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Values-Based Communication: How Leading with Values Can Power Your Organization

Type: Briefing Paper

Values-Based Communication: How Leading with Values Can Power Your Organization

All organizations – whether funders, nonprofit service providers, advocates, large or small, or focused locally, nationally, or internationally—have values that are operationalized and communicated every day. These values may or may not be formally articulated or even align with mission and vision, yet they shape all interactions and can either serve to advance an organization’s … Continued

Now is the Time to Radically Reimagine Readiness

A focus on “readiness”—defined as the state of being fully prepared for something—has been ubiquitous in our sector since long before COVID-19 and the national movement for racial justice. Yet, as we take cautious steps to emerge from what feels like an endless suspension of normalcy, the concept of readiness has garnered renewed attention.   At TCC Group, we have been hearing an increasing number of readiness-related questions:    Are we ready to rebuild?   Are we ready for … Continued

Unprecedented: The First Year of a New Presidency Moves Philanthropy to Action

This report documents how philanthropy has demonstrated flexibility, nimbleness, and a willingness to collaborate in the first year of the new presidential administration that can serve as a model of creative adaptation for the field going forward. It also emphasizes the critical role of philanthropy-serving organizations and funder collaboratives in supporting funder learning, facilitating networking … Continued

Foundations Need Capacity Too: Initial Findings from the Foundation Core Capacity Assessment Tool

For many years, the social sector has paid substantial attention to the issue of nonprofit effectiveness. By contrast, comparatively little attention has been paid to the capacities that foundations themselves need to achieve impact. What capacities are essential to advancing a foundation’s own mission? How do these elements compare to the capacities their grantee partners … Continued

Effective Strategies to Support Advocacy Campaigns: Considerations for Funders and Advocates

This briefing paper shares collected insights from funders and advocates across the country, in the hope that their observations will helpfully contribute to other funding and campaign efforts. These respondents noted that while considerable attention has been paid to factors informing the development of sound campaign strategy, comparatively less attention has been paid to the … Continued

Unique Methods in Multi-Stakeholder Evaluation

Authors: ORS Impact, Spark Policy Institute, TCC Group A seminal resource in the advocacy evaluation field, “Unique Methods in Advocacy Evaluation” (Coffman & Reed, 2010) increased evaluators’ awareness of methods uniquely positioned to evaluate advocacy. This second brief adds to that toolbox, this time focusing on methods that have been successfully used to understand multi-stakeholder … Continued

Capturing General Operating Support Effectiveness: An Evaluation Framework for Funders and Evaluators

Data show that general operating support is on the rise. Yet foundations and evaluators alike need to better understand how to measure the impact of these grants. In this briefing paper, TCC Group reflects on its work evaluating general operating support and provides a comprehensive outcomes framework that maps out four key dimensions of success … Continued

Advocacy Campaigns and Embedded Evaluators: Lessons Learned

From 2014 to 2016, TCC Group (TCC) partnered with Pre-K for PA Campaign and Campaign for Fair Education Funding (CFEF) to act as their embedded evaluator. For each advocacy campaign, TCC’s focus was on the quality of strategy, progress on short- and long-term goals, and internal capacity. Working with CFEF and Pre-K for PA provided … Continued

A Framework for Successful Corporate Citizenship

A Framework for Successful Corporate Citizenship highlights the critical elements and practices used by leading corporate citizens, such as IBM and Starbucks. In this complex world, many companies make large capital investments in their citizenship programs but only few achieve their social impact goals.

Capacity Building 3.0: How to Strengthen the Social Ecosystem

The social sector has evolved to incorporate multiple stakeholders and organizations to solve social issues, working together in a larger ecosystem to increase efficiency, effectiveness, and scale. The process of building the systems, structures, and skills necessary for success in this environment, commonly referred to as “capacity building,” has played an active role in the … Continued

Ten Keys – Ten Years Later: Successful Strategic Planning for Foundation Leaders

In 2004, TCC Group published a briefing paper entitled, “Ten Keys to Successful Strategic Planning for Nonprofit and Foundation Leaders.” Ten years later, the philanthropic landscape has continued to evolve, and we offer an updated set of ten keys for funders considering a strategic planning effort. While this update focuses specifically on funders because of … Continued