to immerse herself in Maine life beyond Orr’s Island.

Now, Diana brings her rich background in equity-driven philanthropic leadership to the foundation’s statewide work year round. Here, Diana reflects not only on her career thus far, but also on the current state of philanthropy and the Onion Foundation’s goals for the future.

How did you get started in philanthropic work?

I started my career as a legal advisor at the U.S. Department of State, serving the Refugee Bureau. When I became uncomfortable with the administration’s asylum policies, I found a job at the Ford Foundation, where I developed its Refugee and Migrant Rights Program. At the time, Ford made a dramatic investment in diversifying its staff and committed to helping its grantees diversify their staff and boards. It was a great example of how clear values and principled leadership can unite to make significant structural changes.

Working both domestically and internationally — including at Ford’s East and Southern Africa office in Nairobi — offered me a tremendous introduction to philanthropy. I was expected to get to know applicants’ programs, capacity, and reputation as well as the social, political, and economic context in which they were working in a fair amount of detail. But my training also included the wise admonition to have a light touch once the foundation awarded a grant, respecting the organization’s decision-making.

When I think back to those days — and the many years I later served at Open Society Foundations — I’m struck by the grantees’ courage, deep understanding of external dynamics, and willingness to take incremental steps year after year toward big goals and significant change. My colleagues and I only became better grantmakers to the extent that we immersed ourselves in the communities we sought to serve and then really listened to their observations, perspectives, dreams, and plans.

Based on your experience, what do you think are the main values that guide the executive director role?

I feel it’s my responsibility as executive director to ensure the foundation:

• Is clear and transparent about our interests, processes, and beliefs

• Acts in an inclusive and welcoming manner

• Develops a nuanced understanding of the context in which we’re working

• Engages staff who have subject matter expertise, enjoy learning from others, and are predisposed to see potential in people and organizations

• Integrates our commitment to equity in all aspects of our work

• Collaborates strategically with others — practitioners, advocates, researchers, government officials, and funders — to increase the lasting impact of philanthropic initiatives

The tagline for my work at Open Society was “Audacious Thinking for Lasting Change.” Foundations have the freedom to be bold, and I believe foundations actually have a responsibility to take calculated risks to improve conditions and help communities thrive. So at the Onion Foundation, we aim to balance consistency with innovation.

What does your relationship with your program officers look like?

I’ve been fortunate during my career to be surrounded by knowledgeable and deeply committed colleagues. I’ve had leadership roles at three foundations during my career, and, in every case, I’ve depended on program officers to identify key strategies, opportunities, and partnerships — and to educate me in the process. In each instance, I sought to create a work environment characterized by rigorous thinking, straightforward discussion, and a deep appreciation for opportunities to make a real difference in the world.

My job at the Onion Foundation is to serve as a strategy sounding board for complex problem-solving and to make connections among different components of the foundation’s work. The characteristics of my approach are therefore not surprising: respect for my colleagues, openness, and a true interest in learning and bringing about change. I’m also mindful that the Onion Foundation is giving my colleagues and me an incredible gift: the opportunity to help others put ideas into action, increase their own agency, and grow programs that educate, protect, and bring joy to individuals and communities throughout the state.

What do you think are the biggest challenges that nonprofits are facing right now? How can foundations help solve them?

Much has already been said about the uncertainty that nonprofits and foundations are facing, the stress that has caused them, and the increased demand for their services and knowledge — even as the administration and others are castigating their worth. But this is a problem that’s been 30 years in the making.

If I were to choose two difficult, underlying challenges, they would be:

• Inadequate and sometimes ineffective communication about the issues and conditions nonprofits are addressing and the solutions they’re implementing

• A reluctance to take the time — and, if necessary, secure the expertise — to appraise the true impact of their work, the organization’s development needs, and the likelihood of having ongoing impact

Communications continue to be a challenge, and while I don’t have many concrete suggestions, others do — including Frameworks, Spitfire Strategies, and many local public relations and marketing companies. What I’ve learned is that organizations need to design their communications strategy carefully at the outset to widen understanding of and support for their work. Effective communication, including the use of social media, isn’t a luxury. It’s essential to a nonprofit’s survival, and it requires time and money. Even without misinformation campaigns, information bubbles, and homogenous communities, this would be the case. With these developments, however, strategic communications that break through deliberately constructed boundaries are vital.

What does the foundation’s relationships with grantees look like?

We’re certainly not alone in placing priority on the relationships we’ve built with our grantees. We want to be accessible and helpful, but we also depend on our grantees to understand not only the social, economic, and political challenges they’re experiencing but also the best ways to use the foundation’s resources.

We focus on two distinct areas — the environment and the arts — and only occasionally support programs that integrate the two. Grantees in both of these fields have an expansive — and, we believe, accurate — understanding of the experiences and conditions human beings need for their well-being, self-expression, and healthy relationships to each other and to the planet.

What are your primary goals for the foundation’s future?

We support grantees in all 16 counties, but we know that, in many remote counties, there’s inadequate investment in the arts and in environment programs. In the years ahead, I hope we find ways to increase programming in these counties.

As a spend-down foundation with 18 years ahead of us, I hope that our grantmaking and non-grantmaking activities (such as convenings and technical assistance) will increase our grantees’ capacity so they’ll have the resources, knowledge, and practices to thrive well into the future. To that end, I also hope that we’ll be able to build a number of organizations that focus primarily on strengthening and sustaining nonprofits within the arts and environment sectors.

Ultimately, we want our grantees to have strong leadership, the ability to undertake rigorous planning and assessment, and effective marketing so they can adapt to changing conditions and seize opportunities. Today, the ability to adapt is central to nonprofit organizations’ value and sustainability. The Onion Foundation can help arts and environment organizations reach these goals not only by awarding grants and publicizing grantees’ contributions but also by providing ongoing technical assistance, organizing opportunities to exchange knowledge, and encouraging deeper collaboration.