Resources

Hello!  I work with the Stryker Johnston Foundation in Kalamazoo, MI. We are currently in the process of seeking a branding/communications consultant to assist us in our brand development efforts. We want them to have experience working with nonprofits, align with our anti-racist platform, and have expertise in developing visual brand identities. We will be intentional about working with folks that are representative of our grant partners. If you all have recommendations, could you please send them my way? Appreciatively, 

Good Afternoon All, For effective and inclusive community change planning, our foundation has begun to work closely with local community members who will be affected by the proposals and projects under discussion. Our foundation is examining how to appropriately compensate individuals and collaborators who bring their community knowledge and experience to the planning and decision-making table. We are seeking to engage community partners through several avenues, such as serving on a committee or task force, attending meetings, and bringing questions and proposals for discussion back to neighbors and networks. We understand that providing expertise in a meaningful way and on an ongoing basis is a large time commitment for residents and agency staff members alike. To that end, we are seeking information from fellow funders on how you compensate key stakeholders and community partners for their time. How do you select key stakeholders? How are they compensated? Any best practices on communicating engagement/partnership expectations? Thank you in advance for any information you can share. Warmly,

Hello Colleagues, We are wondering about cyber insurance, particularly in view of remote work. Has anyone had experience with getting cyber insurance and/or the benefits (or not) of having such insurance? We’re wondering if there is a trend toward getting this insurance in the foundation/philanthropy serving organization, world. Thanks so much for any perspective you can share!

Hi all, We are exploring how/if to adjust our PTO policy due to COVID (and just generally) and I’m interested in the following: • Do you allow staff to carry over unused vacation days? o If so, is there a time by which they have to use those days? • If you do not allow carryover days typically, are you allowing it in 2021 due to COVID? o If so, are you placing restrictions on when days must be used and/or how many days may be carried over? • How many vacation days are new staff allotted? • What does accrual look like (at what point do staff accrue more days, how many days, etc.?) • Do you allow employees to “buy” vacation time? Is unused vacation time eligible for pay out? Thanks for your input!

Hello GEO Members, I’ve been searching through the GEO Archives to find samples of position descriptions for advisory committee members, but have so far come-up empty handed. So, I want to pose the question to the larger group. At the Iowa West Foundation, we have three, topical advisory committees. These committees are responsible for reviewing grants and making funding recommendations to our trustees. As our grantmaking shifts over time, we know that the role of these committees need to shift as well. We are looking to develop position descriptions in partnership with the committee members in order to help ensure that we’re keeping everyone aligned as we move forward. This brings me to two questions for you all: 1. If you have advisory committees that are made of external members, what are their core areas of responsibility? 2. Do you have position descriptions for these committees that you’d be willing to share? Thank you for any thoughts / samples you can share.

The St. David’s Foundation is in the process of re-evaluating when site visits with our grantees are conducted, and the purpose of those visits.  Currently, we conduct site visits for large grant requests, as part of our due diligence process.  We are considering revising this to move site visits to after the award is made (disconnected from due diligence) and to put more of a focus on joint learning.  We are interested to learn from the experiences peer foundations who use site visits to further their work, specifically: What is the overall purpose of the visit? Do the site visits occur before or after the grant is made? What topics are generally covered during the visit?  If you feel your site visit process adds significant value to your work, what components create this value?  What practices should be avoided? Thank you in advance for sharing your practices and ideas.   Kimberly McPherson

We’re seeking info about what foundations might be doing with regard to remote work stipends to acknowledge and compensate the costs staff are incurring for working from home. We’re trying to get a sense if there might be something like an “industry standard” developing for such a stipend.   Thanks for your insights, Georganna 

Good afternoon! We would like to encourage grantees to include us in their promotional materials for programs/projects/initiatives that we have funded. I’d like it to be a “kit” with various marketing verbiage and tools (like our logo) that we can send via a link to our grantees after a grant cycle, either hosted on a webpage or other “all-in-one” vehicle to make it very easy for them to pull the language or logo they need, with minimal support from our team. Do any other foundations have a promotional kit like this and ask grantees to include their foundation’s name/logo in their marketing and PR? If so, I’d appreciate knowing how you word this to your grantees, what tools you provide, and how you share those tools with grantees.

Hello! Can anyone recommend a group that can support virtual conference planning - both program planning and tech support? Or if you know separate groups for each of those functions, that's fine too. Thanks!

Hello all, The Iowa West Foundation annually conducts a board retreat. We use this event as an opportunity to engage our board in seeing examples of what is working in other communities who are addressing problems we are facing locally. The trips have generated great lessons-learned that have influenced our giving in some very positive ways. This year we are looking for mid-sized cities that are doing innovative work addressing early childhood education and workforce development. We would appreciate any recommendations you have as we start to put together a plan.