Avoiding the Black Hole
In this How Matters guest blog post, Dietel & Partners’ Managing Partner, Tory Dietel Hopps, and the Segal Family Foundations’ Executive Director, Andy Bryant, share what it means to be a “grantee-centric” funder. They offer nine characteristics of this approach and share concrete examples of the results.
Of the offered nine characteristics, collaboration and curiosity are two of the most important. Andy notes, “In the same manner in which we encourage and underwrite collaboration among our grantees, we have committed to engage our peers in the funder space through affinity groups, rich individual relationships, and sharing of information.” Tory follows up with, “Our joint curiosity leads us to continually look for patterns across the wide variety of grantmaking portfolios we manage. Gaining greater insight into the challenges grantee partners face inspires us to be on the lookout for how to connect our partners with others [....] Increasingly, we hear that the time we spend making key introductions for joint learning and problem-solving saves our partners time and money and builds bonds across a broader sector.”