As foundations strive to make meaningful change in support of their missions, understanding what leads to philanthropic impact is crucial. In the 2023 Foundation Operations and Management Report, foundations named insufficient grantmaking impact as one of their top challenges. In this blog, I’ll discuss a few factors that drive impact, as well as strategies for... Read More
Philanthropy is ever changing. Pressing issues and seismic political, economic, and technological shifts move us to regularly revisit how we work. Urgency, passion, curiosity, and the desire to engage are driving some lean funders (those with few or no staff) to center their giving around authentic relationships with grantees and members of their community. This... Read More
Choosing which of the many worthy causes to fund is difficult, which begs the question: How bad is it to give to multiple good causes? The answer is: Not bad at all. However, when we approach charitable giving another way—How can we achieve the most with our resources?—the answer is different. That’s because getting focused... Read More
Originally posted to GrantCraft’s blog “It must be so fun to give money away!” We’ve all heard this reaction when we tell people we are staff or board members of a grantmaking organization. And, yes, it is fun. But it’s also hard work. Good grantmaking, as we know, is about far more than reading piles... Read More
Having specialized grant applications and reports imposes a big administrative burden on nonprofits. Consider, a nonprofit receives grants from 20 or 30 foundations—and some are funded by many more. The nonprofit spends its resources in two major ways: It applies for funding from 40, 50 or 60 different foundations. Each foundation has its own application... Read More
A few years ago, Robert Sterling Clark Foundation painfully let go of important issues and organizations, believing we could do more for New York City by focusing our giving. Our board of directors decided to invest in both city leaders and their networks as well as the organizations that develop those networks. After that, the board... Read More