Philanthropic Consulting

As a philanthropic consultant, I help donors, grant seekers and financial advisors navigate the complexities of the philanthropic sector.  My deepest passion is to help connect donors with the world’s most innovative projects. For the past 20 years, I’ve worked as a program officer, first at the Fetzer Institute, then at the 1440 Foundation, and now as founder and President of The Wisdom Funders’ Network.  Like a talent scout or impact investor, it’s been my primary task to locate and fund transformative leaders and projects.  Like young Gandhis or Martin Luther King Jrs, the leaders I locate are often way ahead of the curve. Their ideas and methods (which hold so much promise for our future) are often so totally new, untested, and risky that they go unrecognized, even by those who profess to fund transformation.  After so many years in the business, I’ve made enough investments (both good and bad) to claim that I’m more proficient than most at spotting the harbingers of the future. And if I can’t spot them, then I’ve got a rolodex of hundreds of on-the-ground innovators who can. For those times when I’ve gotten it right, believe me when I tell you that there’s no greater privilege or thrill than to provide support for an effort that literally bends the arc of history. If you’re a donor or financial advisor who’s wanting guidance on where to place your investments, please contact me.   And if you’re an innovator who’s wanting to connect with pioneering donors for support, I’d also love to hear from you.

More specifically, my consulting practice serves four audiences in the following ways:

1) For individual donors and families, I offer in-person and telephone consultation sessions that help:

• Clarify your guiding purpose, mission, vision, and strategy and identify the sweet spot where your deepest passions and interests intersect with the most innovative and rewarding people and projects.
• Develop your giving objectives, project selection criteria, and guidelines around ideal grant size, length, and level of engagement so that you can more easily identify which programs fit and which don’t, making “nos” easier and “yeses” more powerful and rewarding.
• Build a program portfolio that places your bets in the most promising fields and with the most successful and exciting projects.
• Design clear evaluation processes for determining if you’re accomplishing your goals, both with individual programs and with your program portfolio as a whole.
• Navigate painful or complex dynamics with funding partners and/or grantees that may be sapping your energy and your enthusiasm for giving.
• Answer questions and facilitate inter-generational dialogues around issues of inheritance, portfolio management, spending down, and how to best educate and include children and other family members in your giving.

2) For foundation staff and board members, I consult over the phone with individual foundation leaders and help facilitate in-person meetings between program teams, board members, and board-staff retreats. More specifically, I have passion and expertise for helping to:

• Facilitate retreats aimed at creating more cogent program strategies and greater alignment between purpose, mission, vision and program direction.
• Work with program teams to develop more cogent programmatic strategies, theories of change, selection criteria, and evaluation procedures.
• Boost future effectiveness by conducting programmatic evaluations on individual projects and entire foundation portfolios to identify insights, strengths, and areas of growth and learning.
• Lead trainings or act as a coach for foundation staff and board members aimed at building competency and effectiveness with the practices of masterful philanthropy.
• Work with program teams (or conduct independent research) to identify recent trends and make recommendations as to what fields of effort and which projects within those fields best accomplish the foundation’s objectives and provide the greatest leverage for change.
• Act as a neutral intermediary, fair witness, and facilitator to help navigate and resolve challenging dynamics between foundation staff, board, program partners and/or grantees.

3) For innovative leaders and non-profit development directors whose work is aimed at personal and social transformation and who are seeking foundation funding, I do telephone consultations to:

• Review your funding idea or project proposal, provide feedback as to its strengths and weaknesses from a funding perspective, and provide tips that will make your work more clear, powerful, viable, and fundable.
• Help develop a comprehensive fundraising vision and strategy along with a detailed work plan and timeline for making connections.
• Recommend which individual donors and/or foundations and funding circles to approach along with information about their current focus and direction. I can also sometimes steer you to the best person to contact within each organization along with ideas for the ideal timing.
• Provide ongoing coaching in relationship-centered fundraising techniques, specifically those best articulated by my friend and colleague, Lynne Twist in her program, “Fundraising from the Heart.”
• Provide ongoing advice and support through the various stages of the funding process from the initial contact and letter of intent, to telephone or in-person interviews, formal proposal and budget estimates, and interim and final reports and evaluations.
• Provide editing assistance with fundraising materials, letters of intent, proposals, and reports.

Please note, each year I choose a limited number of individuals to work with, focusing on those who are best matched with funders who I’m most familiar with (usually Wisdom Funders’ Network (WFN) members). If you’re interested in working with me, please send an e-mail to tccallanan@gmail.com including a link to your website and/or a written proposal (of no more than five pages) with your project idea.  If accepted, I charge an initial fee of $500 that includes a review of documents, a 90-minute telephone consult, and follow-up e-mails.  After that, I charge by the hour on a sliding scale that’s determined collaboratively during our initial consult.

4) For financial and philanthropic advisors wanting help in identifying promising projects and organizations for philanthropic investment, I provide timely telephone and e-mail consulting to provide you and/or your clients with:

• General guidance as to the nature of projects within the area of personal and social transformation, and the risks and rewards of making philanthropic gifts within this domain.
• Research tailored to your client’s specific areas of interest along with recommendations for individual project investments or a balanced portfolio of efforts.
• Assistance in identifying and connecting with other individual donors and/or giving circles who share common giving agendas and strategies.

For further information about my services and rates, please contact me at tcccallanan@gmail.com