2024 Year in Review

2024 Year in Review

I’ve admired other philanthropic advisors and consulting firms who release annual reports. So I’ve taken a stab at my first annual report. It includes the work I performed in 2024 as an independent philanthropic advisor and through my consulting partnerships with Daylight (new in 2024), Ekstrom Alley Clontz & Associates (started in 2016), and the [...]

New Resources for Private Foundations and their Donors

New Resources for Private Foundations and their Donors

“How much should we spend?” It’s a fundamental question for founders and boards of private foundations. Finding an answer becomes more complex and emotional during an economic downturn, natural disaster, or other unexpected crisis or opportunity that increases demand for funding. The best answers come from thoughtfully balancing:  your foundation’s purpose, conditions and trends facing [...]

Revealing Risk in Philanthropy – bonus content

Revealing Risk in Philanthropy – bonus content

After I researched and wrote about risk in philanthropy, I’ve inevitably been affected by Frequency Illusion. In this decision-making bias, an idea or term that has recently come to one's attention suddenly seems to appear with improbable frequency shortly afterwards. So, as “bonus content” to my previous posts and the piece I wrote for the [...]

Revealing Risk in Philanthropy – part 3

Revealing Risk in Philanthropy – part 3

In two previous posts, I wrote that I’d been researching the topic of risk in philanthropy. I tested some ideas about the topic at a conference session, co-designed with folks from the Quixote Foundation, Open Road Alliance, and Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Based on my research and feedback from others, I developed this framework [...]