4. Check travel conditions: Success in philanthropy, just like it is in business, depends on situational factors. To what degree is the environment receptive and ready for change? If your clients’ issues are ripe for action, have them assess the social urgency of their cause and the feasibility of their efforts. They should strive to understand how much attention and support they can expect—and where more efforts might be required to increase awareness and prioritization.
5. Know the destination: Before your clients begin work or commit a single dollar, you should prompt them to define their ultimate goals in detail. If they have, say, a 20-year solution horizon or longer, advise them to think of specific mileposts that will help them mark progress. This will focus their attention and efforts on what can be reasonably accomplished and help keep them energized by working toward attainable near-term goals.
6. Use all gears: Once your clients know what they want to do, how are they going to do it? One source of help is a private foundation. Such an organization can place a wide range of resources at the clients’ disposal and help them develop innovative tactics: advocacy, media campaigns, awards and scholarships, mission-related investments, research and polling, litigation, demonstration projects, coalition building, documentary filmmaking, and direct charitable activities, among many other things. Clients have to find the approaches that match the problem, find out what stage it’s in and determine the conditions on the ground.
In sum, helping clients use their business skills and strengths to drive change can be an invigorating and rewarding process for both of you. It has the added benefit of solving social issues and improving the world.
SIDEBAR: Entrepreneur-Turned-Philanthropist Leads High-Impact Foundation
One good example of strategic startup philanthropy is the work of our client, the Seldin Haring-Smith Foundation. It’s a small foundation (its annual operating and grant-making budget is less than $1 million). But it is changing the public conversation and driving policy change in higher education. Its co-founder, Abigail Seldin, an entrepreneur who established and sold an education technology startup, draws on her business experience to direct the foundation’s mission and devise unique approaches to effecting change.
Over the past two years, the foundation has funded new research on a variety of higher education topics, including public transit gaps at community colleges and financial aid access for low-income students. With an emphasis on short time lines and topics relevant to the national conversation, the Seldin Haring-Smith Foundation can trace the impact of its grants to front-page news coverage and new bipartisan legislation. The foundation helps to keep its grant recipients focused on the big picture by eschewing the formal evaluations required by many foundations in favor of a different goal: Grant recipients are asked to write and place opinion essays in relevant media outlets to share the resulting work and ignite public dialogue.
Though some foundations work only with other nonprofits, the Seldin Haring-Smith Foundation partners with the private sector to drive impact at scale with speed. Its recent work includes the production of a new photo series on college students with Getty Images and a free financial aid appeals tool with FormSwift, a digital document company.
For a small foundation, it delivers exceptionally big impact.
Gillian Howell is head of client advisory solutions for Foundation Source, which provides comprehensive support services for private foundations. The firm works in partnership with financial and legal advisors as well as directly with individuals and families.