Taking on risky, large, or new projects when you are a small staffed foundation can be very challenging and seem aspirational. What if you could deploy a strategy to expand your giving, receive rapid and early validation to enable more confidence in your giving, all while investing in capacity- and relationship-building with your grantee partners?... Read More
One of our grantees said, the greatest gift you can give another person is trust. Thus, when I started thinking about how to share our experiences with trust-based philanthropy, I first thought about hearing our grantees’ perspectives. This defines our philanthropic philosophy: working collectively to inspire possibility, innovation and sustainable outcomes. Engaging in trust-based philanthropy... Read More
This toolkit is for seasoned donors, donor advised fund holders, foundation trustees, and staff who are taking steps to significantly ramp up the impact of their giving. No longer content with just “making good grants” or “doing good things for the community,” you have taken a fresh look at your goals, strategies, and outcomes and... Read More
Philanthropy has a new champion. Her name is MacKenzie Scott. Recently, Scott announced that in her relatively short time in philanthropy, she’s given $1.7 billion to 116 nonprofits. Many of the organizations are devoted to equity, and those organizations are largely led by women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. While the amount represents a... Read More
Many foundations avoid being the first funder of new initiatives. For the Blackstone Ranch Institute, being first-in is often the ultimate sweet spot. For over a decade, our foundation has been placing early philanthropic investments in a broad range of new initiatives in the environment and sustainability fields. Very often they have been the first... Read More
Note: This post originally appeared on the GrantCraft Candid Learning for Funders blog. Exponent Philanthropy is on a journey to understand, embrace, and champion racial equity. So, we’re embedding it in our programs and research. For instance, our 2020 Foundation Operations and Management Report explored the relationship between the relevance of racial equity to a... Read More
