Mission Magnified

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Creating organizations and philanthropic strategies

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We can help you plan, develop and build a new program, collaborative, or a whole new organization, to achieve your mission goals.

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Our experience includes:

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• Developing and building a new strategy, team and systems for philanthropy at Trinity Church Wall Street: growing grant-making from $8 million per annum to $57 million over four years.

• Building a new $10 million per annum portfolio of grants at The Rockefeller Foundation to deploy the funding of journalism, film, storytelling and campaigns to shift narratives and influence decision-makers.

• Assessing, reforming and re-launching Stonewall Community Foundation’s donor advised fund strategy and portfolio.

• Designing and launching 100 Resilient Cities – a $160 million effort to support 100 cities worldwide in developing a resilience strategy and then accessing private-sector funding for implementation.

 

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Building teams

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We can help you craft the best organizational structure for a philanthropic team.

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Our experience includes:

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• Creating a new organizational structure to grow Trinity Church Wall Street Philanthropies from 10 to 25 people including program, operations and grants management teams.

• Building, or re-building, communications teams and functions at two large government agencies and a global philanthropy. The teams varied in size from ten to fifteen to 33 people.

• Leading recruitment of multiple new board members for a community foundation.

 

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Cross-sector collaboration

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We can help you leverage the power of public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit collaboration to form coalitions and unlock funding.  We do so with an awareness of the particular strengths and needs of each sector.

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Our experience includes:

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• Combining philanthropic and public investments to support the development of 5,500 units of affordable housing.

• Developing a $100 million mission investing portfolio for double bottom line returns advancing affordable housing and racial justice.

• Leveraging The Rockefeller Foundation brand and reputation to engage the private sector in resilience-building: creating 100 Resilient Cities which now has 70 external partners committing hundreds of millions of dollars to member cities.

• Using a $3 million Rockefeller Foundation grant to a post-Superstorm Sandy recovery competition to leverage $1 billion in US government disaster funds being deployed in a smarter and more resilient way.

• Working closely with the World Economic Forum to launch new work and build private sector partnerships.

 

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Public Policy

 

We can help you deploy multiple tools to influence public policy and achieve impact at scale

 

Our experience includes:

 

• Building a coalition of funders to pressure the City of New York to pay nonprofits promptly, helping to clear a $4 billion backlog in contract registration.

• Combining advocacy grants, direct lobbying and media to secure an increase in the value of housing vouchers and combat discrimination against voucher holders,

• Developing a strategy to deploy over $2 million in grants to 501c4 organizations working towards racial justice.

• Board membership of a 501c4 organization focused on human services.

• Participation in Foundation on the Hill - philanthropy's annual engagement with the US Congress

 

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Faith-Based Philanthropy

 

Faith-based funders bring particular inspiration, approaches and goals to their funding. We understand these dynamics and can help ‘translate’ and build partnerships with secular funders.

 

Our experience includes:

 

• Expanding program with houses of worship to develop real estate for financial sustainability and community benefit including affordable housing, healthcare and schools.

• Building a new coalition of over forty faith leaders to call for a more just re-entry system for citizens returning from incarceration.

• Organizing a new network of faith-based funders in New York City

• Working to develop an authentic and values-aligned approach to grant-making for the a Catholic provate foundation

 

 

Funding collaboratives

 

Philanthropic impact can be greatly increased when funders work together. We can use our network and experience to help you build, or expand, a funding collaborative.

 

Our experience includes:

 

• Raising over $3.5 million from other foundations to add to Trinity Church Wall Street's grants budget. 

• Directing a collaborative of over a dozen funders to increase voter turnout, leading to voter participation doubling in target communities.

 

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Influence and Communications

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We can help you your organization deploy its brand and influence value for maximum impact.

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Our experience includes:

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• Establishing Trinity Church Wall Street as a “go-to” partner for New York City on support for asylum seekers, gun violence, affordable housing and civic engagement.

• Developing and implementing an influence strategy that deployed The Rockefeller Foundation's brand, reputation, knowledge, networks, and convening power to leverage millions of additional dollars for priority work, catalyze shifts in public dialogue and change public policy and business practice.

• Creating portfolios of media and journalism grant-making at multiple foundations.

• Building a powerful thought leadership platform on the new field of resilience including deploying The Resilience Dividend  (a book by former Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin).

• Developing and managing an external affairs strategy for Mayor Bloomberg’s 165,000 unit affordable housing plan.

 

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