Our Mission

The Barr Foundation is a private foundation committed to enhancing the quality of life for all of Boston’s citizens. While our primary areas of emphasis are education and the environment, we also provide support to arts and cultural activities.

Our Vision

The Foundation’s vision is that of a city with deep connections to nature and community, rich cultural expression, and hopeful futures for children. To achieve this vision, the Foundation focuses on partnerships with and among others that advance a vital, just and caring community.

Our Areas of Focus

Our work focuses on three critical challenges to Boston:

• Providing Quality Education. Our major emphases are on the Boston Public School system, alternative educational approaches, early education, and out-of-school programs.


• Making a More Livable City. We concentrate on increasing the quality and quantity of open space and water resources, developing environmental citizenship, supporting environmental justice, as well as facilitating regional development planning and urban design.


• Enhancing Cultural Vitality. We focus on cultural projects that enhance our educational or environmental goals, support major and mid-sized institutions, promote diversity, or foster civic engagement and community cohesion.

In addition to these three areas of strategic community engagement, we devote a small portion of our giving—through our Annual Community Support program—to a broad array of organizations that make a positive contribution to the quality of life in our city.

We also recognize that the work of meeting the challenges of this great City is carried out daily by the resolve, passion and talent of real people who work in the nonprofit sector. We have launched a Fellowship program to celebrate distinguished leaders of this sector.

• Celebrating Leaders - Barr Fellows. Selected based on their deep commitment and contribution to the Boston area, we celebrate and connect Boston area nonprofit leaders through the Barr Fellows program.

To spur innovative approaches to significant local social problems, the Foundation created the Boston Innovation Prize, a new philanthropic initiative that provides incentives to spur innovative, workable solutions to significant social problems. The Prize focuses on issues affecting the Boston, Massachusetts area, with solutions that would also be applicable globally.

Our Approach to Sustainable Change

We have developed five basic approaches to our work:

1. Understanding and Working Within Systems;
2. Listening to and Supporting Greater Boston’s Diverse Voices;
3. Strengthening Connections Within and Among Networks;
4. Practicing Knowledge Management and Encouraging Continuous Learning; and
5. Appreciating and Nurturing Community-Based Leadership.

Understanding and Working Within Systems

A clear understanding of the various systems within which our work takes place is key to our effectiveness. The systems we engage with regularly include:

• Large, hierarchical systems, such as local government, and departments within these systems, like the Boston Public Schools;
• The less bureaucratic yet organized systems that influence our priority areas, such as networks of child care providers, alternative schools, and conservation organizations;
• The more organic systems that exist within all large urban communities, such as coalitions of concerned parents, artists and groups of grassroots neighborhood activists; and
• Other local and national players, including foundations and businesses.

We work at ‘mapping’ and tracking these systems and identifying the numerous ways in which they intersect, influence each other, and change over time. Understanding the dynamics of these systems and partnering and collaborating with the key players in them are central to our ability to identify effective ‘levers’ for sustainable change.

Listening to and Supporting Greater Boston's Diverse Voices

Since Boston is a ‘majority minority’ city—and newcomers make up a significant portion (some 30%) of those served by our grantees—we are deeply committed to listening to diverse voices, understanding the needs and contributions of the many ‘communities within communities’ that make up Greater Boston, and finding ways to connect them with each other for mutual understanding and support. We do this, in part, by partnering with a rich network of community-based organizations that represent these diverse groups and are best equipped to engage in an ongoing dialogue with them. In this global era, we also encourage our staff and our grantees to view everything we do in the context of our community’s position in the region and the wider world.

Strengthening Connections Within and Among Networks

Because of our position as a foundation interested in several major, interconnected areas of community life in Greater Boston, we often are in the position to step back and view the many networks of influence that have a direct or indirect impact on those areas. As a result, one of our primary activities is strengthening connections between and among these networks. This can be as simple as introducing two individuals or organizations to each other, but it can also take the form of suggesting ways in which collaborations among several organizations might not only benefit the groups themselves, but may even advance the entire field. These connections almost always lead to the sharing of knowledge and sometimes result in informal or even formal partnerships—as well as new links to other fields of interest and additional sources of support.

Practicing Knowledge Management and Encouraging Continuous Learning

The work of the Barr Foundation and the nonprofit organizations we support is highly service-oriented, which means that we rely on fresh information about community needs, the skills required to meet those needs, and the programs and initiatives that are having an impact, both locally and nationally. In the course of our work, we seek to identify ‘knowledge gaps’ that may exist in our interest areas and fill those gaps through knowledge management. We serve three basic constituencies with our knowledge management activities, including:

• Our own staff, consultants and other partners;
• Our grantees and other community-based groups; and
• The nonprofit sector as a whole, both locally and nationally.

Internally, we are committed to providing our staff with access to the best information about the areas and communities in which we work—and to building ‘institutional memory’ by tracking our interactions with grantees and community members and storing this information in accessible ways for current and future staff. For grantees and other community-based groups, we help to identify information and expertise that can strengthen their work and find ways for organizations focused on the same issues to communicate with each other. And, for the philanthropic and nonprofit sector as a whole, we seek to identify and fill existing knowledge gaps by commissioning fresh research and making the new information easily accessible to broad audiences through our website and convenings.
The Barr Foundation is dedicated to being a ‘learning institution’ and the new knowledge that we acquire through all of these knowledge management activities feeds and encourages a process of continuous learning on the part of our staff, our grantees, and other community members. Continuous learning often leads to new questions and the need for more information and further research.

 
Appreciating and Nurturing Community-Based Leadership

Strong, community-based leadership is critical to deep, sustainable change. Greater Boston is blessed with hundreds of dynamic, thoughtful and hardworking leaders, many serving as executive directors or in other major roles at community-based nonprofit organizations. In this global era, it is important not only that these leaders reflect the diverse communities they serve but also that they see their work in the context of other fields and disciplines and even other nations. In addition to developing close working relationships with Greater Boston’s community-based leaders and encouraging their development, the Foundation also seeks to acknowledge these leaders and provide them with opportunities for reflection and fresh perspectives.

Our Design and Operations

Assets

The Barr Foundation’s many assets include its financial resources, trustees, staff members and community partners. Activities supported by these assets are organized into three general areas that often overlap and inform each other, including:

• Funding and otherwise supporting effective nonprofit organizations, through a ‘by invitation only’ proposal process that provides general operating support, technical assistance, grants for program expenses, and capital assistance;
• Networks, including ongoing relationships and partnerships with individuals, organizations, other funders, and entire sectors; and
• Knowledge, to help our staff and grantees develop the most effective programs, communicate with each other, and track outcomes and progress.

Staffing and Partnerships

Barr Foundation staff members work in close collaboration with each other and with numerous community partners, including other funders, government, nonprofit organizations, and coalitions and interest groups. The Foundation also relies on consultants and intermediaries with deep experience and expertise in its funding areas to expand our understanding of important issues and maximize our resources.
 
Tools

A number of specific tools assist Foundation staff members and our partners, including:

Systems Maps and other aids—that provide detailed charts of the many systems within which the Foundation conducts its work (including government, nonprofit alliances, etc.), their relationship to each other and to other systems;

Logic models— a simple, linear way to visualize the various ways that particular strategies play out;

Narratives—a more nuanced articulation of strategies and outcomes;

Knowledge Management—including databases, websites and other methods of tracking and organizing our work—and, when needed, new research that adds to the body of knowledge which already informs our funding areas;

Grantee Clusters—bringing together nonprofit organizations that are working on the same issues or related issues to encourage open communication, alignment of goals, information sharing and even beneficial alliances;

Sector Investments—involving, in some cases, large grants to intermediary organizations familiar with a specific field and well-equipped to provide small grants and technical assistance to individual nonprofit organizations; and

Evaluation—feedback on grants and other activities in order to learn and inform future funding decisions and other work as well as help others improve.