A former juvenile court judge in Arkansas recently described to me how he had utilized an alternative to sentencing youthful offenders to incarceration. Because the scope of his jurisdiction included authority over the entire family of the young person in trouble, he often would require all of them to attend a weekly volunteer-run Family Life Outreach program at a local church. There they were required to eat dinner together and discuss issues of trust, responsibility and morality. According to the judge, many had never before sat down together for a meal. As best he recalled, about half of the families and their children who had been in trouble were greatly helped by the experience………………..I was sufficiently impressed to ask him whether anyone had thought of expanding this seemingly successful but locally focused project into a statewide program—an option that apparently no one had considered. He thought the idea had merit, but quickly noted that to do so would have require the resources to support paid staff and cover other expenses. My thoughts then turned to the possibility of finding foundation support, but I also wondered how many good ideas like this one never reach the foundation world………………..A year or so ago, the iconoclastic Bill Somerville at the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation wrote a delightful and easy-to-read book called Grassroots Philanthropy. Bill has a lot of sound advice for grant makers, but one of his most trenchant observations is that they should spend one-third of their time away from their offices, looking for new philanthropic opportunities rather than sitting around waiting for proposals to arrive. I don’t know what the correct formula for absence from your building should be, but the concept is a sound one: grant makers need to get out more………………..Who knows? Perhaps an entrepreneurial foundation program officer who was out of the office looking for good projects to fund might have spotted this juvenile justice program in Arkansas and encouraged its expansion through advice and even some grants. I suspect that our communities have many small and successful not-for-profit ventures that will never receive the recognition they deserve until foundations folks go looking for them………………..What better time to test Bill’s precept than right now—a period when many foundations are having to scale back their grant disbursements and administrative expenses? How about foregoing yet another hand-wringing session about budget cuts. Instead, step outside and go in search of people who are solving problems.