We often look to external sources for best practices, hoping that others have figured out the ideal way to accomplish something and we can simply duplicate it. But when is the last time you searched inside your organization for internal best practices? If the answer is rarely or never, read on! With a little time and intention, you can make dramatic improvements in your operations and grantmaking.

Even if a staff is tiny, there’s likely to be someone who’s developed a practice that everyone can learn from. And even if you are the only staff or a donor with no employees, you probably have created some exceptional practices with some grantees that could be extended to all. These are likely to be small and informal things, developed more because of personalities and perspectives than because of any policy. For example:

  • A funding initiative that successfully exited after building the field.
  • A board member who spends one morning a month having coffee with different nonprofit leaders to better understand the lay of the land.
  • A program team that reads a new article each month and discusses its implications for the team’s grantmaking strategies.
  • A senior leader who regularly helps her staff identify ways to streamline their work.
  • A committee that regularly generates, tests and implements new innovations.
  • A program officer who maintains lists of potential connections and resources that may be useful to nonprofits, and sends this information along with a personalized, hand-written note to grantseekers who are turned down.

These things may seem like small touches, but they can have big impact in terms of the experiences and impressions that are created about a funder.

Read the source article about best practices by Kris Putnam-Walkerly at Putnam Consulting Group.