Going Deeper

For those who have the basics from us, or other resources, this workshop goes deeper than our initial offering. Getting clarity on results for direct service grants at the start and end of the grant cycle is a critical first step for foundations looking for a strong return from their investments. This workshop is for foundations that have already begun down the result trail who are looking for new tactics to best manage these and other investments.

During this workshop, we will focus on;

The front end of the grant cycle -

Strategic Investment – We will look at the most critical forms of portfolio balance and synergy – including the mix of groups and approaches, larger and smaller grants, and the relationship between risk and return. We will include ways to connect different kinds of investing – improving lives, strengthening organizations and systems, advancing innovation – to an overall outcome sought.

Streamlining Grant Making - Most foundations (directors as well as staff) spend so much time at the ‘front end’ processing and deciding among requests, they have little time or energy left for understanding results as the needed return on investment. We focus on ways for streamlining the grant selection process by getting the right information before decision-makers when they need it.

The back end of the grant cycle -

Rolling up Results - How can foundations add up results from specific projects such that they understand broader impacts? We will look in depth at ways to approach this task and how outcome clarity on individual grants connects to impact at a broader scale.

Improving Investment Returns - What information is most critical to supporting foundations, individual program officers, and leaders to improve results by learning from past investments? What supports non-profits to increase their capacity to achieve results? We will focus on what works best whether in groups, focus areas, or models.

In each section of discussion, we will look at how GIFTS and other MicroEdge® software can help increase efficiency as you work to improve both the front and back end of your investment efforts.

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