GEO Action Guide: Imagine, Involve, Implement

Real change is happening in philanthropy as pioneering grantmakers find new ways to break down the traditional barriers standing in the way of nonprofit success. This report on phase 2 of GEO's Change Agent project describes how a diverse assortment of grantmakers are changing core practices and approaches.


LISTEN, LEARN, LEAD: Grantmaker Practices that Support Nonprofit Results 

This report on Phase 1 of GEO's Change Agent Project delves deeper into what is necessary to instill change in grantmaking practices to ensure nonprofit success. Listen, Learn, Lead tells the story of several grantmakers who faced with the same constraints as other grantmakers and have found ways to provide more effective support of nonprofits.

Grantmakers can only succeed when the nonprofits they support achieve meaningful results. Today, pioneering grantmakers are breaking down the barriers standing in the way of nonprofit success. Dissatisfied with the status quo, these change agents are revolutionizing grantmaking practice.

Our ultimate goal is to provide more grantmakers with the resources, ideas and connections they need to make the greatest contribution to the nonprofits they invest in.

The project process will involve three core steps:

1. Identify the most promising change opportunities. 

2. Engage grantmakers who have overcome these barriers and learn how they did it. 

3. Build resources to equip other change agents to achieve similar results. 

A community effort.
In the next phase of this work, GEO is moving from listening and learning to action. We are committed to speeding the pace of innovation in philanthropy in ways that broaden grantmaker support for nonprofit results. GEO plans to do this through a variety of next steps:

• Convening local working groups of grantmakers to determine a collaborative process for change. We are piloting this in Pittsburgh in 2007.
• Conducting more research to better understand specific, replicable grantmaker practices that best support nonprofit results. The results of this research will be published in December 2007.

More information on these next steps will be posted on www.geofunders.org as the work evolves.