It's all about relationships...  I know, we hear that time and again.  People give money to people and not to organizations.  I sat down with Mary Tidlund, founder and CEO of the Tidlund Foundation yesterday to learn from her the process she undertook for setting up her foundation.  I will be posting excerpts from the interview in coming weeks (once I figure out how to put the audio on my website...).  Something really stood out in our conversation that I had to write about immediately.

Mary built her foundation, not out of a set of systems, but based on a set of values.  She knew that she wanted to impact the lives of people through medical and educational support in the developing world.  As she started exploring what this would look like, people from around the world began galvanizing towards her model of international development.  In the 10 years that the foundation has been operating it draws on a pool of over 175 people to implement programs in several countries ranging from Haiti to India.  With a paid staff of two, the foundation's overhead is spent on improving the local economies by employing people in the project region who have the skill-set to deliver on what the community has articulated its needs are.

I asked Mary how she goes about raising funds for her foundation.  She said that when she started she had put together a strategy, but it was a lot of work and not a lot of return.  What she noticed was how the Foundation's volunteers became the story.  The more people in the various countries that participated in her programs either as a recipient organization or as a volunteer or as a donor, the stronger the Foundation's story became. 

As the Tidlund Foundation became more sophisticated and grew, so too did the volunteer model.  These past two months have seen some new additions to the volunteer training model.  In the past volunteers were provided with cultural training before going overseas and debriefing upon returning.  Now volunteers are part of a larger circle that includes in-country support sessions, educational opportunities and what I found most interesting draws upon several different cultures from the Traditional Wisdom of Eastern religions to the Talk Sticks of North American Indians.  This opportunity to share with each other as people are immersed in the volunteer experience has provided the Foundation with even more stories of strength and success.

Everyone has a different approach to how they see their foundation operating.  Not only is going to be private or public.  Questions around how to engaged donors and volunteers or other family members are asked.  There is no right or wrong answer, it all depends on the values that you bring to the table and the type of systems that work best for you. 

No matter how you choose to invest in community, whether it is by starting your own foundation, donating directly to a charity or investing in a social enterprise/venture; it is the people behind the project that you are putting your money into.  The organization and its recipients are who you are investing in.  As long as they align with what you believe in and they can show you that they are accountable to you as well as to each other then considering that investment should be an easy decision.