A Letter from TPI's President

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

When the minimum gift of a Slate 60 member is $30 million and the Gates Foundation’s required annual payout is $3-4 billion, it isn’t hard for your run of the mill philanthropist, foundation and corporate donor to scratch their collective heads and say, “will my gifts make any difference?”  Well, TPI’s resounding answer is yes, and in fact we believe that small can be quite beautiful! (or as Paul Ylvisaker said in his classic 1989 Monograph, Small Can be Effective)

We have had the privilege of working with many donors – individuals, families and companies -  who make small gifts to individuals, organizations or networks.  Small requires that you be strategic in your giving.  Small requires that you go beyond the money and put your other assets in the game – like your expertise, perspective, connections and time.  Small often means supporting individual transformation or grassroots organizations and that’s a pretty powerful place for change.  Small is interesting.

I often tell folks that one of the best gifts that my family’s foundation ever made was a free lunch for 20 leaders of girl-serving organizations in our community.  By bringing these folks together for the first time, we began a local movement and ultimately a new network for professional development and advocacy.  Even today, our support of that network is never more than $10,000 annually.

In this newsletter we highlight a few of our clients' small grants and the motivations and strategies behind them.  We hope that you draw some inspiration and ideas from these stories.  And, as always, we invite you to share your stories of high impact with us.

Best wishes for an early spring,

Ellen Remmer