Ever thought about doing an in-house “quick and dirty” strategic plan for your giving? To be honest, I hadn’t either. But after receiving 400 requests for funding in the first year after establishing an additional focus of sustainable agriculture and food systems work, we knew we had to do something. The requests covered a wide... Read More
Ramping up—or significantly increasing charitable giving or activities—can be an empowering transition point in your philanthropy. It can also leave you bewildered by the complexities that come with your new normal. What does it mean to ramp up in response to an influx of assets—perhaps the most common reason funders increase their charitable giving and/or... Read More
As funders increasingly seek to supply resources beyond financial support to their grantees, many are engaging third-party consultants to provide capacity building assistance. But how can funders know whether these resources are really strengthening grantees? What are some reasonable benchmarks for evaluating this assistance? We at Arbor Brothers are fervent believers in the value of capacity building—so... Read More
Three years ago in Texas, foundations confronted a profound crisis. For decades, funders working on public education have invested tens of millions and countless hours to support the public schools and the millions of students from low-income backgrounds served by those schools. These foundations have long been committed to numerous partnerships with state government. Their... Read More
When the Sauer family asked me to learn about foster care children and youth as a potential focus area, I decided to go on a listening tour. I don’t want to say that I “scanned the landscape” because I didn’t want to inventory which organizations did what piece of the work. I wanted to understand... Read More
Many common themes in philanthropy today revolve around the promises of “Big Data.” Grantmakers are continually called upon to be more transparent and to share their data, but many have become cynical as past data projects failed more than a few times due to incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated data. A misunderstanding regarding how their data... Read More