Opportunity for Impact: Children’s Environmental Health

High-Impact Philanthropy Toolkit: An Introduction For Seasoned Investors

If you are a seasoned donor, donor-advised fund (DAF) holder, foundation trustee, or staff of such an organization, you may reach a point where you feel there is potential to achieve an even greater vision, to wield more leverage, to catalyze deeper change. Here at The Philanthropic Initiative (TPI), and in talking with grantmaking membership organization Exponent Philanthropy, we realized that we often field these kinds of how-to inquiries. To assist funders of all types, we decided to work with Exponent Philanthropy to create a free toolkit, Ramping Up for High-Impact Philanthropy, for seasoned funders who are hoping to take an existing philanthropic program to a higher level. The toolkit builds on our 2016 publication, Ramping Up Your Foundation, which helps foundations thoughtfully and responsibly plan for a significant increase in giving and/or adjust to a sudden infusion of assets. If you’ve read that and thought, okay, what’s next?, Ramping Up for High-Impact Philanthropy is your answer. This new publication provides hands-on tools including a diagnostic assessment for funders to use to assess their own situation, descriptions of practical strategies other funders have used to overcome similar obstacles, and case studies that highlight the stories of three different funders. Readers will learn about the different challenges funders can face in the process of ramping up for high impact, with stories on: Dynamics and Readiness.  One stage focuses on assessing how motivated and prepared you are to actually begin to ramp up your impact Planning and Focus. Another stage builds upon that shared purpose with focus on what is most needed and why. Capacity and Implementation. With “what is possible” more clearly defined, funders need to consider whether goals are achievable with available resources. Context and Collaboration. Funders do not need to go it alone. There are ways to identify partners and create synergies that will propel a funder toward its goals. Learning and Adaptation. Finally, the publication offers tools to help funders enhance their learning and evaluation efforts, and incorporate adaptations to their strategies that build on what is learned. By highlighting these obstacles, offering success stories, and providing tools so funders can assess and monitor their paths while ramping up, one of our goals for Ramping Up for High-Impact Philanthropy is to tackle a key challenge every seasoned funder we’ve met has faced: “Knowing what you don’t know”. Read the full article about high-impact philanthropy toolkit by Leslie Pine at The Philanthropic Initiative.