relationship

Can Love be a Metric for Philanthropic Partnerships?

By January 25, 2016

Can love be the right metric for a billion dollar philanthropy?  While this post by Suzanne Guillette seems to argue both for and against this premise – I propose that love can be a metric for authentic partnerships, particularly when power and money are involved. While we and many others in the sector have chorused that multi-year,…

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Privilege and Power in Funding Dynamics

By October 21, 2015

Trust-based relationships. Grantee-centric philanthropy. True partnerships that advance impact for communities. How do we together improve the efficiency, respectfulness, and outcomes of our sector?   Recently Jane Leu (previous Peery Foundation grantee, founder of several social ventures and prolific fund raiser), and I hosted a workshop for funders and fund raisers to discuss the funding/fund raising interaction…

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12 Awesome Things Funders Do

By August 19, 2015

We at TWI are in full agreement with Vu Le‘s recent post about 12 Things Funders Do right.  In fact, many of the 12 show up on TWI’s own compendium of 9 Practices of Trust-based Investment.  In a side by side comparison, it’s clear that respect, transparency, partnering in a true spirit of service, feedback…

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Cheers to the Rapoport Foundation’s Parting Glass

By July 28, 2015

In my last post I noted my intention to start searching out sunsetting stories of small to medium sized foundations. Consequently, I began exploring Grantcraft’s “Making Change by Spending Down” series produced in partnership with The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies. Most of the posts feature thoughtful reflections about Bronfman’s spending out process, but it…

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Towards A Better Place: Trusting Relationships Will Move Us Forward

By July 26, 2015

“There needs to be a call to action in this field around relationships and trust.” – Jamie Allison, S. H. Cowell Foundation I was in the audience when Jamie (also a TWI trustee) made that compelling statement last September during the closing plenary of Towards a Better Place: A Conversation about Promising Practice in Place-Based…

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