Funder and Foundation Advisory
Best for
Foundations or grantmaking collaboratives designing or refining neighborhood grant programs.
What you get
- A grant program designed around your foundation's mission, built to reach the right organizations through processes that are equitable, accessible, and trusted by the communities you want to serve
- Shared outcome measures, governance structures, and backbone infrastructure for multi-partner initiatives, designed and agreed upon before dollars flow so your coalition is set up to execute from day one
- A clear, documented picture of what your funding is producing in the community, built on RBA and SROI frameworks that quantify social impact per dollar invested and track progress across your grantee portfolio
- Grantee organizations that are better prepared to deliver on your investment, with the operational guidance and measurement systems to prove it
How we do it
Foundations with the resources to fund social impact organizations often face a challenge that is just as complex as the work they are trying to support: making sure those resources create the greatest impact possible. Deciding which organizations to fund, how to structure grants that actually reach the right people, and how to maintain meaningful relationships with grantees over time requires a level of strategic design that goes beyond simply having money available to give. Having the resources is the first step. Knowing how to deploy them well is what determines whether those resources actually change anything.
Two questions sit at the center of every foundation advisory engagement we take on.
How do we design a grant program that actually reaches the organizations doing the most important work in the community?
We begin by working closely with your team to clarify your foundation's mission and identify the types of organizations you want to reach and support. From there we help you design a grant program that matches your goals. For foundations looking to fund large-scale, multi-partner initiatives, we apply the Collective Impact framework to help align organizations, agencies, and co-funders around shared outcomes and governance structures before dollars flow, so the coalition is set up to execute, not just agree. For foundations prioritizing community-rooted, grassroots organizations, we design equity-centered funding processes that lower barriers to access and build the kind of trust that brings the right applicants to the table. This engagement draws directly on Placivic's principal's 24 years of senior grantmaking experience, including designing and directing major place-based initiatives, managing multi-million-dollar portfolios, and serving on cross-agency bodies overseeing significant public investment. Very few consultants can advise funders from that depth of inside experience, and it shapes every recommendation we make.
How do we know what our money is actually producing?
Beyond helping you design the grant program, we work directly with the organizations you fund to maintain the connection between the original intention of your investment and the day-to-day work your grantees are carrying out. We help your grantees fine-tune their operations, navigate the implementation of their programs, and establish clear units of measurement that track their progress and impact over time. Our measurement approach draws from established RBA and SROI frameworks, identifying who is being helped and quantifying the social value being produced per dollar invested. The result is a clear, documented picture of exactly what your funding is doing in the community, and a foundation you can build on in every future grantmaking cycle.
By the end of this engagement your team will have a full understanding of how your funding was used and the impact it created. You will know which organizations you reached, what changed as a result of your investment, and how to carry those lessons into the next cycle. Most importantly you will have the confidence that your resources went where they were needed most and worked as hard as they possibly could.