Strategic Grantmaking – a conversation

I recently led a conversation about strategic grantmaking for Philanthropy New Zealand’s  excellent professional development programme, Great Grantmaking.   The session covered what strategic grantmaking means, why it isn’t necessarily easy and the pros and cons of some of the tools and approaches often used for strategic grantmaking.   Here is a summary of key points, and…

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Perspectives on what makes a good funder

Here are four different perspectives on the characteristics of a good funder: The criteria for “Philanthropy at its best” proposed by the US-based National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy are particularly useful in my opinion; see the one page version or the full paper.  They propose a manageable number of holistic but measurable criteria, eg “Invests…

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