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.
