Donors of Note

SVS Acknowledges Steve Kelban and the Andrus Family Fund for Their Transformative Support of Our Programs for Foster Youth and Their Families

In January 2000, Steve Kelban became the Executive Director of a newly-formed foundation-the Andrus Family Fund (AFF). His charge was to help the just-named Board of fifth-generation family members create a mission around which the Andrus Family Fund could coalesce. (AFF is the creation of the Surdna Foundation-Surdna spelled backwards is Andrus-which was established in 1917 and was led in 2000 by third and fourth-generation family members.)

How did he tackle this formidable challenge? Mr. Kelban credits a book that his wife gave to him entitled Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change by William Bridges, Ph.D., as providing the framework for the philanthropic vision of the Andrus Family Fund. The basic premise of this work deals with the difference between change and transition. Whereas change is external and situational (i.e., marriage, a new job), transition is the internal process of how one responds to the change, and as such requires attention to internal processes. This basic premise spoke directly to the generational transition of the family, and has grown to embody the way in which the Fund, its Board members, and its staff think about social change.

The Andrus and Surdna Foundations are no strangers to transition. When the Surdna Foundation's Trustees began the family involvement effort in 1998, the Foundation was in its fourth generation. At this stage, many foundations face some degree of difficulty maintaining cohesion and staying "on mission." The task before the Trustees was formidable: the eight branches of the Surdna family numbered in the hundreds and ranged in age from infancy to 92. Working out a practical system for engaging so many family members required a complete rethinking of the Foundation's basic operating principles. One of the outcomes of the process resulted in the successful establishment of the Andrus Family Fund, a powerful grantmaking entity that has truly enriched the philanthropic landscape in its ten years of operation.

Since initiating our relationship with AFF in 2004, SVS has received $613,000 in grants for our work-all of which has focused on integrating the Transitions Framework into our service model. Our first AFF-supported effort was The Next Level, a vital program designed to support young people living in SVS foster family homes in preparing for the transition to a self-sufficient adulthood. This highly successful program inspired the subsequent development of our Families in Harmony initiative, which empowers foster parents to play an active role in supporting their children's process to grow toward independence in adulthood. In both cases, the Transitions Framework has served our young people and their families (foster, adoptive, and birth) well. It helped to bring them to a new level of consciousness about coping with planned and unplanned change, and making the internal adjustments needed to grow toward a healthy transition process.

Mr. Kelban shared with us that AFF sees interaction with its grantees as key to their efforts to continually refine and strengthen their grantmaking approach. In fact, meeting face-to-face with grantees at workshops and "Grantee Learning Exchanges", where AFF brings together all of its grantees, is one of his favorite parts of the job, as it gives him a chance to see how the work of AFF is leveraged among the Fund's diverse grantees. Reflecting on AFF's relationship with SVS, Mr. Kelban shared the following with us:

Simply "moving ahead" is not enough to sustain meaningful change-whether at the level of the individual, the family, the organization, or the larger community. In order to sustain true and lasting change, the internal component-the process of transition-must be addressed. Often, this is helped along by sharing our process with others. When we come to discover that everyone responds to change in a similar way, it helps to "normalize" the trauma of the new so that the work of growth can begin. By helping foster youth and foster parents to "connect" with others who are facing similar challenges, SVS is supporting your participants in The Next Level/Families in Harmony programs to move toward a space of transition and growth with respect to the changes they face. It has been a real pleasure to watch SVS's successful implementation of the Transitions Framework, and to see how quickly you were able to infuse the entire organization with the principles and process of successful transition.

Of course, perhaps the biggest changes facing all of us today-foundations, businesses, and individuals alike-have come about as a result of the continually shifting economic climate. We asked Mr. Kelban if he thought that the Transitions Framework could be applied to the economic crisis-and not surprisingly, he answered in the affirmative!

The fluctuating economic climate has no doubt ushered in significant changes for us all. In business terms, any good company must regularly perform a "loss analysis" in order to accurately calculate its overall financial position relative to its losses. Maybe all of us-nonprofit agencies, donors, and individuals alike- need to do a similar type of "loss analysis" in order to see what it is that we have lost, to appropriately mourn it, and then to embrace and release what has ended so that we are ready and open for new beginnings.

SVS salutes the Andrus Family Fund for their innovative, family-based approach to philanthropy, as well as their untiring devotion to improving the capacity of foster youth to transition to self-sufficiency in adulthood. Funding from AFF has been instrumental to our ability to implement programs that support healthy transitions for our young people and their families. We especially salute AFF's talented, professional, and caring staff, who are always there for us and who serve as extraordinarily rich sources of information, assistance, and support. In addition, we would like to acknowledge our fellow AFF grantees, who have been amazing sources of inspiration and guidance as we work to incorporate the Transitions Framework across our programs and operations. We feel quite privileged to have been a part of such a dynamic network of individuals and organizations who are passionate about the work they do and who share our commitment to supporting foster youth in making the successful transition to a productive, fulfilling adulthood. To learn more about the Andrus Family Fund, please visit: http://www.affund.org/index.html. For more information on the Transitions Framework and the work of William Bridges, please visit: http://www.transitionandsocialchange.org/.