YOUR FOUNDATION IS IN THE BUSINESS OF MAKING A DIFFERENCE.
Are you having the impact you want?
Your foundation is here to change the world for the better. You strive to deliver all you can to your grantees and the communities you serve. You also want to bring value to partner organizations and fellow grantmakers.
While some of these relationships are healthy and strong, some aren’t thriving. You are in the field and on the phone as much as possible, listening to and advising your grantees, while your other responsibilities pile up.
You pour your heart into what you do as you are pulled in many directions—and still, you wonder if it’s enough. You question whether your grantees are receiving adequate attention. You aren’t in touch with fellow funders as much as you’d like.
You are concerned you’re not sufficiently communicating the foundation’s good work and accomplishments. You don’t have time to share “lessons learned” and best practices in clear and meaningful ways.
Meanwhile, you are laboring over white papers, reports, and board updates. You have high standards, and you want the quality of your written materials to match the level of your program area expertise. You have a lot of stakeholders to please.
SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE …
OR PERHAPS, IT’S TIME FOR THE GIVER TO RECEIVE.
Do you want more time to focus on your most important (and enjoyable) work? Would you like to write with more confidence and ease?
Might you enjoy improved relationships with current grantees—and attracting more high-quality partnerships?
If you’re thinking, “Sounds great, but our staff is already spread too thin,” look no further.
I can help you:
- Connect the dots between your foundation’s mission and how it’s being implemented.
- Effectively communicate with those you most want to reach.
- Develop consistent messaging that reflects the foundation’s values.
- Become a better writer.
- Raise the collective bar of the foundation’s internal and external communications.
WHERE TO BEGIN?
With a thoughtful assessment of what the foundation represents at its core; what’s working and what’s not; and what more the foundation could accomplish if it were operating at full steam. A well-considered strategic communication plan that is thoughtfully implemented would come next.
COMMUNICATION AUDIT
Since having an accurate sense of your starting point is essential in charting an intelligent course forward, I begin with a communication audit.
I send a tailored communication assessment to all employees. This survey covers valuable questions about them, the foundation as they see it, and the foundation’s internal and external communications. Depending on your foundation’s structure and goals, it may be valuable for me to also craft and send customized assessments to some of your grantees or other partners.
Once I receive and analyze the results, I conduct one-on-one, 30-minute interviews in person, by phone, or virtually, with a few people at the foundation.
I write and deliver a report with recommendations.
After you and your colleagues have had a chance to digest the report and recommendations, we meet to go over it in detail and discuss implementation.
Depending on the foundation’s current resources in terms of employees, a creative team, etc., you may already have the internal capacity to act on many, if not all, of the recommendations.
I will offer suggestions as to how you can best utilize your current available resources, as well as how you can build internal capacity with relative ease.
Further, I will let you know where and how I, or others, can help you as desired. You are free to decide if you feel complete and ready to take it from there—or if you’d like to continue working together through a customized communication consulting package.
COMMUNICATION AUDITS begin at $2,500.
CUSTOMIZED COMMUNICATION CONSULTING
If you opt to continue collaborating on specific recommendations from your communication audit, we will come up with a clear scope of work. I will personally customize your communication consulting package to meet the unique needs of your foundation. CUSTOMIZED COMMUNICATION CONSULTING PACKAGES begin at $7,500.
WHY ME?
Like you, I am socially conscious and driven to make a positive difference. For the first decade of my career, I was immersed in philanthropy.
I lived on the grantee side of the equation as the Director of Corporate and Foundation Support at The Nature Conservancy of Colorado, and before that, at People For the American Way (a constitutional liberties organization) in my native Washington, DC.
Whether as an employee or a consultant, I have been professionally communicating on behalf of mission-driven organizations and individuals for more than 25 years. I bring vision, creativity, strategy, and an interdisciplinary background in writing, marketing, non-profits, socially-responsible businesses, media, and communications.
My goal is to help you and your foundation generate greater impact with your available resources.
WHY NOW?
Maybe this doesn’t feel like the right time. You’re faced with pressing priorities and deadlines.
If the need for an integrated communication strategy is reprioritized and brought to your team’s attention, perhaps they can figure out how to develop and implement one without outside assistance.
If the volume of writing is a time sink, especially for program officers or other leaders in the organization, you could encourage them to sign up for writing or marketing classes. Another option is to bring in a writing coach to instruct the entire team.
But unless you make a concerted effort to address the limitations in another six to twelve months, they will become bigger and more difficult to resolve.
Then what? Your foundation will have lost valuable time and likely missed opportunities to be the exceptionally high impact change maker it has the potential to be.
