What’s Past Is Prologue

As a second-generation family member, Liz Norton outlines the process she and her siblings undertook to honor the work of their parents, forge their own philanthropic path, and embrace transparency in the next era of the foundation’s work. 

“I think I will just take the big green glass vase.”

My dad smiled at me when I said this. That vase was a remnant of his bachelor days in the early 1950’s in Washington, DC, when he would fill it with flowers to impress the ladies. Now it was 2004, and our parents (married since 1954) were downsizing to an apartment—and giving away about 90 percent of their belongings. The six of us kids had first dibs.

Legacy philanthropy is hard. But the long road of preparation to run our family foundation after the death of our parents in 2021 started many years ago, when they were still very much alive. As opposed to a difficult, melancholy task of going through a lifetime of material goods after someone’s death, we were able to ask them about the items, learn their origins, laugh and take only what we thought we would enjoy having. There was no judgement, only respect for our future. This is exactly what has happened with the foundation.

The Foundation’s Origins

The Diane and Norman Bernstein Foundation began in the early 1960’s. It was largely a vehicle for personal giving, both as a way to address requests from friends and colleagues and support established institutions and Israel-related organizations. Over the years, especially as our mother got more involved, it also became a place to significantly impact the landscape of early childhood education and health equity alongside an ever-increasing investment in combating poverty in Washington, DC.

Early Involvement of the Next Generation

My five siblings and I got involved after we each turned 21. (And at 58, I’m the youngest.) Initially, that meant sitting in on meetings and rubber-stamping decisions made by our parents. It was, to be honest, occasionally tedious but not optional. I remember feeling interested and proud, but generally detached. Gradually, as they began to transition the grants to more communal decisions, we began to have a voice at the table.

This happened over many years, but it resulted in more interest and ownership in the work. Voting on grants became less of a formality. We did site visits and reported back at meetings. Our opinions had an impact. We massaged the mission statement, more times that I would like to admit. We discussed organizations informally, outside of meetings. And, perhaps most importantly, we discontinued funding to a couple nonprofits that directly contrasted with our next-generation values. That was big!

Our parents understood that as communities evolve, priorities change and what may have once resonated for them may not necessarily be embraced by their children. Rather than criticize them for supporting a specific organization we began talking with them about strategies that may have greater impact. These early conversations were the building blocks for the next chapter of the foundation.

Next-Generation Leadership: Balancing Legacy with Modern Needs

As a result, after they were gone, we were extremely well-prepared to take on the foundation’s philanthropic responsibilities.

Or were we? Even with that experience working alongside our parents and each other, now we are faced with our wish to balance their legacy with our own philosophies and the challenge of navigating current crises—some of which our parents could never have foreseen.

For example, we have incorporated an emphasis on identifying and combating structural racism in institutions. So making grants with that lens has altered how we approach funding; we actively seek to open the aperture on this lens to root out injustice and empower communities directly impacted by structural racism.

As we seek to strike that balance, we have six decision-makers in the room, not just two, and it will come as no surprise that we siblings do not always agree on funding approaches and priorities. While we worked to define this next era of our family’s philanthropy as second-generation leaders, we are also grappling with how or if we engage our own children—the third generation—who did not have the same exposure and on-ramps to the work that we had growing up.

Getting External Support

We realized we needed some serious help to manage this period of transition. We beefed up our staff from one to two people. Exciting! We hired professionals to take us through a rigorous nearly year-long process of introspection. This involved a deep dive into our personal values and priorities to identify where there was overlap. It was also a therapeutic exercise in how we experienced our individual involvement with the foundation over time. We narrowed our focus. That was hard! We asked important questions like what do we want to accomplish? How do we best honor our parents while still moving forward?

With the help of our staff members and consultants, we are moving away from an informal family-centric culture to one that is more professional—an especially critical evolution as we are leaning into tough conversations where family dynamics can get in the way of effectiveness. When we don’t agree, there is a commitment to hearing out the other person’s point of view and in some cases just agreeing to disagree. We will often task a member to get more information and return to that topic to inform us more fully at the next meeting.

We made a small allocation for designated grants, aimed at the regions where our members live. This allows family members to participate while our board maintains its focus on our priorities.

Now we find ourselves navigating a foundation built on the framework my parents laid and looking towards a future shaped by our generation.

Resisting a Scarcity Mindset

One major change has been moving from a scarcity mindset where we spent 5 percent of foundation assets to one that recognizes that the entire endowment exists to repair the world. Whereas our parents focus was to create a place where we would continue to come together as a family, our generation values maximizing impact. We hope to thoughtfully and intentionally spend down the assets in our lifetime.

Additionally, we are currently willing to take big swings even if it means occasionally missing or giving seed funding. Our parents, especially our dad, did not share this philosophy. Another positive outcome of internal reflection was to learn that we are not similarly constrained.

Leaning into Transparency and Accountability

The current evidence of this evolution has been the creation, finally, of a website. We are taking our learnings and moving them to a more outward-facing landscape, where we will be held accountable for our decisions and hopefully inspire others to do the same.

Effective, targeted, and purposeful philanthropy is a privilege of the highest order. It is not, however, without its challenges. Transitions can be painful and money is, well, just complicated. But with strategic, thoughtful (and assisted!) planning and a commitment to be accountable to the community we support, the balance of honoring the founders while rising to the evolution of current needs can be achieved. We believe we have achieved this balance and I know our parents would be very proud.

Reflection Questions

For those of you who find yourselves in a similar time of transition, here are some important questions that were helpful to our family:

1. Why do you do this work?
2. What is your definition of success?
3. In ten years, what would you hope to see improve and what is your foundation doing to help achieve that goal?
4. To whom are you accountable?
5. How do family relationships serve your mission?
6. Do your decisions serve the mission or family relationships?
7. How does your foundation define risk?

Elizabeth Bernstein Norton is a director of the Diane and Norman Bernstein Foundation

The views and opinions expressed in individual blog posts are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the National Center for Family Philanthropy.