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
This toolkit is designed to help funders recognize the aspects of great relationships with your nonprofit partners, assess competencies, and consider ways to improve how to work with one another. Many ideas in this toolkit were generated by funders and nonprofits during a series of half-day programs around the country, hosted in partnership with the National... 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