4 Ways To Improve Your Grantmaking

Last year I announced many changes at Putnam. We’ve updated our name (Putnam Consulting Group) and our website (putnam-consulting.com). Best of all, we’ve created a host of new resources to help our philanthropy clients and colleagues ask deeper questions, explore new possibilities, and achieve dramatic results with their grantmaking.

Tapping into all this knowledge is easy. Below are four ways to learn something new that you can put to work right away:

• Read a blog post. The Philanthropy 411 blog is as robust as ever, with thought provoking ideas and insights from myself, my clients and other philanthropy experts. Read the latest posts; gain quick tips with 10 Ways to Shape Your Foundation’s Newest Grantmaking Initiative and learn how to respond to challenging questioners with The Interrogation Principle. Have each new post delivered directly to your email inbox via RSS, and share what you read via your own social media networks.
• Listen to a podcast. Driving? Multi-tasking? Stream an informative, concise podcastand hear great tips for improving your grantmaking practice. Learn how to increase impact, think creatively about funding, build better relationships with key stakeholders, and much more. Listen to Who Is Your Customer and What Differentiates My Most Successful Clients and get quick ideas to improve your grantmaking immediately.
• Study a case study. Want to see how different foundations tackled the same problems you may be facing? Peruse a Putnam case study to see exactly what your peers and colleagues did when faced with challenges of grantmaking, information sharing, strategy development and other aspects of foundation operations. For example, learn how we helped the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation manage a record-breaking RFP process.
• Read and share an article. We have more than 25 new articles that provide guidance on best practice program design, smart asset allocation, evaluation, communications, and getting the most out of your consulting partners. You might be interested in Special Ops: 5 Situations for Deploying a Red Team and Oops, I Forgot To Evaluate! 3 Easy Steps for Retrospectively Evaluating Your Funding Initiative.

That’s just a quick sample of what’s available on the new Putnam Consulting Group website. I designed this site to be a resource for grantmakers to help you give confidently and make a difference in the world. I know you will find it to be of great value, and I invite you to explore it at putnam-consulting.com. As always, I would appreciate your thoughts and suggestions for making it even more useful and relevant to your work.

Kris Putnam-Walkerly is a philanthropy expert and consultant. If you found this blog post useful, please subscribe. On Twitter? Follow me @Philanthropy411.

Posted by Kris Putnam-Walkerly © Kris Putnam-Walkerly and Philanthropy411, 2015.