Designing an organizational strategy is like designing any tool: you need to figure out how you want to use it. The Reality Checklist can help you name what you want your strategy to do, shape your approach to developing it and assess your progress as you go.
What comes after “strategic...?” If you said, “planning,” you’re not alone. And for many foundation leaders, especially small ones who don’t have the time or money for a big process, anxiety is the feeling that follows. If that’s the case, this guide is for you.
Does your organization have what it takes to be an effective collaborator? This Pretty Good Tool from the consultants at The Giving Practice helps you assess and improve your collaborative mindset. After testing an early version of this at an Independent Sector conference session, we have been using this as a guide with several funder collaboratives.
We've identified four practices that effective champions use to bring more FANS to their cause: Framing (using ideas for influence), Asking (using inquiry for influence), Networking (using connections for influence) and Storytelling (using emotions for influence). This Pretty Good Tool is designed to help you work on these four practices and sharpen your strategy.
Daniel Kemmis explores the sometimes-fraught relationship between philanthropy and democracy. Beginning with a wide-ranging stroll through the shared history of philanthropy and democracy, Kemmis examines the current post-Citizens United landscape and asks whether philanthropy can and should do more to strengthen the infrastructure and practices of democracy.
Before beginning my career in philanthropy, I spent several years completing a master’s degree in divinity and training to become an interfaith hospital chaplain. Contrary to the images that might come to mind—solemn priests giving last rites or quoting scripture at the bedside, for instance—at...
We philanthropy practitioners are, by nature, an impatient group of optimists, and sometimes our impatience can get the better of us. This happens when we’re in such a hurry to see impact that we fail to recognize unhealthy boundaries related to our role in the change process, don’t clearly...
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