Resources

Leading change requires us to be bold, yet transformation can be intense and exhausting. Linking up with peers can rejuvenate us to do the work, and the Home Teams at the Leading Change Conference 2017 were designed to help you prepare to lead change efforts no matter where you sit in your organization.

Hear individual grantmakers in different organizational roles share inspiring stories of how they used their personal agency to advance change within their organizations.

For grantmakers who see themselves as champions of progress and change, the ultimate impact many of us hope to see lies not within programs but within systems.

GEO frequently hears that grantmakers, no matter their role, want to make meaningful changes in how they operate in order to make progress on the issues that matter most to them. The most recent GEO member surveys show that nearly two-thirds of members are involved in some kind of change effort, driven by a desire to better serve the nonprofits and the communities they support. Determining exactly how to lead, implement and sustain that change can be tricky. Grantmakers understand that thoughtful and intentional efforts — a process, a plan, a team-oriented approach — are necessary to make real change.

Through our research over the past 20 years, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations has identified a set of grantmaker practices that help nonprofits achieve better results. Every three years, GEO conducts a study to help us understand how we are doing as a field, including trends over time as well as new areas of inquiry.

We would like to learn how other foundations handled their strategic planning process.

By confronting gaps between its mission and its way of doing business, The Florida Bar Foundation is deepening impact in the communities it serves.

How GAR Foundation is narrowing its focus to have a deeper impact in the community.

We are interested in expanding beyond the idea of inclusion, which still implies an “includer” that provides access to an “includee.”

We put together this resource on ways to source innovation. I would be delighted if you had case studies to offer that demonstrate your foundation’s use of any of the listed methods.