Where Can We Make a Difference That Will Hold?

In a recent blog, Onion Foundation cofounders, Susan and Fritz Onion, explained their reasoning for creating a spend-down foundation. The blog has generated considerable interest and, in many cases, expressions of appreciation for the Onions’s transparency and commitment to spending the foundation’s resources at a rate much higher than the 5% of the endowment that the IRS requires all private foundations to give out.

Some grantees, however, have expressed concern that the foundation — and our support for them — might change in the near term as a result of spending down. We want to reiterate that, while our strategies will continue to evolve, we’re not likely to make any abrupt changes. Our foundation has operated as a spend-down organization since its inception, and we remain committed to helping our grantees sustain their work long after we close our doors 18 years from now.

In their blog, Susan and Fritz posed one question that, for me, gets to the heart of philanthropic work and, frankly, is the hardest to answer: Where can we make a difference that will hold? It’s the kind of question that can keep me up at night and that can provoke conversations with plenty of silence. Simply pondering the question makes clear that it’s not so easy to give money away well.

Catalyzing Multiple ‘Differences’ in Maine

Where can we make a difference that will hold?

Both perpetual and spend-down foundations confront this question. If they’re serious about their missions, they’re driven by it as they develop, implement, and assess their strategies and activities.

But for spend-down foundations, the question is acute. The years speed up. There’s less time to correct the course and start anew. Being clear about the “difference” we hope to achieve becomes paramount, requiring three things:

• Board and staff agreement on the foundation’s values, mission, and legacy goals

• Deep, unfettered conversations with people directly affected and others with expertise and relevant experience

• Honest, nuanced discussions with our grantees to understand the changes their work is bringing about, what more they want to accomplish, and what they need to do so

Even with only two areas of focus — the arts and the environment — there are endless “differences” that the Onion Foundation can aim to catalyze. As a place-based funder, we take our lead from local and statewide organizations, especially those that offer high-quality programs and regularly assess and tweak their work. These organizations have strong relationships with the communities they serve and shape programs to respond to community needs and interests.

We feel comfortable working hand in hand with our grantees and others with relevant experience to identify the specific “differences” toward which we use the foundation’s resources.

Enabling Long-Term Sustainability

Where can we make a difference that will hold?

The last part of that question — that will hold — is the most challenging. How do we ensure change will hold? How do we help grantees achieve sustainability? What factors impede an organization’s long-term stability, and how do we solve those challenges?

We have a strong conviction that healthy organizations have a better chance of sustaining their work. Accordingly, we’ve devoted more resources to our grantees’ organizational development in recent years. As described in our 2025 Impact Report, our technical assistance offerings have included:

• Organizational self-assessments using an instrument created by the TCC Group

• Training on scenario planning

• Workshops on making programs, facilities, and practices welcoming to people with disabilities and LGBTQ+ program participants

We also launched an Intrapreneurship course at Northeastern University’s Roux Institute, which prepares nonprofits to develop an earned income stream using their existing expertise, facilities, and/or networks. Going forward, we plan to broaden the portfolio of capacity building tools, workshops, and coaching available to our grantees.

Advocacy as a Sustainability Driver

We continue to encourage our grantees to embrace the advocacy component of their missions. This fall, we’ll be supporting five free advocacy workshops offered by the Maine Association of Nonprofits, which we sincerely hope our grantees and other nonprofits will attend.

Effective advocacy can result in more public investment in nonprofit organizations’ important work as well as new policies and regulations that help them accomplish their goals or remove roadblocks. Public education and storytelling aren’t only the first parts of an advocacy campaign but also critical to increasing sustainability.

When the public and targeted audiences have a comprehensive and accurate understanding of what a nonprofit offers, participation and appreciation increase and the value of the nonprofit is better understood. All this paves the way for greater public support and a sustainable future.

Strategic Communications To Build Support

We’ve also ramped up our own communications capacity with blogs and email newsletters so that we can bring more attention to the good work of our grantees. By doing so, we hope to increase the number of foundations and individuals supporting the work. Grantees can also use this content within their own networks. Blogs provide a platform for sharing what works and “how they did it” stories, all meant to strengthen other nonprofit organizations.

Creating Sectorwide Resources

With 18 years ahead of us, we’re looking hard at what’s missing in the arts and environment landscapes. Are there organizations we could help build or strengthen that would provide important resources and support to nonprofits in the arts, environment, and philanthropic sectors, even after our doors close? Where could we help increase collaboration, efficiency, and impact?

The support we provide Momentum Conservation, for example, has allowed it to expand its role as an intermediary organization, providing funding and technical assistance to land trusts throughout the state. Our hope is that the regranting mechanisms and programming that Momentum has established will attract new sources of support for conservation groups, increasing the likelihood of their sustainability. With guidance for the nonprofits in each sector, and with an eye to nonprofit infrastructure in other states, we’ll continue to seek out similar opportunities.

Looking Toward Maine’s Future

In the years ahead, we plan to immerse ourselves in learning about the experiences of other spend-down foundations, looking for lessons that have application to conditions in Maine and our work. For now, though, we welcome your ideas of ways to increase the sustainability of arts and environment organizations and to create robust sectors.