Services We Offer Family Foundations and Trustees
Our starting point is always to understand as much as we can about the foundation’s history and the philanthropic objectives of the various family members who serve as its trustees. These individual elements of a foundation’s own identity, unique to each foundation, provide the context in which we perform all of our work for our foundation clients.
Evaluation and Formulation of Prospective Grants
We provide our foundation clients with assistance in the grant-making process in a variety of ways. For example:
We help our clients evaluate proposals as they proceed to make their grant decisions. At the request of foundation trustees, we identify charitable organizations doing work in areas of the foundation’s grant-making interests that we find through our research to be highly deserving of support. Through due-diligence inquiries, we also provide clients with evaluations of specific organizations they have already identified as possible grant recipients.
We facilitate the grant-making process by helping trustees formulate the terms and conditions of grants that will be made and by structuring agreements in such a way that the objectives of the trustees with regard to the foundation’s grants program will be achieved.
Post-Grant Evaluations
We help foundation clients develop and implement easily-employed techniques through which the effectiveness of previous grants can be evaluated. At a client’s request, we undertake communication with grantees on the client’s behalf in order to accomplish post-grant evaluations, and document these evaluations for our client’s files.
Administrative and Management Support
We assist foundation trustees in defining the qualifications they seek in a manager or administrator, and in the interviewing process. Once the individual is employed, we provide her or him with ongoing guidance, supervision and direction. This includes regular in-person meetings, usually once or twice each month. It also includes telephone and e-mail communications on an “as needed” basis.
In providing oversight to the work that administrators and managers perform, we take steps to ensure that the foundation is pursuing its activities in compliance with applicable standards of professionalism.
Board and Committee Meeting Assistance
The trustees of many family foundations regard compliance with formalities of holding and documenting board meetings to be burdensome. We relieve family foundation trustees from these responsibilities.
For example, we consult with trustees in advance of board meetings to help them decide what they wish to accomplish at those meetings. We prepare notices of and agendas for board and committee meetings, create notebooks for each board member that contain materials relevant to matters to be discussed, attend board meetings and provide the trustees with experienced support as issues are raised, ensure compliance with requirements set forth in the foundation’s charter and by-laws, and prepare minutes of board meetings. We ensure that financial reports, information regarding prospective grants and other materials to be considered at the board meetings are compiled in timely fashion for the trustees’ use.
Trustee Succession and Training
The trustees of many family foundations see the foundations to be vehicles through which the tradition of family philanthropy can be continued, and wish to bring the next generation of family members onto the foundation boards of trustees as these family members become adults. We are highly experienced in training new foundation trustees as they assume their foundation responsibilities, and facilitating their integration onto family foundation boards.
Policy Facilitation; Mission Statements; Strategic Plans; Retreats
As trustees of family foundations become more focused on how grant-making can become more effective, they often determine to adopt new policies, to formulate mission statements and strategic and long-term plans, and to have periodic trustee retreats. We assist trustees in these efforts.
Statutory and Regulatory Compliance
The statutory and regulatory environment in which foundations operate is highly complex. Rules are frequently misunderstood. We provide our foundation clients with practical support designed to ensure that they will be in compliance with the rules. We also help our clients establish compliance procedures.
Transparency and Accountability
The trend in the foundation world is toward increasing transparency, not only in regard to investments and grants but also in regard to how decisions are made and to governance. There is an ongoing national focus on foundation accountability. We work with trustees of family foundations to help them meet current standards of transparency and accountability.
International Grants and Grants to Non-Public U.S. Charities; Expenditure Responsibility
Foundations are obligated to exercise what is called “expenditure responsibility” in regard to domestic grants to organizations that are not designated as Section 501 (c) (3) “public charities”, and in regard to most international grants as well. Expenditure responsibility requirements are technical and somewhat burdensome. We prepare the documentation needed so that our foundation clients are in compliance with their expenditure responsibility requirements.
Helping Grantee Organizations
Various foundations have provided grantee organizations with funds to enable them to receive our help in resolving problems and in the development of programs to better accomplish their charitable objectives. Here are examples of ways in which we have provided this help:
Repairing strained relationships between board members and senior staff members
Helping trustees and senior staff understand and respect the line between the responsibilities of the board and the responsibilities of senior staff
Helping organizations with the formulation of programs to strengthen their boards
Enhancing an organization’s ability to be effective in being responsive to and communicating with its donors and other constituencies
Assisting grantee organizations in their efforts to attain leverage from the grants that our clients award
Helping organizations formulate priorities so that they are able to proceed with balanced budgets
Helping board members and senior staff in the planning and implementation of mergers between non-profit organizations
Building case statements that board members and senior staff can follow to support annual giving programs and fund-raising campaigns
Helping organizations in the formulation of realistic plans for their future activities
Investment Advisor Selection Process
We help foundations identify experienced independent investment advisors who can work with the trustees or a committee of trustees so that a sound diversified investment program can be established and maintained.
Attorney and Accountant Liaison
We maintain periodic communication with both lawyers and accountants for family foundations, to ensure that they are kept apprised of the foundations’ relevant activities and needs. These communications are likely to be more productive and less time-consuming than if initiated and pursued by a board member without the extensive experience that we can bring to these communications.
Ongoing Accessibility
We maintain availability to provide ongoing advice to trustees on a “retainer” basis, through regular in-person meetings, on the telephone and by e-mail. In this way, we are able to answer questions as they arise and give assistance as needed to family foundation trustees. This is particularly useful to family foundations that do not have experienced executive directors in their employ.