FAMILY PHILANTHROPY STRATEGY SERVICES

The Community Foundation would be pleased to assist your family with its philanthropy planning through our highly specialized consulting services.

Our Methodology

The Community Foundation’s approach to helping your family with its charitable giving needs is based on a well-honed, three-step methodology for uncovering philanthropic values and bringing them to life through a well-documented plan, supported by regular family engagement and communication. 

Step 1: Discovering Your Family’s Philanthropic Values

To kick off the work, our team will conduct in-depth research and discovery with family members to gain a full understanding of the family’s values and vision. Our team can perform this work with your family on site, or in an online meeting environment. 

Before we get together, though, our research-based process begins with an uplifting online survey to easily tap into and gain a strong understanding of what drives and motivates each family member’s charitable giving preferences. The survey will be followed by a series of interviews with family members to dive deeper into philanthropic motivations, values, and giving preferences.  

The Community Foundation team understands that your family’s philanthropic footprint is much broader than simply writing checks to charities, especially among today’s generation. To that end, critical to the success of the data-gathering is our approach to philanthropy that embraces the full range of contemporary prosocial activities, including giving money, donating canned goods, volunteering, attending community events, helping colleagues in need, recycling and respecting the environment, serving on boards, fundraising for favorite causes, buying products that support a cause, and overall health and wellness. 

In addition, the survey and interviews will help uncover core elements that will be used to build your family’s philanthropy plan, including a vision, mission, strategies, connection to estate planning and estate plan design, and grant making evaluation. 

Our team will present the survey and interview findings to your family, thereby fostering a rich context for family communication and engagement. 

Step 2: Building the Plan

Based on deep experience working with families and charitable organizations, the Community Foundation team will develop a plan that includes:

  • Defining the culture and values your family wants to create

  • Core principles that strengthen the relationships within your family

  • An overview of your family’s “brand,” based on the perspectives gathered in the survey and through our conversations

  • Recommendations for how your philanthropic plan potentially can tie in with your estate plan

  • Systems and best practices for measuring the positive impact of your family’s philanthropy on both the family and the community 

  • Analytics and reporting to confirm that your plan is working the way you intend

  • A recommended calendar of engagement and communication

Our team will develop a compelling plan and create a vibrant document that captures the spirit of your family’s vision for its philanthropic legacy. 

Step 3: Ongoing Coaching, Communication & Engagement

Critical to the long term success of your plan is staying connected through communication and engagement. To that end, a representative of the Community Foundation team will work with your family to help you stay on track with a calendar of regular communications and engagement to ensure that your family’s philanthropy plan is well-executed and successful

As part of this offering, we will help you create a calendar of planning and grant making activities and future meetings. We will also provide helpful resources and online engagement tools to give your family members access to the resources they need to stay connected and ensure that the plan is successful.

Our team will work with your family to schedule monthly check-ins via conference call or video conference to ensure that the calendar of activities is on track.    

In addition, as a participant in the Community Foundation’s family philanthropy program, you and your family members will have access to best practices for understanding the impact of the charitable organizations you support. Our team’s experience working with more than 2500 nonprofit organizations and countless donors, volunteers and beneficiaries means that you and your family can tap into our expertise to deepen your family’s knowledge and understanding of the factors that make the biggest difference in helping a nonprofit achieve its mission. We help you access best practices from experts who can address topics such as:

  • Best practices for effective grantmaking and practical evaluation, including tools for navigating dynamics among family members to decide which grants to make and how they should be evaluated.

  • Ways to build lasting and effective relationships with the charitable organizations you support and techniques for offering your family experiences that are designed to engage multiple generations.

  • Workplace giving techniques for the companies you own and where you work.