Insights & Perspectives Game-Changing Philanthropy: Is Sean Parker the Daenerys Targaryen of Philanthropy? Senior Consultant Marieke Spence recently wrote a blog post for the Stanford Social Innovation Review, commenting on an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Sean Parker ("Philanthropy for Hackers"). In the post, Marieke critique's Parker's approach and suggests some guiding principles for Parker to consider as…
Insights & Perspectives Why Doing Good is Good Business TCC Group's CEO, Richard Mittenthal, is featured in the current edition of Profile Magazine, a publication that "identifies and promotes innovation in prominent American industries."
Insights & Perspectives 4 Steps to Leverage Your Philanthropic Impact with Non-Grantmaking Roles Increasingly, funders want to take on more catalytic roles within their communities. Creative grantmaking can help them move in this direction. But without realizing the potential of their non-grantmaking activity—convening, advocating, training, or educating—foundations may be leaving significant value on the table. In a recent GrantCraft blog post, TCC's Philanthropy…
Resources Shine a Light: The Role of Consultants in Fostering a Learning Culture at Foundations 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…
Insights & Perspectives Meeting a Family’s Growing Philanthropic Needs Over the past 10 years, TCC Group has provided the Ohrstrom Foundation with administrative and grantmaking support and has guided its governance planning, program and operations, and grant assessment. Through our day-to-day management of the foundation, we identify and address emergent issues, drawing on our years of experience working with…
Insights & Perspectives Coordinated Funding: Lessons from a Place-Based Grantmaking Collaborative Three grantmakers in Michigan, including Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, the United Way of Washtenaw County, and the Joint Office of Community and Economic Development, recently coordinated the leadership and funding of the region’s human service programs in order to maximize community impact. During TCC Group’s evaluation of the initiative,…
Resources Relational Capacity: A New Approach to Capacity Building in Philanthropy “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…
Insights & Perspectives A New Approach to Capacity Building TCC Directors published Relational Capacity: A New Approach to Capacity Building in Philanthropy in the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy winter journal. The article outlines a new vision of the relationship between funders and nonprofits, one that is collaborative, mutual and iterative. Complex challenges require more effective collaboration within and…
Insights & Perspectives Foundation Strategies to Inform Federal Policy in the United States Commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, our latest research examines what motivates foundations to engage in advocacy, the methods they apply, and the results they achieve. Although the study focuses on federal policy, many of factors and strategies relate directly to foundation policy reform activities at all levels of government.
Insights & Perspectives 10 Key Factors to Help Funders Thrive Drawing on our client work in the intervening decade, TCC Group professionals have identified important key factors that help foundations overcome unique challenges, provide strategic clarity, and chart a successful path forward. In our latest briefing paper, Ten Keys – Ten Years Later: Successful Strategic Planning for Foundation Leaders, we…
Resources 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.
Resources 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…
Resources 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…
Resources Unlocking the Mystery of Volunteer Retention: How Girl Scouts of Northern California is Using Advanced Predictive Analytics to Inform its Volunteer Management Practices 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,…
Resources Foundation Strategies to Inform Federal Policy in the United States A Study to Support the Evaluation of the Rockefeller Foundation’s Promoting Equitable and Sustainable Transportation Initiative Using philanthropy as a strategy for federal policy reform in the United States is not a new concept. Yet, little has been done to assess exactly why foundations choose to engage in federal policy…