SOWING THE SEEDS OF GIVING

Omaha charitable giving turns on a funding wheel of corporate, foundation and individual donors of all levels. This month’s “Omaha Gives!” is a prime example of how that wheel has expanded.
This city with its high concentration of millionaires, one certifiable mega-billionaire and large corporate and family foundations is widely heralded for its generosity. Omaha’s no different than any other city, though, in relying on giving to fill gaps. Philanthropy fills the gulf between what nonprofits may generate and what they get from public (government) funding sources.
There are also funding conduits or facilitators. The Reader recently interviewed three local leaders from three key organizations – the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, Omaha Community Foundation and United Way — intimately involved in the fabric of Omaha giving for insight into how philanthropy gets activated here. While the wheel has been turning for some time and can be credited with a lot of progress, so far intractable problems are encouraging a new approach at the highest levels.
These efforts will be key in defining our future as a city.
Annually, organizations seek support for ongoing needs ranging from services, programs, events and activities to operating expenses. Special needs may also arise, such as capital construction projects or larger-scale civic endeavors requiring special asks.
The giving sector is starting to work more collaboratively to identify and address persistent and emerging community-wide needs. Corporate, foundation, civic and other leaders have always convened to analyze and delegate where resources should go. This vetting and ranking explains why some efforts get funded and others don’t or why some programs are supported at higher levels than others. Curating simply prioritizes some things over others.
Different players have their own funding missions or targets, but still join others in supporting special initiatives, campaigns or projects that require more collective impact.
All these efforts measure what kind of city Omaha is. Giving shapes the physical and intangible landscape – from infrastructure, skyline, parks and other amenities to health, vitality, livability and compassion.
Everyone now agrees that no one organization or philanthropist can make much of a difference alone. It’s in the giving power of many that real change can occur.
The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce works with the giving community to fulfill its goals. Prosper Omaha (2014-2018) is the latest funding program for the Chamber’s economic development partnership and it’s a radical departure from previous efforts. President-CEO David Brown said, “We have a bifurcated agenda to provide services to our 3,200 business members and to figure out ways to grow and improve the community. Development and growth assumes if we can make it a better and growing community, our member firms will benefit and be able to hire more people – and there’s a great spinoff benefit from that.
“We believe we should be a catalyst organization always thinking about ways we can improve the community at large, which again makes it a better place to live, work and play. We do that by not just working independently of others but in most cases collaborating with other organizations.”
Examples of the Chamber’s catalytic work include working with community partners to create Careerockit, a week-long event in April that exposed 10,000-plus area students to thousands of career opportunities, and to get Omaha designated a TechHire Community, which adds the city to a national network receiving support for helping overlooked and underrepresented populations start technology careers. The Chamber also partnered to develop The Kitchen Council, a food startup incubator that gives members access to a fully-licensed commercial kitchen and other resources to lower barriers of entry and to spur entrepreneurship.
When the Chamber throws its weight behind something, ripples usually happen.
“We get a lot done in large measure because we collaborate with people who have the authority to get things done,” Brown said. “Our public advocacy work is really important for us to be able to cause change to happen. Frankly, the Chamber cannot pass a zoning ordinance but we can encourage other people to do so.
We can’t fix roads, but we can encourage the city or state administration to do so. Our role can only be effective if we can convene people who have similar goals in mind and can figure out a path forward to solving a problem or addressing a challenge.
“We are always thinking about what’s the next change that should happen. Then the next logical question is, who’s responsible for seeing that that change occurs and how can we build a collaborative process to bring all the people interested in this issue to the table and actually cause that change to occur.”
The Chamber’s involved in things, he said, “that might surprise folks,” such as supporting education reform, investing in talent development and the retainment of young professionals to address the brain drain issue,” along with community- economic-entrepreneurship development. “We also worry about infrastructure. So transportation, especially the discussion about mass transit, is something we’re involved in.” Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.