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Helping the community by investing funds isn’t as easy as it seems. Most efforts come as the result of collaboration. At the center of many of those collaborations is Diana Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation. Whether it’s herding donors or helping identify community needs, her work is helping build a stronger community for greater Grand Rapids. PHOTO BY JOE BOOMGAARD

By Joe Boomgaard | MiBiz
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GRAND RAPIDS — Leadership in the Grand Rapids area is diffused. There’s no longer a small cadre of businessmen — and it was traditionally mostly men — to take the reins of the city and get a specific project done.

Today, willing leaders can be found in all types of organizations, public and private, and that changes how the city dynamics work.

“Over the course of the last two-plus decades, we’re seeing leaders coming from a variety of audiences, not just business and industry,” Diana Sieger, president of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, told MiBiz. “We’ve been really encouraging that over the course of time and growing our reach to be able to pull in more and more people.”

To get anything done to help make greater Grand Rapids a better place to live and work, Sieger has been a passionate advocate in the collective power of many during her more than two decades leading the GRCF.

“I’m a big promoter of collaboration — truly collaboration and not just using the word and walking away saying, ‘Well, I got their name on the list.’ Nothing disappoints me more than when I see leaders or organizations trying to demonstrate collaboration by just getting people to sign on the paper here and support us. That’s not collaboration,” she said. “Collaboration is getting at the table, negotiating what it is we want to see happen, and then (ask) are you going to be in or out of this, and if you’re in, this is what it requires. It’s hard work, and frankly, sometimes it is easier to go alone. If I’m truly honest, sometimes you say, I just don’t need the politics of this. However, if you want to see something really take off and people take ownership of it, and ultimately be sustained over time, going alone is not the best business decision.”

One successful project Sieger points to is the Kent School Services Network, which uses a mix of public and private funding to assist families in finding resources needed to help parents stay employed and ensure children maintain access to education. The KSSN has resulted in a collaboration of more than 40 nonprofit organizations, Network 180, the Department of Human Services, the health department, many local foundations and schools across the county to bring health and human services into area schools, the culmination of a “community school” concept.

By having the services available to families at their children’s schools, the families get the services they need — whether counseling, healthcare, transportation, workshops, language help or otherwise — and the children can focus on their schooling and not worry about issues at home. Sieger said that may sound like a bunch of social work to a businessperson, but the program is making real progress in lowering student absenteeism and helping coordinate services in the community, which leads to more efficient use of resources and helping the system run as it was designed.

“When you have vibrant, healthy families, that can only add to a vibrant, healthy economy,” she said.

Sieger also acknowledges the fragility of the collaboration that makes KSSN possible. There’s no formal arrangement that makes it possible, other than the various organizations’ commitment to help. For its part, GRCF has contributed about $1.7 million to KSSN. While tracking data can be somewhat easy, showing measured results to those collaborators ­— and to foundation donors — from such a program is not.

“It’s probably going to take years before we really see the results of the program, and that’s what is frustrating for businesspeople,” she said. “When we talk about collaboration, it takes patience, and sometimes a lot of it.”

But not all collaborations involve money, either. During the height of the economic uncertainty about a year ago, the GRCF along with other foundations convened a meeting of local arts organizations and nonprofits to see how they were handling the downturn. Sieger said while they came wanting financial help, through some tough discussions, the leaders realized that what they really needed was to find ways to collectively help elevate the importance of the arts. The result was a collaborative effort — What’s Your Art GR? — to better coordinate what the various arts organizations were doing in greater Grand Rapids to feed off and support one another.

“It’s an example that grant money is important, but we needed to spark an effort to raise all ships,” she said.

That same type of effort came together in November 2008 when local foundations pooled their funds to form a clearinghouse for nonprofits looking for help. Rather than have the organizations go to each foundation for funds, the Essential Needs Taskforce would be the central source for accessing about $2.3 million from 17 different foundations.

Coordinating that unprecedented effort required a great deal of legwork from the GRCF staff, but describing the worth of that work to donors is a constant struggle.

“What distinguishes us from other organizations… is that we have not shied away from what could be seen as controversial issues at all,” Sieger said. “Sometimes, that’s put me in the frying pan. When it comes time to describe that to Mr. or Mrs. Donor, once we develop a relationship with people, it’s really just telling a story through our newsletters and communication about what has emerged — and what has not emerged. If everything was always successful, I think people should question if we know how to take risks.

“I expect excellence, and I also expect failure. Sometimes, I’m better at accepting failure. Out of failure comes thinking about how we rebuild and make this better.”

At the helm of the GRCF, Sieger’s focus is to not only help out projects “in the here and now,” but also build the community’s endowment for future projects. That means starting relationships with more than just the well-heeled individuals in town. The foundation wants people of all ages to think of the foundation when it comes time to leave a legacy, even if that’s years away. The conversation can’t start too early, she said.

“Our hope is (people) want to stay here, to build their lives here,” Sieger said.

That all comes back to the foundation investing in projects that contribute to a vibrant community and economy. Sieger points to GRCF’s investment in the Wealthy MainStreet program, which helped revitalize a struggling business district in an important Grand Rapids corridor.

“What I hope is that we can continue to help the surrounding neighborhoods…and that we have opportunities for all,” she said. “There are various ways we’re measuring that, but it will be defined by many people, not just one organization.”

The program was just one of GRCF’s investments in business interests. Another was the $500,000 it gave to The Right Place Inc. to support the Innovation Works program aimed at encouraging entrepreneurs and inventors to commercialize new products in West Michigan.

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• diana sieger
• economic development
• grand rapids
• grand rapids community foundation