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The Chapin Hall Center for Children, a semi-independent policy research center at the University of Chicago, is studying foundations similar to Springfield's Turner Foundation to identify effective philanthropic practices that could benefit national foundations.

What researchers found is a set of foundations with an uncommon but highly successful approach to giving, researcher Mikael Karlstrom said, resulting in significant, sustainable change in communities around the country. The ongoing study, titled "Embedded Funders and Community Change," explores foundations that concentrate their resources in one limited geographic area and become deeply involved in those communities.

National foundations can swoop into an area and give money for a reform initiative over a certain time frame. When the time's up, they can leave whether or not the initiative achieved the desired results and move on to the next project, said Prudence Brown, a researcher for the study.

The foundations at the center of Chapin Hall's study — what researchers dubbed "embedded foundations" — aren't about to pull up their roots. Although the Turner Foundation isn't included in Chapin Hall's research, the characteristics of these types of foundations resemble the Turner Foundation.

"The embedded funder says, 'We're going to keep working at this until we get it right.' That's a very profound difference," Brown said. "Many of these foundations didn't fit the stereotype of a foundation that holds itself above everybody. There was just a very admirable sense of persistence and deep understanding of community that takes many years to develop."

Researchers aren't sure exactly how many of the nation's 35,000 family foundations could be considered embedded because some foundations possess some but not all characteristics of embedded foundations, Karlstrom said.

But he can say that embedded foundations are uncommon. And embedded foundations of Turner's size are especially rare, according to figures from The Foundation Center, a nonprofit organization that maintains databases about foundations across the country.

With about $110 million in assets, the Turner Foundation is large compared to the rest of the nation's foundations. Just 2 percent of the country's family foundations — 700 — have assets more than $50 million, according to The Foundation Center. The Turner Foundation falls into the 1 percent of family foundations that report annual giving of more than $5 million.

Susan Price, vice president at the National Center for Family Philanthropy based in Washington, D.C., said embedded foundations are gaining more attention in the philanthropy world.

"One of the things that has become pretty clear is this is the kind of work that takes a lot of patience," Price said. "You're in for the long haul with this kind of philanthropy."

Some of these foundations recognized that a more comprehensive approach toward community reform was necessary, Price said. Attacking one problem in the community often isn't enough to effect sustainable change because social problems can be so complex. Boosting a community's affordable housing, for example, might not be enough to improve a neighborhood if residents also don't have job skills or access to affordable child care.

Karlstrom said the foundations realized that they could work more effectively by concentrating their resources, rather than operating "a mile wide and an inch deep."

"The work they were doing before was sort of piecemeal, sort of a Band-Aid approach because it was spread too thin," he said.

Going beyond the checkbook

Springfield's Turner Foundation was not one of the 26 studied by the University of Chicago. But it shares some of those foundations' attributes and goals.

John Landess, its executive director, says he wants nothing to do with "checkbook" philanthropy — where funders write a check without being closely involved in the large initiatives they're funding.

"Frankly, what we're trying to do is much more than giving money away. Changing a community requires people, people to get involved, people to catch the vision. Money is just a small piece of that," Landess said.

Embedded foundations take a more active role to improve the community by convening various community players to begin a dialogue about how to tackle community problems, Karlstrom said.

They see their role as generating momentum and being an enabler for change, not as the ones leading the charge, he said.

In Hobbs, N.M., foundation leaders researched school reform efforts for a year and shared research and data with administrators and teachers to determine the best way to improve the schools. They flew teachers to conferences to learn about school reform and helped them network with experts.

In San Diego, the Jacobs Family Foundation interviewed residents door-to-door about how they wanted to redevelop an abandoned factory site. Residents said they needed a grocery store, restaurants and shopping, so the foundation worked to create a new shopping center.

The center included space and start-up subsidies for a set of resident-owned commercial businesses. The Jacobs foundation partnered with a neighborhood community development corporation on an outreach initiative to train and hire local residents to work at a grocery store in the center well before the store opened, according to Chapin Hall's study.

This is a classic example of how an embedded foundation operates, Brown said.

"They listen carefully to the community and they understand the community in a deep way, so they are able to assess: Are there openings for change? Are there places where additional leadership would help solve a problem or reduce a problem?" she said.

Taking a risk

Perhaps one of the biggest characteristics contributing to the success of embedded foundations is their unusual flexibility, Brown said. If one approach doesn't work, these foundation leaders learn to give it up and try something else. They have a high tolerance for uncertainty.

"We've found they are definitely more willing to take risks, get themselves involved in things where there's no road map, there's no clear kind of model they should follow. But they have a sense of what's needed locally and they just want to try something out," Karlstrom said.

The Turner Foundation, for example, played a key role in creating the new Nextedge technology park on U.S. 40.

Landess said he knew Springfield needed to diversify its job base, and part of that could be with jobs from the high-tech, research and development arena.

"When you feel strongly about something, do what you have to. So we jumped out on the edge with the tech park," Landess said.

After the ball got rolling, the Turner Foundation took a step back and eliminated some of its in-house economic development activities.

"I don't want to be in the middle of economic development. I want to be able to help them bag and bring home every possible business that we can help," Landess said.

The foundation changed course and decided to support those activities through other organizations, the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce and the Community Improvement Corp.

"I think we're all communicating better, working more closely, and I think the community is going to see some fabulous things happen on the economic development front in the next five years," Landess said.

What do you think of Turner's contributions to Springfield?