This year Grants Managers Network will convene its annual national conference March 19 – 21 in San Antonio, Texas.
The Sky’s The Limit offers grants mangers the opportunity to make new connections and explore ways to improve their grantmaking operations.
Designed to help grants mangers solve the most pressing challenges facing the field, the conference offers valuable new ideas, tools, and resources at interactive, hands-on learning sessions designed to support those new to the field as well as seasoned professionals.
Learn more about the 2012 Grants Managers Network Conference online.
Colin Lacon with students from Cal Strategic Philanthropy
Like any President and CEO, NCG’s Colin Lacon has a full schedule. Yet, despite that workload Colin took on the charge of joining Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership Director Nora Silver to co-teach a college course at the Haas School of Business.
“Strategic Philanthropy: Real Money, Real Impact” is a course designed to teach participants how to be effective grantmakers. For one semester, students work towards better understanding the work of a grantmaker than to become one for a semester.
“The class contributes $10,000 to nonprofit(s) selected by the class. To prepare for the contribution, students engage in interactive exercises and discussions to determine how to best expend the funds for maximum impact, guided by the instructors and renowned guests offering a variety of perspectives and frameworks. Students form teams to research and indentify, perform due diligence, and recommend nonprofit organizations. The $10,000 contribution is a generous gift of the Learning by Giving Foundation. ” -course description
What did the students think of the course? Check out this video created by the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership to learn more about the class and hear students give first-hand accounts of their learning experience.
When asked about his own experience as an instructor for the course and how the class relates to NCG’s work, Colin has this to say:
“[NCG's] connection with the Center is directly aligned with our mission to promote philanthropy, invest for social impact and to engage the next generation in this work. The Center provides a strong network, offers a questioning mindset, and helps broaden the philanthropic community. There is great value in this for NCG, which is asking how to engage, mine, and bring to the forefront these new ideas. This generation is asking new questions, taking bold action, and I believe will change the face of effective philanthropy.”
In our docket driven philanthropic world, it’s a rare occasion for grantmakers to have the space to talk about grantmaking challenges that “keep them up at night”. Imagine how cathartic it must feel to admit that a grant simply didn’t work out and to move on. On December 2, NCG hosted its 2nd Annual Docket Tales for family foundation members in order to provide a safe space for candid conversation about issues they grappled with 2011. In case you missed this intimate gathering of friends and colleagues, we wanted to give you highlights from the program, which turned out to be another fantastic gathering of open and honest conversation about the perils of grantmaking!
The audience was primarily seasoned grantmakers, yet the stories and conversations manage to resurface issues of practice that members are dealing with: docket structure, how to communicate to grantees about what led to the “no,” organizing effective trustee site visits. This reinforced the value of providing opportunities for grantmakers of all experience levels to have a place for candid conversations about both practical and strategic matters.
There was substantive discussion about the relationship between trustees and staff: how to make sure staff, who are immersed in the work full-time, do not get too far ahead of Board members’ timetable for change; how to find the balance between a strong Executive Director and a strong Board; how to develop Board members’ programmatic knowledge and how to create a culture that inspires involvement of the Next Gen.
And, there was some discussion about how a funder approaches moving into a new geographic area: awareness of raised expectations about new money in town; how to introduce the foundation in the community and how to approach getting smart about the community; importance of making adjustments (e.g., grant size, more informal application process) when in a new community.
If you missed this year’s program, I encourage you to attend next year’s program, which is usually hosted in the first week of December. Special thanks to the Family Philanthropy Exchange’s new Co-chair, Lin Ishihara Senior Program Officer with the W. Clement and Jessie V. Stone Foundation, who did an excellent job of facilitating an engaging discussion that left its participants wanting more.
