LEARNING & EVALUATING YOUR RESULTS
Making Informed Decisions
All grantmakers wish to have their donations be based on informed decisions. How do you make sure this is so? I can interview the experts and clients being served and then write a guide to what has been tried, what works, and what has failed. I can also help you move ahead confidentially by identifying the leading nonprofits in the field, finding niche areas of funding that are needed, and recommending criteria for strategies to support. An easy-to-understand "how to manual" can provide long-term guidance.
Or, if you prefer, I can manage a process by which you and your fellow decision-makers are trained to take on these tasks and continually learn from your grantees, experts, nonprofit clients and others.
Or, if you prefer, I can manage a process by which you and your fellow decision-makers are trained to take on these tasks and continually learn from your grantees, experts, nonprofit clients and others.
Evaluating Your Results"How can I know I'm making a difference?" This question is asked by virtually every client I've had. The answer? It can be difficult to know. And you can't know if you don't start with answering the question: What am I trying to accomplish? Even the smallest donor can think strategically about what works, how best to choose their grant recipients and what questions to ask. Do you regularly ask your grantees what they think of your grantmaking process? Or scan your environment to identify the thought leaders and well-respected nonprofits — and invite them to a spirited discussion? Just what makes for an effective nonprofit — and an equally effective grant to
support it? Confidential interviews and surveys by a neutral third party are useful tools to gather information. People love to be asked for their opinions and if you provide a safe way for those opinions to be shared, you can learn some pretty surprising things. In-house education, roundtable meetings with non-profit clients, and attending respected conferences and workshops are others. My expertise allows me to gather and record honest insights and challenges from such interviews. And I've designed and facilitated hundreds of fascinating discussions and helped craft measurement processes where your (and others) past grantmaking informs effective future grantmaking.
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Julia embodies just the right balance of experience, intuition, humor, and humility. Her patience with our inexperience and individual needs seemed limitless; her ability to steer teams around obstacles is only matched by her enthusiasm for helping them discover how to do it themselves. 
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