When you're in a hole, start digging.

As I was digging our little allotment over the weekend - well, it's actually a bit of someone else's, with their blessing of course - I was reflecting on the fact that people keep asking me how the credit crunch is affecting British foundations. Thinking about this sort of thing while digging is probably a sign of a sad mind, but, as we shall see in due course, there are connections….

Anyway, when people ask me these things, I tell them I don't know because there have been no dramatic grants programme closures as far as I know, and some trusts have been saying that it's business as usual. ACF is surveying the scene and it will be interesting to see the outcome. Problems have been more severe elsewhere in the English-speaking world, I gather. A correspondent from New Zealand tells me that two trusts there – including the biggest by far – have suspended grant making. And in the US, the combination of the crunch and Madoff has led to severe difficulties for some foundations apparently. Speaking the other day with a charity auditor, I got a sense that many foundations may be in denial and that the real effects will be felt once dividends reflect the crunch -- in other words, this crisis has a long tail.

All of which might usefully cause foundations to reflect, first, on whether they could usefully work with others begin to share overheads in order to get more bang for their buck and second, whether they have assets beyond money which they could usefully exploit to the benefit of their hard-pressed applicants. I don't hold out much hope for the first option as it seems to me that some foundations would rather go down screaming "we've got to stay independent!" than prosper in combination with others.

But the second possibility is surely not beyond imagining. Foundations have offices, networks, skills, and sometimes even tangible valuable assets like land. This, then, might be the moment for them to think about how they can sweat these assets for the ultimate benefit of those who have traditionally needed their grants.

A rather extreme example of this cropped up some months ago when I was privileged to listen in on a conversation between a leading social entrepreneur who is well-known for his creative thinking and, even more important, his ability to make things happen, and the denizens of a British foundation. Said foundation has a chunk of land and is not sure what to do with it. Someone had had the excellent idea of inviting the social entrepreneur to walk round the land and to suggest a way forward. He took one look at it and said "you could fit a lot of allotments in here". He went on to imagine a place to which children would flock in order to learn about growing and preparing food. There could be greenhouses in which tropical fruits might be grown -- and places where they could be used as ingredients of ice cream. There would be places to learn to cook. This would be a kind of national food centre - all very much in the sprit of St Jamie, and linking with ideas about 'education with production' which have been much discussed and tried in parts of the developing world.

I don't know whether the foundation concerned decided to go ahead on these lines or not -- I hope they did. Meanwhile, I'll carry on with our little patch; nothing tropical there -- just a few lettuces, courgettes and – so appropriate to this blog (I told you there were connections) -- some rhubarb.