On the Phone With… Mary Mountcastle

Listen to the audio version of this interview here.

Ginny Esposito: Welcome to our very special December edition of “On the Phone With…” Mary Mountcastle is the immediate past Board chair of the National Center for Family Philanthropy. She is a trustee of the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation in North Carolina, and is a former board member of the Triangle Community Foundation in Raleigh. She is a Senior Fellow at Self-Help, a nonprofit community development lender that has made more than $5 billion in loans to over 55,000 low-wealth families across the United States. Mary was previously the President of the Center for Responsible Lending, and she has worked at various levels of government.Mary, you’ve longtime and very passionate leader within the field of philanthropy. Your past board service has included being chair of the Council on Foundations, on the board and heading the annual conference for the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and participation in several other national and regional organizations. Why did you feel it was particularly important to accept an invitation to join, serve on the board, and ultimately chair the board of the National Center for Family Philanthropy?

Mary Mountcastle: Well, you know, Ginny, I’ve been a longstanding admirer of your and of the National Center’s ability to embrace the power and potential of family philanthropy while improving the practice of philanthropy by family foundations and family philanthropists.

I have been involved over a couple of decades – it’s hard to realize that! – with my own family foundations and several national affinity groups, and I’ve found that trustees are often less present at the national philanthropic conferences. So while these other networks can be great learning opportunities, I really appreciate the National Center’s attention to the kind of information and connections that are particularly helpful to those of us that serve as trustees. Both of the foundations that I work with are staffed, and I know the crucial role that staff does play, but I still think that there are so many family philanthropies that have really, really great board engagement and it’s especially important for boards to understand how to improve our grantmaking practices.

I was particularly lucky to have had some important mentors in my life, such as Paul Ylvisaker and people like you, Ginny, who helped me and our family foundation board think through a lot of important questions around governance, around ethics, and around the role of family and non-family trustees. It’s been gratifying for me to have had the chance to work with an organization that helps connect trustees with one another so that we can share our stories, and we can learn together.

Sometimes I think our foundations are so unique in our problems or our challenges or our opportunities, and then I go and I talk to other family foundation trustees and there are so many similarities that I think . And the National Center’s publications and its Knowledge Center really help make this possible. It’s been a real privilege for me over the last six years to work with all of the great people on the board of the National Center.

金妮：哦，非常感谢您，我非常感谢您对在这些对话中包括受托人和家人的重要性的评论。这是社区的重要组成部分，我们需要尽一切努力提高绩效并帮助人们做出色的工作。当您考虑到这一点时，无论是从家庭的角度还是受托人的角度来看，您认为国家中心的角色和优先事项如何？您认为我们的董事会和我们的领域是什么？

玛丽·芒特卡斯尔（Mary Mountcastle）：随着国家中心继续其出色的工作，我们确实需要考虑如何交互式参与和扩大共同努力的家庭基金会员工和受托人的数量。国家中心确实有很棒的机会，可以通过您生产的出版物进行通知，这些出版物确实是一流的。但这不仅仅是国家中心将信息推向现场的单向通信。我们需要继续寻找使其更具互动性并帮助人们联系以使他们一起学习的方法。我非常感谢您发表的故事以及两年前举行的全国研讨会，展现了有关我们领域面临的一些非常非常重要的问题的热烈对话和讨论。我认为国家中心在该领域拥有如此多的专业知识，以帮助刺激这些对话。

我认为第二个领域可能是家庭慈善事业的讨论，这与确保我们与下一代家庭慈善家建立联系。manbetx安卓版最新版下载我知道这是您想到的。当我20多岁并加入家庭基金会委员会时，有很多关于将火炬传递给下一代的讨论，这实际上就是所使用的隐喻。国家中心的研究表明，今天，不仅要将火炬从一代人传递到另一代，而且老一辈逐渐脱颖而出，坐在前廊上的摇椅上。

今天的董事会是多代。基因rations are learning from and working with each other. The elders bring the history and perspective and experience of the foundation. The next generation brings great ideas, a comfort with technology, new ways of doing things and new issues. It’s all of those generations coming together to work on this. I think there is still this important void to fill for both new and veteran trustees around education and training that the National Center can think about how to provide both in person and through technology. As new trustees come into the field they need opportunities to learn about the practice of good grantmaking. And as we’ve been in the field for a long time trustees have an opportunity to think about how we are doing, are there ways we could be doing a better job. And I think the National Center can help fill this role.

我要说的最后一件事是，在这些时期，这是许多非营利组织的斗争，我希望你们中的任何人都在阅读或听这次采访的人认识到我们作为家庭基金会和家庭慈善家都需要伸出援手并提供支持国家中心。如果我不说我们作为一个领域必须加强并成为国家中心家庭计划的成员并找到其他方式来支持您的良好工作，我将不会成为过去的董事会主席。

Ginny Esposito: You talked about learning together, and let me just take a second to extend that to our grantee partners in this work. You’ve served on the boards of both the Z. Smith Reynolds and theMary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, but you’ve also served in key leadership roles in a number of nonprofits working with low-wealth families across the U.S., including Self-Help and the Center for Responsible Lending. How have you used what you’ve learned on the boards of your family’s foundations in your nonprofit work? How about vice versa – what have you learned in your nonprofit work that has informed your role as a foundation board member?

玛丽·芒特卡斯尔（Mary Mountcastle）：我的非营利性角色在基础方面对我来说非常有价值。显然，在这两种经历中，我都可以将自己置于另一侧的鞋子上。因此，我可以说：“嗯，实际上，从授予者的角度来看，这可能不是像这样的机会。”

When I have my foundation hat on I can reflect on the fact that I’ve been with a growing nonprofit for over 17 years and I bring that perspective of the management challenges of nonprofits. I know the question of taking nonprofits to scale is very much in vogue these days, and I think that Self Help has arguably done that – as you say, we’ve served over 55,000 families across the country. And I think that all helps me when looking at grantee applications. I can determine whether the ambition they are laying out is reasonable, and whether they have the capacity to be able to deliver on what it is that they are talking about. So I think that has been really helpful.

第二件事是，在福特基金会的一般运营支持下，自助帮助在早期就真正受益匪浅。这使我们能够进行实验并学习有效的方法，然后以工作方式进行建立并扩展它。因此，我是提供一般运营支持的巨大倡导者，并且只有在有特殊原因这样做的时候才能提供项目支持。我认为不幸的是，资助者经常削弱他们通过提供真正限制性的项目支持或不包括行政费用和类似事物来帮助他们提供帮助的非营利组织。

Finally, I’d say I kind of understand the power dynamic. Probably all of us who have been on nonprofit boards and tried to raise money understand when this dynamic is flipped on you. When I have my nonprofit hat on and I’m working with a potential funder for our organization, I may not be as candid as I always am if they are saying something that I don’t particularly agree with, or going in a direction that I may not think is as effective as it could be. I may hold back a little bit, recognizing that power dynamic.

金妮:我最后,使谈话n back to the family. Because I’d love to ask you what you’ve learned over the years about the value of family and family participation in philanthropy. I remember a great story that you told me about how when you got into this you didn’t really want to think about the family. You’ve been on a journey many people I imagine listening to or reading this have travelled as well. You’ve just come from spending the last six years focused on the whole field of family philanthropy. So where has your journey taken you about how you think about the value of family participation?

Mary Mountcastle: The family philanthropy part of the philanthropic spectrum often suffers from a stereotype that we are an insular group of privileged white people who fund pet projects or try to advance our own interests. When I was first introduced to the field, I was influenced somewhat by that stereotype. What has changed me over the years is just meeting so many informed, engaged, passionate family members who bring so much excitement and due diligence to the craft of philanthropy. These individuals may be working towards a mission that was handed down by several generations before them, and they are really excited and engaged in carrying that out – rather than just bringing their own pet issues to the table.

成为家庭基金会和家庭成员的尴尬的一部分是，我在董事会任职的唯一资格是我恰好是在这个家庭中出生的。我认识到我在职业生涯中曾经是我的巨大学习机会。而且我试图非常非常重视这一责任。但是我认为，对我来说，一部分的价值一直在取得基金会的成就，并使家庭与基金会的联系成为您通过受赠人和您关心的社区所取得的成就的骄傲之一。并创建与姓氏无关的遗产，而是关于实现基金会使命的影响的遗产。

Ginny: Well I’m not sure that I would agree with you on what it is you may have brought and qualified you for the board – I certainly understand your point – but my guess is if it wasn’t at the very, very beginning that anyone who’s listened to this understands exactly what it is that you do bring to the table at these foundations. And I want to thank you very much Mary – both for this interview, but much more importantly for six years of incredible service to this organization, on behalf of all of the families that do charitable giving in this country and around the world. Very often people don’t get to see the time that volunteer leadership puts into an organization like the National Center. You took over the National Center’s board chair at a critical moment in our country’s economic history and saw a small nonprofit through that. And you did it with real enthusiasm, and energy, and ideas and grace and you never once said to me, “Oh my God, why me?” So on behalf of all of us for whom you’ve been such a supporter and such an inspiration, I just can’t thank you enough.