Resources

Hello! I am seeking info on practices around retirement contributions at family foundations in the $50M to $250M asset range. The specific questions are: 1. What is the total number of staff of the organization? 2. What, if any, contribution is made by the foundation towards the 401k/403b retirement benefits for staff? Thanks for any info!

Dear Colleagues, We are working with a group of foundations in Brazil to find best-in-class examples of what many call venture philanthropy, and we want to use as comparators initiatives that include most or all of the following characteristics: 1) tailored financing which includes BOTH grants AND impact investing through debt, equity, or other forms; and hybrid financial instruments; 2) high engagement of funders; 3) long term approach and stable investment over time of AT LEAST 3-4 years; 4) emphasis on strengthening capacity and partnerships to build self-reliance and resilience; 5) organizational support to develop skills, improve structures and processes, etc.; 6) intention and action on measuring and managing outcomes and impact; reflection and adjustment by funders and recipients together; and ideally 7) sharing learnings with the broader community. If you have good examples to share, whether they succeeded or failed in their aims, we would like to include them as cases. Thank you.

Hello, I’m looking to learn from funders that have set up advisory committees composed of external stakeholders – particularly from marginalized communities that the funder seeks to serve – to welcome input on strategy development and/or grant decision making. I’m aware of many of the community-led grantmaking models (see the list below for example, which was sent following a webinar NCRP did in 2017). I’m looking to expand my understanding of the landscape and add examples to a living document that I’m happy to share out. Thank you,

Hi GEO community-- The Sobrato Family Foundation team is interested in learning about how foundations have structured their capacity-building grantmaking. Do you have a separate team (which partners with program teams) to manage grants to improve grantee capacity? Or does the program team manage the grants themselves, with a capacity-building team as a resource to support and advise these decisions? We’re interested in learning about the range of ways this support is structured within foundations, so would love to hear your thoughts and experiences. Thanks in advance,

Hello Everyone, We're heading in to a new phase with our board and are looking for a coach. We'd like the coach to help them figure out what kind of board they want to be and how they will structure the division of labor and decision making. Have you worked with anyone you would recommend that has experience with family foundations or an expertise in board governance? Thank you!

Hi all, Our agency is working to update our document retention policies, and I was wondering if anyone could share your document retention schedule—and any policies your agency has regarding inactive applicants? (e.g. if someone dies or stops applying, when—or do—you purge those files?) For us, this question is most pertinent for electronic records in our grant portal, because the hard copies pretty much sort themselves out in three or six years. Thanks so much,

We are looking to update our staff (CEO, COO, Directors, Program Staff) self assessments. Would you please share your templates and questions?

Greetings GEO Friends! Hoping this note finds everyone in good spirits as spring sets in. I’m wondering if any of you know of any fellowship programs that you could point me to, either within philanthropy or more broadly within the social sector? We have a few we are looking at but want to expand our reach to include others. Specially, we are hoping to see examples that invite fellowship from senior leaders who are well-established in their careers. Thanks in advance for any examples that you may have!

Hello GEO community, we have a question for the group. The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving is seeing an increase in nonprofit organizations in subsidiary relationship to another nonprofit. How have other foundations worked with these organizations? A specific example would be a parent subsidiary relationship where there is an umbrella nonprofit organization with a 501(c)(3) designation, and two subsidiary organizations, each with their own 501(c)(3) designation and boards. These organizations, while sharing a commonality of purpose do not have a common history. All three organizations have indicated that they would like to apply for grants. Assuming an organization would normally only be eligible for 1 grant per granting period plus 1 collaboration grant, would each of the organization be eligible to apply for 1 grant and would the entirety be eligible to apply for a collaboration grant. If you have experience with this type of organizational structure, please share how you are handling the multiple requests.

Hello GEO Community! We are looking for examples of foundations with deferred maintenance and other capital funds – not major capital grants, but things like software upgrades, IT and other important equipment replacements, facilities repairs and maintenance, etc. Some examples of projects that exemplify the type of funding we’re wondering about are: replacing all the carpeting at a community health center and buying new commercial washers/dryers for a transitional shelter. But we are interested in foundations that might set aside funds for annual grants such as these to existing grantees and wondered if there were other foundations out there doing this and if they did it via RFP or other procedure. Thank you for any advice!