Archive for the ‘Philanthropic Organisations’ Category

Philanthropic Organisations > Case Studies

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Our work with philanthropic organisations is often part of an engagement with a civil society group in an evaluation, business plan or stakeholder review. We also work directly with funders. The following case studies illustrate typical projects.

Evaluation

Many funders build evaluation budgets into their grant programmes. In these situations, we have worked to provide an evaluation that goes beyond proving to the funder that the recipient has satisfied the grant terms. Our approach provides a platform for future strategic planning. We have participated in fora organised by the OECD and NPC on effective evaluation.

Portfolio management

We had a strategic role with a national project distributing funds around the country for community engagement and participation. Our role was to build coherence around the whole programme, in order to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. This involved working closely with the fund recipients, creating a strategic narrative for the whole programme and supporting individual projects with their scope and deliverables.

Project assessments

We have worked with high net worth donors to assess the viability of business plans and grant applications put before them. These have been for social enterprises, traditional charitable structures and individual campaigns.

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Philanthropic Organisations > Our Services

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

We offer a range of services to help philanthropic organisations maximise the impact of their funds.

  • Strategic development
  • Portfolio review
  • Market analysis
  • Evaluation
  • Innovation and venture philanthropy

Strategic Development

Firetail offers strategy development for Trusts and Foundations who want to maximise the impact of their funding activity. This process involves understanding your organisation’s mission, position in the marketplace and strategic relationships. From this baseline, we can help to design a programme of work to achieve your goals. This programme will inspire collaboration, empower beneficiaries and add up to more than the sum of the parts.

There are a number of issues that only funders are in a real position to address. For example, taking a sector overview, or recommending mergers and collaboration. Many civil society groups are too small and their existence too fragile for them to lead ambitious sector change. For reasons of scale, Trusts and Foundations can take a lead, but they need plans backed by strong evidence and a clear point of view about the future.

Portfolio Review

For philanthropic organisations that believe their portfolio of grants can deliver more, we offer a review process that assesses the likelihood of a Foundation’s portfolio achieving its goals. We seek to engage stakeholders, assess outcomes and recommend areas of focus. This process can offer a high-level overview of your portfolio, or deep engagement with your partners, according to your requirements.

Market Analysis

For philanthropic organisations who wish to drive an ambitious programme of social change, we can conduct the initial market analysis. This approach, based on quantitative and qualitative market research, stakeholder engagement, best practice research and in-depth analysis identifies root causes and approaches to giving that will have the greatest impact.

Evaluation

We have deep experience in evaluation, especially for organisations involved in advocacy for change. For Foundations seeking to drive a culture of evaluation among their recipients, we can offer independent reviews,

Innovation and Venture Philanthropy

Trusts and Foundations have the freedom to experiment with new ways of working and new approaches to old problems. They can support the development of new funding models, such as bond finance and social enterprise. In fact, there is strong argument to suggest that innovation and learning should explicitly be part of a philanthropic organisation’s mission. We can support the development of an innovation strategy, working with partners to design these new approaches.

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Philanthropic Organisations > Overview

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Giving money away is easy. Giving money away well is hard.

Generosity does not equal impact. Some philanthropists are better than others. The difference is strategy.

The author Mark Kramer wrote that: “Philanthropy is indeed a powerful tool for social progress, but only when donors make it so”.

Trusts and Foundations are well placed to take an impartial, long-term view of social issues. They can study causes, trial different approaches and scale successful programmes.

Historically, questions of strategy have been delegated to grant recipients. Traditional grantmaking has been about choosing recipients and deciding how much to give them.

This is changing, driven by a new generation of funders who do not think of themselves as grantmakers, but investors.

They demand a business-like, investment led approach to social change.

This all needs strategy. It means a clear vision, an understanding of the environment and stakeholders. It is based on a clear plan of action designed to maximise success.

Owning strategy means that donors  take more responsibility for the results of their grants.

Firetail is well placed to help philanthropic organisations develop, implement and evaluate those strategies. From fundamental questions of mission, to programme design and systems improvement, our approach helps ambitious philanthropists maximise their impact.

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