Insights & Perspectives Are Your Trustees Involved Too Much—or Too Little—in Grantmaking? It can be difficult to determine the right role for foundation trustees in the business of grantmaking. Ashley Blanchard, Associate Director of Philanthropy, drawing on her experience as a consultant and trustee, offers several strategies to help foundation trustees use the grantmaking process as a learning opportunity, positioning them to…
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's Directors published "Relational Capacity: A New Approach to Capacity Building in Philanthropy" in the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's winter journal. The article outlines a new vision of the relationship between funders and nonprofits, one that is collaborative, mutual and iterative. Today's complex challenges require more effective collaboration within…
Insights & Perspectives Foundation Strategies to Inform Federal Policy in the United States Commissioned by the Rockefeller Foundation, TCC Group’s 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.