Advising
Building Impact’s advising services help our clients frame the challenges they are seeking to address, understand the dynamics at play in the communities most impacted by these challenges, define and articulate their vision and goals, as well as develop and implement a sound strategy for lasting impact. Working with individuals, families, and family foundations, we customize our approach based on specific interests, needs, and geographic focus of our clients. Whether developing a grantmaking strategy for a growing family foundation in the Southeast, conducting a landscape analysis for an entrepreneur interested in addressing housing affordability in a booming metro area, or setting up a new nonprofit for a family passionate about ensuring economic security for all families, our focus is on creating lasting and meaningful change around the issues that matter most to our clients and the communities in which they are engaged.
In our experience, the most promising ideas to address pressing social issues are either accelerated, or impeded, by public policy and the unique political conditions that exist in every community. Informed by this experience, we recommend taking an “ecosystem approach” to advocacy and systems change. In addition to helping our clients identify innovative solutions, we help them shape the whole ecosystem of interested parties around those solutions to be more supportive of systemic change.
Our Advising Services include:
Landscape Analysis
To inform actionable strategic planning, we analyze issues and/or geographies of interest as well as the players already working in the field to identify the highest leverage opportunities for our clients.
Philanthropic Review
We review and analyze our client’s historical philanthropic activity to identify areas of strength and opportunities for deeper impact in the future.
Ecosystem Analysis and Building
Analyze and invest in strategies that create the conditions for lasting transformation– including coalition-building, grassroots organizing, changing the prevailing narrative, holding elected officials accountable, and empowering local communities.
Goal Setting
Based on our understanding of the particular arena in which our clients want to have an impact, we work to, articulate an aligned mission and set clear goals and milestones.
Strategic Planning
One of Building Impact’s core strengths is developing customized strategies that uniquely leverage our clients’ capacity, time, and resources to catalyze systemic change.
Grantmaking and Management Design
Building Impact works with foundations to design and implement effective grantmaking and grant management processes – streamlining the work of the foundation as well as improving the experience of the foundation’s grantees.
New Entity Design and Set-up
We help our clients set up new legal entities, including 501(c)(3)s and 501(c)(4)s when needed, in order to execute key parts of their strategy.
Talent Search
In the context of an existing client engagement, Building Impact leads search, interview, and onboarding processes for key hires – whether at a family foundation or new nonprofit.
Implementation Support
To make progress on a complex issue outstanding execution is just as important as excellent vision and strategy. We work closely with our clients to implement the strategies we devise together, adapting these plans to ongoing changes in the local context.