Partner-Centered Evaluation Capacity Building: Findings from a Corporate Social Impact Initiative January 2, 2018 By Visceral_Dev_Admin Funders can play a proactive role in helping to fill the gap between funders’ expectations and nonprofits’ ability to evaluate grant results. Using a partner-centered design, Johnson & Johnson piloted an evaluation capacity-building initiative that supported eight grantees in strengthening their ability to measure and use findings concerning health-related outcomes by focusing on key evaluation … Continued
Unlocking the Mystery of Volunteer Retention: How Girl Scouts of Northern California is Using Advanced Predictive Analytics to Inform its Volunteer Management Practices June 14, 2013 By Visceral_Dev_Admin Like many nonprofits that depend on volunteers to fulfill their mission, Girls Scouts of Northern California (GSNorCal) faces a growing challenge. As the number of girls involved in the program grows, so too does the need to retain volunteers year after year. With support from the Thrive Foundation for Youth, GSNorCal partnered with TCC Group … Continued
Relational Capacity: A New Approach to Capacity Building in Philanthropy January 1, 2015 By Visceral_Dev_Admin “What you see is what you get.” This phrase is often used to describe a person who is very straightforward, but it can have another meaning—what you are able to see, what you choose to notice, affects what you can accomplish. As consultants at TCC Group, where we work with funders of all types to … Continued
(Re)thinking Funder Networks and Collaboratives April 10, 2018 By Visceral_Dev_Admin The field of philanthropy encompasses tens of thousands of funding institutions as well as several hundred philanthropy-serving organizations (PSOs) and funder collaboratives. Funders created these PSOs and funder collaboratives—yet we have heard them question the value of their ongoing support for these entities. Surprisingly, our recent research revealed that funders quickly renewed their appreciation for … Continued
The Missing Link for Maximizing Impact: Foundations Assessing Their Capacity June 30, 2017 By Visceral_Dev_Admin A rapidly changing, global socio-political environment requires foundations to be nimble in maximizing opportunities to advance their agendas. At the same time, grantmakers are establishing ever more ambitious goals that often require grantees to function at peak capacity. Why, then, have more foundations not assessed their own institutional capacity? This article discusses an assessment of … Continued
Shine a Light: The Role of Consultants in Fostering a Learning Culture at Foundations April 2, 2015 By Visceral_Dev_Admin Noticeably absent on the list of reasons foundations cite for engaging consultants is learning—a particularly important attribute for foundations that grapple with complex issues in dynamic environments. Consultants are particularly well positioned to help foundations in the learning process. They help organizations understand and create models and frameworks, implement strategies and mechanisms within them, overcome … Continued
Strategic Philanthropy: Maximizing Family Engagement and Social Impact January 4, 2008 By Visceral_Dev_Admin Many family foundations start out giving to causes based on trustees’ personal interests. As they grow, more family members with more interests become involved, making the giving more diffuse. Many assume that a scattered approach is the cost of involving family members—that in order to establish and maintain participation, family members must be allowed to … Continued
The Best of the Humanistic and Technocratic: Why the Most Effective Work in Philanthropy Requires a Balance January 1, 2011 By Visceral_Dev_Admin This Foundation Review article highlights the need for a blended strategy and ways funders can be more effective, including: As a more technocratic approach to philanthropy has emerged over the past 15 years, it has been seen as the opposite of humanistic philanthropy. Rather than a dichotomy, these approaches are on a continuum. The best … Continued