Give

Are you in the grant giving business? If you are, then you know that giving away money is not as easy as it sounds.  Professionals who fund programs have their work cut out for them in determining determine where their organization's funds can have the greatest leverage.

Chances are your funding organizations have an agenda for change.  And if so, you know that the extent that your organization is successful is dependent upon the success of your grantees.  The economic downturn in 2009 has translated into higher pressure to make the right grants with fewer resources.  Whereas the terms effective and strategic  were nice-to-haves before, they're non-negotiables now.

So what can we do together?  We can collaborate to develop a situation where you address root causes of the problems you seek to solve. We'll coach on how to leverage your knowledge base to map out root causes, how to vet the pool of potential grant recipients who can best address those root causes, and install a friendly, usable measurement and evaluation plan that will enhance organizational learning in your organization and within your grantees.

Who benefits from Give?

This service is suited for organizations or programs that fund projects or initiatives and desire a clear strategy for giving, a concrete vetting criteria for selecting the best grantees, and a systematic way to ensure outcomes at program level. This includes organizations such as:

• social change and society development
• environmental projects and programs
• city and countryside development programs
• educational programs and university strategies
• funding strategies for R&D

Example

Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara Community Benefit Grants Program is a regional granting operation that responds to requests from organizations that provide health-related services in Santa Clara County, California. We collaborated with the program staff to convene panels of dozens of health professionals throughout the county to elicit the root causes to key health challenges facing the citizenry. Using this data we worked with Kaiser to revise their grant making process to better ensure grantees would address those root causes and provide clearer information on their progress and impact.

Features of Give

4-8 facilitated meetings in workshop format, convened generally at your site with an OpenEye coach, a process leader and work group derived from within your organization, along with a panel of expert stakeholders.

We refer to our approach as "community driven." By convening an expert panel of stakeholders who are drawn from your "community," the Give process becomes rooted in addressing the genuine needs of the field as described by those in situ (and in often by the same stakeholders that are suited to accomplish the change).

What is the deliverable from Give?

• a  compelling graphic diagram depicting the needs from the field as described by the stakeholders
• a list prioritizing the needs in terms of which are the most suitable objectives for your program
• a set of vetting criteria which describe the kinds of organizations that are best suited to meeting your program's needs
• a set of indicators to determine success on program level as well as guide grantees in tracking their own success, and
• a guide for implementation that supports monitoring, evaluation, and organizational learning.

How do I use the deliverable from Give?

The above described material is useful in making strategic decisions on program direction, developing intelligent requests for proposals, and for providing clear communication to, and inspiration for, potential granteess.

The documentation is also valuable collateral for describing programmatinc strategy in stakeholder agreements, presentations, printed material and web pages.. Furthermore, the documentation is also effective when shared internally to enhance the ability of everyone in the organization to tell the same story about your program’s visions and aims.

The process

Our services are customized for each client’s unique situation and requirements. However, to give you a better understanding of the time and commitment involved, the following process outline is suggested.