Portfolio

Image of part of the front page of the Questions to Ask DAF Sponsors PDF
Questions to Ask a DAF Sponsor Organization

Revised in Nov. 2020, a list of questions to assess DAF sponsors as you consider establishing or moving a Donor-Advised Fund.

Cover of Balancing Purpose, Payout, and Permanence Strategy Guide PDF #privatefoundation #payout
Balancing Purpose, Payout, and Permanence: Strategy Guide

(2020) Strategy guide and related Discussion Guide to help private foundations strengthen investment governance, understand the spectrum of options in payout, and develop spending rates based on purpose, conditions and trends, time horizon, and more.

Image of cover of Leadership in Difficult Times PDF
Leadership in Difficult Times: Guidance for Donors and Giving Families

(2020, with Jason Born) Provides resources and inspiration for short-term responses to the COVID-19 and economic crises.

Image of the Community Foundation Playbook website homepage
Community Foundation Family Philanthropy Playbook

(2019) Nine modules to help plan and deliver more sophisticated philanthropic services. Also useful for other community philanthropy organizations such as women’s funds and Jewish federations.

Image of the Readiness Self-Assessment report
Community Foundation Family Philanthropy Readiness Self-Assessment

(2017) Online survey tool to help staff frame internal questions and decisions about offering services to multi-branch and multi-generation families.

Expanding Your Comfort Zone: A Window into Risk in Family Philanthropy

(2016) Issue Brief to help generous families and foundations assess philanthropic risk, tame and mitigate risk, and even expand their comfort zone to embrace uncertainty.

Risk in Philanthropy

Annotated graphic to accompany the Expanding Your Comfort Zone brief.

Cover of "Gift of Belief" book. It is a painting of the tall University of Pittsburgh Cathedral of Learning building behind a row of two-story houses and trees.
Advocacy and Public Policy – Philanthropy’s New Capital

Chapter in The Gift of Belief: Philanthropy and the forging of Pittsburgh, edited by Kathleen W. Buechel, published by University of Pittsburgh Press in June 2021. Also in a related podcast and video interview.

Genogram of three generations of the Melton family.
Melton Family Case Study

(2019) Two-part case study to help students and graduates of the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy program understand what happens after a wealth event and the start of a family foundation (not available to the public).

Image of first page of the Resource Guide for Family Philanthropy
Resource Guide for Family Philanthropy

(2019) Resource guide to help students and graduates of the Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy program understand client motivations for seeking philanthropic advice, types of advice and advisors, team roles, and more (not available to the public).

Chart of 6 grantmaking models, arranged from easier to more time intensive.
6 Grantmaking Models

(2018) Summary of choices funders can make in their portfolio of grantmaking programs.

Image of the cover of the Community Foundation family philanthropy case study PDF
Case Study: Navigating a Community Foundation’s Roles Among a Family’s Professional Advisors

(2017) Explores the questions, considerations, and challenges facing a community foundation as it works with a business-owning family’s team of trusted advisors.

21st Century Philathropy

(2015) My take on all the ways people are using their financial capital to make a difference.