How did the Hewlett Foundation contribute to Fundar?
The Hewlett Foundation has a long history of providing program support and general operating support to Fundar, as there has and continues to be a strong alignment between Fundar’s and the foundation’s strategies. In the early years, Fundar received program support funding, structured as a bundle of project grants combined into one.
Sustainability & alternative business models
With encouragement and support from Hewlett Foundation-funded consultants, Fundar developed a financing strategy that paved the way for an endowment to strengthen its financial sustainability and resilience. Initially, an institutional reserve fund was created to help weather periods of low project support and unforeseen emergencies. The contingency fund was formalized with technical expertise that enabled them to establish formal operating guidelines and procedures.
In 2018, Fundar received a special grant from the Hewlett Foundation for Fundar’s 20th anniversary, which enabled the endowment to grow significantly. This required Fundar to change the way resources were managed, moving from a traditional bank to seeking advice from an investment management firm. As well as developing guidelines for the use of the recently created funds, Fundar developed a more efficient financial management system to strengthen the financial health and sustainability of the organization.
While these funds provided stability, Hewlett encouraged Fundar to explore other sources of income. Partly because of Hewlett’s encouragement, Fundar carried out its first crowdfunding campaign in 2019. Hewlett also encouraged Fundar to explore alternative business lines such as developing the procedures and legal structure to receive consultancy contracts as an alternative income stream.
Succession planning & leadership transition
Fundar was part of the young and emerging civil society community in Mexico and the organization’s leadership did not have experience in executing succession planning or leadership transition processes. When the founding director decided to move on from Fundar at the end of 2006, the transition plan was nothing more than conceptual.
The Hewlett Foundation provided Fundar with organizational development support to develop a leadership transition guide, strategic planning, and governance and institutional policy manuals such as human resource guidelines. Many of these resources were later made open source as a contribution to help strengthen the CSO field in Latin America. With the Hewlett Foundation’s support, Fundar had become a model for other CSOs in Mexico on what a successful leadership transition should look like.
Strategic planning & organizational restructuring
In 2016, Fundar underwent a strategic planning process. After Hewlett-supported consultants facilitated past strategic planning processes, Fundar decided to manage the process internally. This process included a strategic review of its programming priorities and an expansion from three thematic program areas to four: fiscal justice, human rights, land and territory, and anticorruption.
As part of this broader strategic planning and restructuring effort, Fundar received an OE grant from the Hewlett Foundation to review and update its labor policy and organizational structure. With consultant support, Fundar improved its organizational decision-making processes and internal communications, and revised its labor policies to ensure occupational security for its staff. Ensuring that job descriptions and salaries were commensurate with competitive market rates was particularly important, as Fundar had faced some legal issues due to the lack of clear labor policies in the past.
