ICS Maps Course for Spur Water Policy Institute

ICS Maps Course for Spur Water Policy Institute

Colorado State University selected CDR Associates, LRE Water, and ICS Consulting to initiate planning for a new water policy institute at the future Spur campus at the National Western Center in Denver.

“The Spur campus is a place made for the public, and a place to convene the greatest minds around the biggest issues of our time,” said CSU System Executive Vice Chancellor Amy Parsons. “Water is a critical issue that requires interdisciplinary expertise and collaboration, and the water policy institute is positioned to begin this work prior to the grand opening of the CSU Spur campus in 2022.”

Housed within the water building—one of three buildings on the Spur campus—this policy institute will be a CSU-led, non-partisan policy center that addresses core natural resources, regulatory and governance, and socioeconomic issues shaping sustainability of the West’s water future through research-based policy analysis, alternatives, and recommendations.

CDR Associates, which provides stakeholder engagement, will lead the strategic planning and decision-making process. “Developing a water policy institute is a meaningful and rare opportunity to shape how future water is managed, in a way that really meets the needs of these future policy implementers,” said Emily Zmak, a CDR Associates process expert on the project. Scott Campbell, owner of ICS Consulting, agreed: “We need a place like [Spur] to chart a viable future for the American West.”

At Spur, the water building will host programs focused on education, innovation, and research—advancing innovative practices in water; providing a venue for water-focused dialogue and conferences that highlight connections between water and urban and rural food systems; connecting water users with problem-solvers; showcasing water sustainability; and fostering cross-sector collaboration. The facility will be a venue for K-12 education and field trips. Denver Water’s water quality laboratory will also be part of the water center.

On April 30, 2020, at 1:30 p.m., CSU System will host a groundbreaking celebration with campus leaders, program partners, and community members at the future site of the Spur campus. The event is free and open to the public and will include site tours and a sampling of programs and activities that will be offered at the future campus—where researchers will tackle the world’s most pressing problems around water, food, and health.

 

ICS Guides Gates Family Foundation Strategic Plan

ICS Guides Gates Family Foundation Strategic Plan

The Gates Family Foundation has committed more than $350 million to Colorado philanthropic endeavors since its creation. In 2011, under the leadership of Tom Gougeon, the Foundation initiated a fundamental shift in its grant-making approach, devoting 60% of its resources to funder-initiated grant making programs that could better address critical conservation, education, and community development needs in the State of Colorado. In 2016, the Foundation asked ICS to assess its move beyond responsive capital grant making and help launch a new strategic planning effort by evaluating how funder-initiated grant making was working in its first five years.

The beauty of funder-initiated grant making is that it enables a foundation like Gates to say, “Hey, we want to move the needle in this area, and we think we can pull together the right partners and provide them with the resources to do it.” That’s a huge shift from responsive capital grant making, which says: “These are the things we care about. Come to us with your ideas for supporting these things and we’ll fund the best ideas through a competitive selection process.” With initiated grant making, foundations have to be exceptionally knowledgeable in the subject matter, knowledgeable enough to identify systemic problems that no amount of responsive grant making is going to fix. Then they need to get deeply involved in the issues themselves, demonstrating incredible persistence—as if they were a high-functioning operating foundation setting out on a lifetime mission. Finally they must possess a certain degree of risk tolerance if they are going make long-term investments in systemic change that is not easily won. Investments often begin to increase in amount, lengthen in time, and hone in on certain geographies; and greater demands are often placed upon foundation staff.

When making investments that carry a certain amount of risk or may succeed only after multiple attempts, strong working relationships with partners and grantees become critically important. In this sense, initiated grant making is actually helped when foundations like Gates develop and vet relationships through responsive grant-making experiences. Not all investments have to be risky or daring, but when they are, a foundation certainly wants to know that its recipients and partners are doing all they can to succeed. Because that, of course, is the hallmark of a great foundation: investing in things not because the foundation knows they will work, but because the societal need is great.