Author

Kris Putnam-Walkerly

Collaboration 101

Foundations often expect nonprofits to collaborate, yet they less frequently turn that expectation on themselves. There is tremendous opportunity to exponentially expand the impact of your grantmaking through funder collaboration. If you’re just getting started in exploring collaboration, or want a refresher, here’s a quick look at the basics:

What are the types of funder collaboration? Funder collaboration comes in all shapes and sizes, but in general there are three primary types:

Shared learning. Funders come together to learn about latest topics and share experiences in a particular area of interest.
Strategic alignment. Funders learn about and support various aspects of a shared agenda, such as a systemic change in a field or laying the groundwork for policy change, but each funder maintains its own separate funding activity.
Pooled funding. As the name suggests, collaborating foundations all contribute funds to a single fund for grantmaking.

With whom can funders collaborate? Foundations can collaborate with all types of funders: local, state, or national foundations; donor-advised funds; individual philanthropists; funder networks; government agencies; corporations; universities and school districts; and nonprofits, to name just a few.

What are the benefits of collaborating?

Learning. If you are exploring or just starting in a new funding area, collaboration with other funders gives you a seat at the table and an opportunity to learn from your colleagues, deeply and quickly.
Enhancing reputations. Foundations can benefit from the reputation of other funding partners, as well as their connections. For example, when a large national funder collaborates with a small place-based one, the small funder gets a boost in perceived importance while the larger one earns a local seal of approval.
Expanding funding. Foundations pooling their resources obviously can increase the total dollars available to support the specific effort. But this combined funding can also open the door to long-term, sustained funding from other public or private sources.
Signaling importance. When a group of funders get together to focus on a single issue, people take notice. For example, a joint investment in an up-and-coming program, a collective public statement, or jointly funded research all can raise awareness and attention for an emerging need or a promising solution.
Creating safety in numbers. When your goals involve risk taking, such as taking a stand on a controversial issue, advocating for policy change, or tackling an emerging need that doesn’t have a lot of best practices and playbooks to follow, it can help to have the cover of other foundations doing it with you.
Leveraging nonfinancial resources. Foundation collaborations bring more than money to the table, including staff talent, research, knowledge, contacts, relationships, administrative help, and physical space.
Building a better mousetrap. Various funders coming together to meet a community need ideally bring a variety of knowledge and connections that result in a whole effort far greater than the sum of its parts.
Deepening impact. Ultimately, your collective efforts should result in greater impact than if you funded alone, and the return on investment should be far more than if you had done the work alone. When the dust has settled, a good collaboration ends with deeper levels of engagement and support among community stakeholders and key institutions, a sustainable change in policy or practice, a more pervasive understanding of the issue at hand, and, most important, true and lasting change for the better.

What are the risks? From my perspective, the risks of funder collaboration boil down to loss of control (or a feeling of loss of control). You might need to come to mutual agreement with others about the priorities, how you will work together, funding commitments, time commitments, and so forth.

What can you do to ensure that your collaboration is a success? Here are four things:

Communicate early and often. Lack of communication can prevent your funding collaborative from getting off the ground, or send it off course. You need to clearly communicate the goals and strategy, but it also helps to have a plan for keeping each other in the loop, documenting decisions, and communicating with external partners.
Set clear expectations. Be clear about the shared purpose and distinct roles of the collaborators. Discuss these expectations at the beginning and throughout the partnership – roles may evolve as needed.
Don’t go off mission. partnerships with other funders should help you advance your mission, not take you off course. Take time to weigh the opportunity against your existing priorities to determine whether it’s the right fit.
Keep it simple. Funders seeking to collaborate should strive to make the complex simple, rather than the simple complex. Focus on the “why” at the partnership level, and leave the “how” up to individual partners as much as possible.

There are many different aspects of collaboration, and being a good collaborator is a skill funders develop over time. Don’t let uncertainty hold you back. Working together with other funders is one of the most effective ways to create impact – so get in there and collaborate!

August 15, 2016 7,181 comments

Summer daydreaming, reimagining philanthropy

Strategy

Summer Daydreaming is the Perfect Time to Re-Imagine Philanthropy

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

School’s out and summer is here! Time to pursue that great American pastime – the lazy summer vacation. Be it at the beach, in the mountains, or somewhere in between, there’s actually a great value in taking time off and letting your mind daydream for a bit.

In fact, summer dreaming time is the perfect way to spark what could be a dramatic change in your philanthropy. All you need, really, is your own permission to do so.

While you’re miles away from the phone, co-workers, and day-to-day expectations, give yourself time and space to dream a little. Take a few deep breaths. Allow yourself to understand that any and all thoughts are welcome – even those that may feel unorthodox. Relax.

Now, pretend you’re starting with a completely blank slate. You’re taking the financial assets and the knowledge you’ve accumulated to date, and you’re starting from scratch.

Forget what you’ve learned about how philanthropy “should” be done. How will you go about it now? Here are a few questions to get your summer brainstorm started:

Would you make grants, or engage in something completely different?

Would you reorganize everything in your foundation, or would you even have a foundation at all? What other form could your philanthropy take?

Who would you most like to work with to make the world better? Why? What inspires you about that person? What do they do that you can’t? (And why can’t you?)

What’s holding you back? Why? How could a new approach move you past that obstacle?

What new developments or trends have you seen (inside or outside of the philanthropic sector) that have sparked your interest? How might those factor into your new approach?

As you may have surmised, the goal is to think big! Don’t worry about the details – there will be ways to work them out later. Instead, search for the new ideas that inspire and excite you. Jot them down or record them electronically. Then, when vacation time is over, go back to them. If they still inspire and excite you, chances are they will inspire and excite others, too. Use them to spark something new and different in your day-to-day world, and in the world your philanthropy serves!

Want more inspiration to spark your thinking? Purchase my new book, Confident Giving, now available on Amazon!

July 25, 2016 5,306 comments

Strategy

Speaking with One Voice: 5 Tips for Joint Public Statements

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

Once upon a time, it was unheard of for a foundation to engage in any kind of discourse involving public policy. Now, it’s becoming more and more commonplace, as foundations realize that in order to truly create positive change and address the various root causes of the issues they fund, policy must come into the picture.

Several of our clients have engaged in policy successfully in a variety of ways. Some work well in advance of legislative activity, bringing issues to light and convening experts to brainstorm potential policy solutions. Others work to support nonprofit organizations in their own advocacy efforts. Still others work after policies are enacted to help support their implementation.

Sometimes, foundations feel the need to speak out boldly and directly (within the limits of law) about existing policies that are detrimental to the communities they serve or to society as a whole. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen statements from the Kellogg Foundation and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation in response to HB2 in North Carolina, which has made national headlines for its discriminatory stance against transgendered people.

Speaking out about an existing law can be intimidating, and foundations may feel more comfortable by joining forces and sharing a voice. This provides cover, but it also means juggling multiple foundation missions, a range of board comfort levels with policy statements, as well as local or regional foundation relationships and politics. In other words, releasing a joint policy statement can be a tricky task.

Here are five key points to help simplify and smooth the process:

1) Agree on the frame of your message before you draft it. When the Reynolds foundations mentioned above released a joint statement in response to HB2, they agreed up front to frame the message in terms of how discrimination of any kind undermines their impact.

2) Know everyone’s “trigger words.” Some foundations will be more cautious than others, so you’ll need to err on the conservative side in crafting a message. Even words like “legislation” in a public statement may give some signers pause, and you’ll need to respect that to keep everyone on board.

3) Be clear up front about when and where your joint statement is to be released. While one media market or event may seem like the obvious choice to deliver the message to some foundations, others may have an entirely different agenda in mind. Agreeing ahead of time when and where you’ll release your joint statement helps keep your timeline moving and your text on point.

4) Agree on one attorney to vet the message for the group. This could be in-house counsel for the most conservative among you, or a respected foundation attorney from a firm that everyone trusts. Having one legal opinion saves time (and money) and can prevent your message from being overwhelmed by legalese.

5) Build in time for trustee approvals. Some foundations have a small group of trustees who are authorized to approve public statements and can do so rapidly. (In my opinion, this is a best practice that more foundations should adopt.) Others, depending on size, culture or circumstance, will need more time to send your draft statement through the vetting process. Give them a deadline, but be willing to be flexible. You may not want to drop a key name from your joint signers list just because they need two more days to approve the statement.

Creating a joint policy statement is rarely as simple as writing a draft and getting it signed and published. Be prepared for a constantly moving, dynamic process in which many different external and internal forces come into play as you drive for the final goal of releasing something meaningful and (hopefully) effective.

July 11, 2016 3,207 comments

Industry Strategy

Are You Limiting Losses or Capturing Gains?

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

When you’re planning a grantmaking strategy, a list of hurdles to effectiveness is bound to come into play. Time and again I’ve heard them: The nonprofits in our area need more capacity to pull this off. There are no partners out there for this work. Public policy is a roadblock. We don’t have enough funds to really make change happen, so we should do the prudent thing and limit our focus. We need to be realistic about the return on investment we’re likely to see from our grants to keep our trustees happy.

There is something to be said for going into a grantmaking strategy with eyes wide open about the possibilities for failure, and for setting goals that seem reasonable. But grantmakers often hamstring themselves by thinking about their strategies in terms of limiting losses rather than capturing gains.

Here’s an example of the difference between limiting losses and capturing gains from a different industry. In his book, Million Dollar Referrals, business guru Alan Weiss writes about the auto industry: “Before the entire automobile world changed, GM would tell its designers that they had to create a Buick that would sell for $18,000 and provide the company with a 20% margin. Mercedes would tell its designers to build the safest, best performing car they could; once it had the car, it would decide then what to charge for it.”

In this example, GM limited its thinking – and ultimately its potential profit and brand identity – by using the lowest bar it would accept to define its work (the car must cost no more than $18,000, and we must make no less than a 20% margin). Mercedes, on the other hand, opened itself and its employees up to a much higher standard with much greater potential return. It allowed – even encouraged – its designers to strive for their most creative and effective solutions, knowing that it if put the best product out in the marketplace, the return on investment would follow.

Personally, I think of that instant when you open yourself to the possible as a “Mercedes moment.”

Granted, most foundations are not serving communities where everyone drives a Mercedes, but my point is about not creating processes and assumptions that limit a grantmaker’s thinking. It’s natural to want to feel a sense of security that your grants will deliver an acceptable return, however you define that. But funders frequently create a host of self-limiting processes and put too many parameters on their work too quickly, thereby prohibiting their ability (and that of their grantees) to ever have a Mercedes moment. They approach grantmaking from a poverty mentality rather than one of abundance, and stifle creativity, restrict new ideas, and erode the potential value of their work in the process.

These self-limiting processes can be internal, such as insisting on a set of predefined characteristics or work plans for potential consultants or grantees rather than asking for their best ideas, or external, such as creating a two-year window for a grantmaking program at the outset, regardless of how much it might accomplish in that amount of time.

What happens when a foundation embraces its Mercedes moment and thinks in terms of capturing gains rather than limiting losses? One of our clients, the Cleveland Foundation, is a great example. This Foundation made investments in children ages zero-five for several years, but as the children it served began to age out of early childhood, the Foundation decided to grow with them, expanding support in a variety of ways. To do this, the Foundation had to embrace a big-picture notion of creating successful adults, and had to be creative in tapping new partnerships and resources outside of its usual suspects. It opened itself to trying a number of wide-ranging approaches, from youth leadership to youth employment, to support that big picture.

The Foundation was willing to invest significant resources to get it right (e.g., retaining consultants and national experts, commissioning research from top universities, taking teams of people on site visits to other states, etc) and be open to a 20-year horizon to achieve long-term results. Although it’s still early, the preliminary accomplishments are promising. Thus far this effort has provided more than 33,000 opportunities through out-of-school time activities, summer and year-round jobs for more than 11,500 youth and young adults, and coordinated youth engagement, leadership opportunities and college visits for 1,200 youth.

The Cleveland Foundation could have moved incrementally by trying to fund only the next step forward, or limited its thinking with a set of assumptions about which programs would work best, but it didn’t do that. Instead, it allowed staff and community to be creative, think bigger and farther, and build an approach that was more compelling and effective for everyone.

When we as grantmakers try to focus too tightly, too early in the process (think inexpensive car with minimum ROI) in order to limit our potential losses, we also limit our ability to focus on what might be most important for those we mean to serve (safety ratings, comfort, cup holders). Instead of setting limits, think about what might be possible without them. Allowing yourself that freedom takes practice, belief in the possible, and courage – but I guarantee you that once you have your first “Mercedes moment,” it will be worth it.

June 27, 2016 2,460 comments

Strategy

Boardroom Battles: 5 Ways to Move Beyond Conflict

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

Over the last 15 years, I’ve consulted with a few clients who, in the midst of our strategic planning sessions or evaluation efforts, must deal with the added stress of handling conflict within their boards. At best, these conflicts are time- and energy-consuming hassles. At worst, they can derail an entire planning or implementation process or bring a foundation’s momentum to a screeching halt.

I’m happy to report that extreme conflict is the exception rather than the rule. Most board members are rational, committed professionals. However, even among the most collegial boards there’s always the possibility of conflict, and savvy foundation leaders I know have used the following approaches to diffuse disagreement smoothly and quickly.

Remain impartial. Never take sides. Not even in private. As a senior staff person, your role is to serve all of the board, not just a contingent. Although you may heartily agree with one board member over another, you are more likely to lead the full board to agreement if you treat all perspectives with respect and courtesy.

Stick to the facts. Good data can help end disagreements. Many times board members may disagree because of differing perspectives or assumptions. Using data to clarify an issue helps disprove assumptions. It also can remove the emotion from arguments and provide an objective, impassive pathway to agreement in which no board member is left with hurt feelings.

Frame the debate in terms of the mission. While board members bring many perspectives and life experiences to the table, their common thread is their service to your foundation’s mission. Asking questions and generating conversations about challenges through a mission-focused lens can help the full board achieve greater clarity and alignment in their thinking.

Focus on the professional, not the personal. Board members are only human, and as such are subject to a range of personality conflicts, miscommunications, perceived slights and just plain not getting along. By keeping conversations focused on the professional questions at hand, you can send a clear message that disagreements of a personal nature have no place at the board table. (And yes, this can be much harder to achieve within family foundation boards, where personal relationships are the underlying bedrock.)

Find a confidential, outside sounding board to help maintain your objectivity – and possibly your sanity. Having someone else to talk to who is removed from the conflict can help you maintain your own objectivity. This could be a friend outside the foundation world, or a fellow CEO within it. Some regional associations, like the Southeastern Council of Foundations, offer CEO forums that create a “safe space” for discussions about a host of things – including dealing with board challenges.

Working with a board is an ongoing adventure that can lead to great things. But when the path gets rocky, the tips above can help you smooth the way and get back to doing the work you all believe in.

June 13, 2016 2,182 comments

Industry Strategy

Use an Abundance Mentality to Streamline Foundation Processes

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

About a year ago, I wrote a newsletter article about grantmaking with an abundance mentality rather than a poverty mentality. That sparked a good bit of interest, some speaking requests, and an article in the December 2015 edition of GMNsight (a publication of the Grants Managers Network) about how an abundance mentality can help foundations streamline almost every process to boost efficiency, productivity and morale.

In the GMNsight article (also available for download on my website), there are several examples of what a poverty mentality looks like and how it hinders effectiveness:

Understaffing that subjugates networking and knowledge building with administrative tasks
Lack of investments in technology or policies that prohibit its most productive uses (such as working remotely)
Over-done board meeting preparation that overwhelms all staff
Vendor bid processes that waste time and don’t save money

In most cases, foundations that succumb to a poverty mentality truly believe they are doing it for the right reasons – a perception that may be driven by what they see in practice around them or by what they interpret as thrift. But in all cases, adopting a poverty mentality prevents foundations from doing their best work and becoming more effective.

Foundations that see beyond the poverty mentality and recognize the value of their own abundance allow themselves to do things that significantly increase their effectiveness, such as:

Learning about key issues from top experts rather than assuming staff can learn everything on their own
Employing the best people possible and making the most strategic use of their time
Thinking in terms of creating national models rather than just getting by
Investing in the resources or technology that will help staff and grantees become more effective

Few organizations are as well suited to invest in their own effectiveness as foundations. Unlike other fields, we have very minimal obligations to justify the actions we take or how we choose to invest. I understand that in the face of all this freedom, a reserved stance may feel prudent in an effort to uphold an obligation of stewardship and avoid criticism. But many foundations are too reserved. I’m not talking about creating cushy offices or pampering staff, but thinking of our people as assets that will provide exponential return on investment if we invest in the technology, processes, knowledge building, support – and yes, other people - who will allow our effectiveness to flourish.

Much of the shift from a poverty mentality to an abundance mentality is a shift in mindset. As funders, we feel guilty for “spending money on ourselves.” But on the other hand, if we aren’t willing to invest in our own vision, our own capacity and our own effectiveness, we are undercutting all of the other investments we make in the communities we serve. We should spend wisely on the investments that we know will deliver the best outcomes, both externally and internally.

When an abundance mentality is present, great things can happen. In the GMNsight article, there are several stories of foundations that invested from the perspective of abundance to do things like convene a large and diverse group of stakeholders, examine and streamline all internal processes, respond successfully to the largest single RFP response in foundation history, and investing in sharing their knowledge with others to avoid repeating mistakes down the road.

I firmly believe that adopting an abundance mentality is imperative for philanthropy. Why? Because our world is changing with increasing speed and complexity, and that demands a faster, more efficient pace from all of us. The scale of change is growing from organizations and small communities to policies and systems. The Depression-era notions of stewardship that many of us still hold dear will render philanthropy as ineffective as as prohibition for addressing social challenges. We owe it to our work, our missions, and our communities to up our game.

March 28, 2016 2,698 comments

Industry Programs Strategy

Want to Save Time? Get Laser-Focused

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

As the new year gets off to a rousing start, I know many of us are thinking that there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. I know that’s true for me, as I wonder how on earth it is already February! But at the same time, I’ve also begun looking at the ways in which I sometimes allow things to take longer than they should.

As philanthropists, we have the luxury of time. We rarely have make-or-break deadlines (although we give them to grant seekers), and even at our busiest, we’re still moving at a leisurely pace compared to many of the people we fund. Too often we also allow our efforts to fill the time allotted. Last week, my client mentioned that regardless of whether her foundation needed to make 10, 20 or 45 grants, it seemed to take her staff the same amount of time.

What if we could move things along dramatically more quickly? What might we do with the time we save?

One of my Putnam team members recently facilitated a board retreat that was slated to last a full day. Bad weather was eminent, and many on the board were anxious about travel conditions. Rather than sticking to the program, my colleague used that sense of urgency to condense the board retreat discussions with laser-like focus. Instead of lasting a full day, the session concluded just after lunch, and everyone participating felt as though they’d accomplished everything they’d set out to do.

Maintaining a laser focus is a great way to expedite our work (especially when weather-driven urgency is present). How else might we incorporate that approach into our work? Perhaps we might consider:

Scheduling phone conversations for no more than 30 minutes instead of a typical hour.
Producing a 1-2 page summary report instead of a lengthy document
Interviewing a smaller number of diverse stakeholders in our research efforts rather than the full spectrum
Intentionally allotting less time for meetings and starting each one with a clear checklist of objectives to accomplish
Following the 80-20 rule: If you are 80% ready you move. The remaining 20% rarely adds significant value, as it focuses too much attention on unimportant details. You can always make course corrections along the way (how else do you think I can write these newsletters every week?!)
Identifying – and removing – barriers and log jams to streamline your operations

As for the time you might save with your new, laser-focused approach, think of the ways in which you could use that time more productively. You might catch up on some necessary reading, or meet with an important networking contact. Or you might use the time for personal renewal, like going for a walk or spending time actually thinking about something important. Or you could just catch your breath.

I’m certainly not advocating efficiency over effectiveness. However, I do like to end each day feeling that I’ve spent my time well – however I choose to define what “well” means.

March 21, 2016 1,144 comments

Industry Strategy

Inherited Consultants: Blessing or Burden?

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

You’ve landed your new job. Your vision is big, and so is your to-do list. You’ve got to deliver, and quick. Luckily for you, they’ve already hired a consultant to help you.

Right? Maybe not.

A good consultant is a trusted advisor with the experience and expertise to help you accomplish your goals. In many cases, they can help you unpack your real needs, understand your true objectives, and work with you to determine and the best solutions. The person your predecessor hired might or might not fit the bill. Let me tell you a story about this scenario going well and then share examples of what can go wrong.

A few years ago, the Cleveland Foundation hired me to help their new program director design and launch what would become their largest grantmaking initiative in 93 years. The program director had had little input into my selection, but was simply told, “Meet your new consultant!” The program director didn’t feel like she had a choice in the matter, being so new to the organization, so I made it clear that I wanted to work together with her, in a way that supported her best. We took it one step at a time, focusing first on developing a relationship. We talked about our lives. I gave her the inside scoop on my favorite restaurants. She gave me parenting tips for the three children I was about to gain through marriage.

The outcome? We developed a fabulous working relationship and I helped her obtain board approval for the initiative. Later that year I invited her and her husband to my wedding. They had a blast. Six years later I noticed she still had my family Christmas photo card up in her office – in July. She has since hired my firm 9 times for additional projects.

We were lucky. We clicked, personally and professionally. We were able to develop a genuine relationship based on trust. My firm over-delivered, and so did she.

Sadly, it doesn’t always go so well.

Sometimes, an inherited consultant can be territorial, wary that a new individual contact within a client foundation may come in with a different agenda, or simply the wrong fit for you. Some are simply reluctant to change. Others may genuinely miss the loss of a great relationship with a predecessor. But whatever the reason, both consultant and client need try to make it work. Here are some of the road blocks that can keep that from happening:

No relationship. As I explained above, successful engagements are rooted in strong relationships. These take time to build, and they require a comfortable give-and-take of both personal and professional information.
No trust. Lack of trust is a deal-breaker. Both consultant and client need to feel that the other is working honestly with them and will defend their mutual decisions if needed.
Consultant doesn’t bring the expertise you need. While your predecessor may have leaned heavily on a consultant for content knowledge but not for communications savvy, for example, your needs may be quite the opposite.
Consultant doesn’t deliver. Your predecessor and the consultant may have fallen into a comfortable routine in which expectations were gradually lowered. As a result, the product your consultant delivers may seem sub-par.
Your vision is different from your predecessor. The consultant you inherit may be highly capable, but pursuing an agenda that was established before your arrival (or even one you’ve been expressly hired to change).
Consultant is great, but not for you or this project. Sometimes it just doesn’t “click” and it’s no one’s fault.

Inheriting a consultant can be the beginning of a wonderful relationship that provides depth and richness to both parties. Or, it can be a huge stumbling block. Bottom line? Enter an inherited relationship with an open mind and open eyes.

Next week, I’ll explain how to identify red flags and what to do about them. In the meantime, be honest, direct and flexible – and see where the path can lead.

March 14, 2016 2,614 comments

Industry Strategy

To Convene or Not to Convene? 4 ways to make the most of coming together

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

Foundations have a unique and important role to play as a convenor. They can provide neutral ground for discussion. They have the social capital to compel attendance. And if all else fails, they usually have the budget for better-than-average meeting food. But I believe that foundations also have a responsibility to use their convening power wisely, and to remember that convening is a tool and not an end in and of itself.

Many foundations make the assumption that convening grantees or stakeholders is the best way to gather information and input, or instantly show the foundation’s interest in community engagement, build consensus, or surface parties that may want to work together in new ways. But oftentimes convening isn’t the best way to achieve these goals.

For example, if you want to gather candid information or feedback, one-on-one conversations can yield more honest input than group discussions. If you want to show community engagement, sending your staff and board out into the community is often a more authentic approach than pulling the community into your office. And if you want to build consensus or forge new alliances among other organizations, you may find that individual legwork on the front end advances those efforts more effectively.

Of course, this is not to say foundations shouldn’t convene. There are great things to be accomplished by bringing people together. But before you send out those invitations, be clear about your purpose. Is a convening really the simplest way to achieve your goal – and if so, is it simplest for you or simplest for your participants? What do you want to accomplish with this convening? Who needs to be in the room? When? Where? And how should you bring them together?

Here are four examples of convening in pursuit of a clear purpose:

Create a brain trust to inform new work. Experts can advise you individually, but sometimes bringing them together can ignite new ideas or cement group opinions that can provide valuable guidance for your work. For example, when the Annie E. Casey Foundation decided to push more intentionally on race equity and inclusion in its work, it assembled leading experts on race equity to help the foundation better understand the context of equity overall, the issues it must be prepared to face, and the tools and strategies that might prove most helpful. As a result of this brain trust, Casey was able to create a robust race equity and inclusion framework that is being deployed foundation wide.
Facilitate real-time learning. When I worked at the David and Lucile Packard Foundation during the early days of the Children’s Health Insurance Plan (CHIP), we wanted to figure out how the foundation could best support outreach and enrollment strategies in the state. We knew we weren’t the only ones who were struggling with questions of implementing CHIP and enrolling participants, so we convened four counties who were addressing the question in real time to meet regularly, with facilitators and experts, to discuss best practices and share their experiences. This created a dynamic, highly relevant shared learning environment based on expert knowledge and first-hand field experience.
Connect players in the field. Years ago, I consulted with the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation in their former work to support substance abuse treatment. In the course of that work, we learned that the providers in one county didn’t know each other or work together. Rather than call an immediate convening so they could all meet, I interviewed them individually to ask about their needs. They overwhelmingly asked for two things: help with organizational capacity building and a way to get to know each other so they could engage in collective approaches. In response to their request, Schwab created a CEO learning community. Convening was one part of this community, and we engaged a facilitator to help participants build trust and create non-competitive relationships. But just as important, the foundation also provided organizational capacity assessments for all participants and followed them up with funding for related capacity building work. Thus, Schwab created an effective means of support that was greater than just convening alone.
Lay some groundwork. Sometimes a foundation wants to do something completely new and different, and that means helping grantees understand the new direction. For example, I worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to create a new workforce development initiative targeted at frontline health care workers. RWJF was introducing a new concept of work-based learning, in which workers earned community college credit while actually doing their jobs (not in a classroom). This was a new way of doing business, and RWJF needed community colleges and health systems that understood the opportunity and would be willing to participate. We hosted three convenings around the country to explain the new approach, prepare potential partners for the application process, and thereby improve the quality of the proposals received. Although not every participant applied, it still was time well spent because they learned about a new means of workforce development.

I’ll say it again – the question of whether or not to convene goes back to clarity about what you want to accomplish. In many cases, asking potential participants in advance whether they genuinely feel that a convening would be valuable can either save everyone a lot of time and trouble, or point the way to a more engaging and relevant experience together. If convening is not the simplest or most effective way to accomplish your goal, move it to the back burner. If it clearly offers strategic value, then set the date and let the invitations fly!

March 14, 2016 4,760 comments

Industry Strategy

What To Do When You’ve Inherited a Consultant

written by Kris Putnam-Walkerly

In my last newsletter, I talked about the pros and cons of inheriting a consultant. This week, I want to continue that thread by explaining how to identify red flags, what to do about them, and how to say goodbye if needed.

Red Flags

While I’m all for entering a new relationship with an inherited consultant optimistically, there are a few indicators that this may not be the relationship for you. For example:

You’ve been on the job for a while, but the consultant has never contacted you. They knew they were under contract but didn’t reach out. Why? Were they hoping to get paid for doing nothing?
You don’t enjoy talking to or spending time with the consultant. Things just don’t “click,” or there’s no real relationship developing. Again, this may not be anyone’s fault, just a matter of fact.
You are avoiding the consultant. Be honest with yourself about why you are reluctant to engage. Is there something wrong with the personal or the professional aspects of the consultant? Is it something you can or want to address?
You don’t feel comfortable having this consultant represent you or your foundation to peers. This may just be a feeling in your gut, but perhaps the consultant is too salesy, too academic, or too casual to feel like the right fit.
The consultant isn’t delivering. Perhaps he or she is missing deadlines, offering poor quality, or doesn’t understand what you need.
The consultant has a very strong personal relationship with someone else in the organization, and you suspect that is why he was hired (not because of the quality of his work). See the point above. If the consultant isn’t delivering or the relationship isn’t your own, it may be time to say goodbye.
You’ve checked around and other funders have had mixed or negative experiences. Chances are the consultant is either a strong fit for some clients and not for others, or just isn’t all that good. If the former, which kind of client are you? If the latter, well…
You have that funny feeling. Even if the consultant is “good on paper,” you need to trust your instincts. If your gut says “no way,” then you should probably say “no thanks.”

What To Do

Just because you inherit a consultant doesn’t mean you have to rush into a decision about whether or not to continue the relationship. Give it time, and take the following steps.

First, assume the consultant is fabulous and see if you can make the relationship work. You might have hit the jackpot. Take that attitude and explore the relationship. Don’t assume this won’t work out, but be cautious.
Review their proposal and contract, so that you understand the terms, deliverables, timeline, and the termination clause.
Ask the consultant to bring you up to speed – how were they hired, what have they done so far – and to tell you more about their consulting experience, results they have delivered for other clients, etc.
Spend time with the consultant in different settings – interact in your office, go out to a restaurant for lunch or dinner, listen to them speak, see how they interact at a philanthropy event, etc.
Try to build your own unique relationship from the ground up, rather than trying to stuff yourself or the consultant into the roles established by your predecessor.
Be crystal clear about your expectations. What kinds of skills do you want the consultant to bring to the relationship? Which of their skills do you need them to step up or dial back? What’s your work style? How often would you like them to check in and how?
Ask the consultant to do something immediate and specific for you with a clear deadline – such as producing a summary of work to date or facilitating a meeting – to test their capacity to deliver and the quality of their work.
Learn about the relationship of this consultant to your colleagues. Is she the best friend of your board chair? Had she worked with your predecessor for a decade? Put your potential new relationship into the larger context to better understand how it might move forward.
Do your own due diligence. Call the consultant’s past clients and review past work products. Find out if other members of your foundation staff have worked with the consultant and what their experience was. See if the consultant is a member of any certifying organization or professional groups, such as theNational Network of Consultants to Grantmakers.

When and How to Let Go

Just because a consultant has been hired – and potentially paid for in advance – doesn’t mean you need to keep working with them. You are far better off ending the consultant relationship early, even at a financial loss, then continuing on and hoping for the best.

To continue working with a consultant you don’t like or isn’t delivering will only cause extensive stress. It can also potentially cause you a lot of time and money, especially if you have to clean up after the consultant or hire someone else to fix what they’ve done wrong. Allowing the wrong consultant to stay on can also cause damage to your project if they aren’t delivering for your partners or are representing you poorly in meetings.

Of course, keeping the wrong consultant is also unfair to the consultant. Even if he or she is a great consultant, they may not be the right fit for you or for your project. Perhaps they were hired for something else that you no longer need. Keeping them on can set everyone up for failure.

Here’s the best way to say goodbye:

Be honest with the consultant. Let them know your concerns and give them some opportunity to prove themselves and start your relationship anew.
If you need to terminate the relationship, explain why and be clear about how you’d like to tie up any loose ends.
If the consultant is terrific, but just not right for this particular project, see if there are alternative assignments within your foundation. Perhaps you can revise the contract so that they can assist you or your colleagues with some other needs (research, planning, facilitation, writing).
Offer to help the consultant by providing leads or referrals to other projects where he is the right fit.
Compensate the consultant fairly. Remember that she entered the agreement in good faith and was counting on the income. She might have turned down other projects to block out time for yours.

Making the Most of Your Inheritance

It is entirely likely that your inherited consulting relationships work out fine. Just remember that the transition to a new client can be just as unsettling for the consultant as it is for you. But if you’re both honest with one another, sincere in wanting to build a productive relationship, and clear about expectations, you’re likely to build trust faster and more completely, and create a working partnership that will serve you both well for years to come.

February 29, 2016 5,000 comments

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