Giving Compass' Take:

• Andy Carroll, writing for Exponent Philanthropy, describes a story of a family foundation founder who decided to change direction in funding early education and health services. 

• How will foundation leaders know when changing direction is the rath path to impact?

• Check out the Giving Compass Family Philanthropy guide for donors. 

What if we feel pulled toward something, but don’t know exactly why, or what it is? What if we don’t know a clear path ahead? What if the unknown beckons, and we don’t know enough, or can’t know enough, to make a careful assessment?

By “trying things on,” we learn and discover, and gradually work our way into transformation.

My friend Lena made a dramatic career shift. But she didn’t set out to do so. What Lena felt was a sense of restlessness, and an openness to change.  In a similar way, Anne, a foundation founder, was restless and open to change. Anne’s family had supported many different causes in the past, but now, with her own foundation, she wanted to make focused impact. Anne had a big goal in mind—to help make quality education and health services more accessible to low-income families in her state. But she didn’t know what that would take, or how to get there. Her foundation had $8 million in assets and one staff person.

Anne tried different ways to get her arms around the issue—she hired a consultant with knowledge of early childhood, and began making grants to providers. She realized how complex the field is, and how difficult it is to make wide-scale change. Though frustrated, she developed a clearer vision of what it would take to achieve her goal.

Then Anne and her sons decided to convene their grantees and a couple public officials who worked on children and youth issues. The convening was a game changer—it highlighted avenues for action, illuminated what sectors of early childhood were not in the room, and confirmed something Anne had begun to realize: that no one else in the state was focusing on babies.

Read the full article about a change in philanthropy by Andy Carroll at Exponent Philanthropy.